Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophy and Science

Does science tell us all we need to know about the world and about ourselves? This Cafe uses the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein (thought of by many as the the foremost philosopher of the twentieth century) to explore this, and related, questions.

Does science tell us all we need to know about the world and about ourselves? This Cafe uses the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein (thought of by many as the the foremost philosopher of the twentieth century) to explore this, and related, questions. Wittgenstein's only published work, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, was an attempt to show, through logic, that there are limits to what logic and science can tell us, and that some things "can only be shown". It was written when he was an artillery officer in WWI, and was immediately well-received. The work was logically austere yet written in an unusual, almost poetic style.

Later in his career, after a difficult relationship with Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein turned away from logic to concentrate on the nature of language. Many, including Russell, felt that he had abandoned “real” scientific philosophy and had been, right from the start, something of a mystic. Wittgenstein, by contrast, thought that by analyzing everyday language, ideas - bad ideas - and the way they can produce persistent and troubling confusion - could be exposed and dispelled.

Is scientism - the view that the natural sciences provide the most authoritative and penetrating knowledge of our world and ourselves - one of these "bad ideas"?

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