Silence in Wittgenstein's later philosophy

an enigma

Luigi Tarca

pp. 303-312

in: Rudolf Haller, Johannes L. Brandl (eds), Wittgenstein — eine neubewertung/Wittgenstein — towards a re-evaluation, Berlin, Springer, 1990

Abstract

Wittgenstein is generally considered to be a decisive philosopher, but a great many of what have always been looked upon as main philosophical problems (like the questions of the meaning of life, of the nature of being, or of the destiny of humanity) are passed over in silence by his later philosophy¹, so that it is not immediately clear in which sense Wittgenstein has to be considered as decisive. The enigma consists in the fact that it seems that there is no satisfactory explanation for this silence.² On the one hand, in fact, we cannot believe that a thought which has nothing to do with such subjects can have the last word in philosophy. Moreover, if we think both of some themes present in Wittgenstein's works (not only in the Tractatus, but also in following writings, like Culture and Value) and of his way of living, we are led to think that throughout his whole life such questions were the core of his existence and of his consideration. On the other hand, every attempt to show in which sense Wittgenstein's philosophical silence can be seen as an answer to those questions seems to fail in its object.³

Cited authors

Wittgenstein Ludwig