Wittgenstein, Ludwig, << VIHT guhn `shtyn,` LOOT vihk >> (1889-1951), was one of the most important philosophers of the 1900’s. His ideas greatly influenced two philosophical movements, called Logical Positivism and Analytic Philosophy.
In his later work, Wittgenstein suggested that most philosophical problems result because philosophers think most words are names. For example, philosophers have asked, “What is time?” and they have been puzzled because they could not find any thing named time. Wittgenstein said this is the wrong way to find out what time is. What is necessary is to determine how the word time is used in ordinary language. In the sentence, “It is time to go home,” we know what time means, and so its meaning is not a problem. In general, the meaning of a term is determined by public standards of judgment, so a necessarily “private language” is impossible. Wittgenstein claimed that this way of viewing language “dissolves” many traditional problems of philosophy. His approach to language has greatly influenced scholars in many fields.
Wittgenstein was born on April 26, 1889, in Vienna, Austria. He studied at Cambridge University in England and later taught there. He gained recognition for his books Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) and Philosophical Investigations (published in 1953, after his death). He died on April 29, 1951.
