Wittgenstein’s Picture Theory: On What Can be Said

Volume 10|Issue 37| Summer 2021 |Articles

Abstract

This article presents Ludwig Wittgenstein's Picture Theory as it was represented in his work Tractatus Logico–Philosophicus. This theory introduced a framework combining language and the world in such a way that language can describe the world. The article then gives a brief introduction to objections raised against the main presuppositions of the theory, such as the issue of meaning as a relation between name and object referred by it as well as the verification principle. Moreover, the paper discusses Wittgenstein's distinction between what can be said and what can be shown, which is the most important and essential contribution of the Tractatus and an indicator of the continuity with Wittgenstein's later work Philosophical Investigations. By combining this distinction with various understandings of truth (correspondence or coherence), the article introduces the idea of different speech positions and reconsiders the Picture Theory and the notion of "Truth as Correspondence" as a regulative idea for a specific kind of language, which is scientific language.

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​A researcher specializing in the philosophy of science, he holds a master's degree in philosophy of science from the Technical University of Munich.

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