Language...

This gentleman was called Ludwig Wittgenstein.


I can't pretend I understand his philosophy but, as I do understand it, he was responsible for bringing linguistic analysis to philosophical problems.  A fascinating subject area.


Basically, if you define the terms of a problem correctly you may find the problem (the philosophical problem) disappears in what Douglas Adams called a 'puff of logic'.


Like 'What's the meaning of life?'.  A spurious question as it happens - philosophers have generally been more interested in the question 'how can I be happy?'


But take it as an example.  What do we mean by 'meaning'?  What do we mean by 'life' ?  Is there a chance we can tease apart the problem and find it's actually a misunderstanding, a lack of clarity?  


We have to understand, or at least think about, what language is and what it does.  This is something that greatly interests philosophers.  Language labels things - 'a chair', 'a dog'.  And a raft of associations come with the label.  So the label becomes more than the thing, perhaps?


Language makes sense unto itself.  Like if we say 'the divorced man who lives next door with his wife' - that's what we call a category mistake.  There is no internal logic so the statement is not valid.


You can see how the demands of language can limit thought then - because statements have to have internal logic to be valid - but is life always like that?


This is why Wittgenstein said things like this :


'whereof one cannot speak one must be silent'


I think we can all feel that.


I experience problems of language daily, as a trans-woman.  There's a label right there.  Transsexual is another one - and it's not a label I like.  


The main problem is, of course, the 'she' thing.  Language is a label - and people naturally feel it's right to call me 'he' sometimes.  They can become very uncomfortable with having to change - to make, as they perceive it, a 'category mistake'.


A woman doesn't have a penis.  A man has a penis.  If you have a penis, you must be a man.  See - the limitations of language and logic?


What if the chair turns round and says it doesn't feel like a chair - it feels like a coffee table?  Objects don't usually reject their labels.  You don't usually have to take into account the thing's feelings when you give it, not just a label, but a common sense label.  An instinctive label.  


I wonder what Wittgenstein would have made of it?