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Philosophical Grammar
Wittgenstein wrote the Philosophical Grammar during the years 1931 to 1934 - the period just before he began to dictate the Blue Book . Although it is close to the Investigations in some points, and to the Phiosophische Bemerkungen at others, the Philosophical Grammar is an independent work which covers new ground. It is Wittgenstein's fullest treatment of logic and mathematics in their connection with his later understanding of 'proposition', 'sign', and 'system'. He also discusses inference and generality - critisizing views of Frege and Russell as well as earlier views of his own - and the treatment of mathematical proof in this book, especially of inductive or recursive proofs, is deeper and more extensive than previously.
496 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
About the author
Ludwig Wittgenstein
297 books3,101 followersLudwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (Ph.D., Trinity College, Cambridge University, 1929) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language.
Described by Bertrand Russell as "the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, and dominating", he helped inspire two of the twentieth century's principal philosophical movements: the Vienna Circle and Oxford ordinary language philosophy. According to an end of the century poll, professional philosophers in Canada and the U.S. rank both his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Philosophical Investigations among the top five most important books in twentieth-century philosophy, the latter standing out as "...the one crossover masterpiece in twentieth-century philosophy, appealing across diverse specializations and philosophical orientations". Wittgenstein's influence has been felt in nearly every field of the humanities and social sciences, yet there are widely diverging interpretations of his thought.
Described by Bertrand Russell as "the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, and dominating", he helped inspire two of the twentieth century's principal philosophical movements: the Vienna Circle and Oxford ordinary language philosophy. According to an end of the century poll, professional philosophers in Canada and the U.S. rank both his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Philosophical Investigations among the top five most important books in twentieth-century philosophy, the latter standing out as "...the one crossover masterpiece in twentieth-century philosophy, appealing across diverse specializations and philosophical orientations". Wittgenstein's influence has been felt in nearly every field of the humanities and social sciences, yet there are widely diverging interpretations of his thought.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 23, 2017
Beyond pivotal in a nunber of ways, not the least of which being that I would have still not known this book even existed, had I not sneezed so violently my glasses fell clean off.
May 29, 2025
Wittgenstein on propositions and maths. So, ‘grammar’, in a way, rethinks logical necessity in accord with his later view of language. He covers pt 1 better in PI and pt 2 in RFM.
July 28, 2023
While this does share a lot of similarities, and quite a few sections, with Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Remarks,
Philosophical Grammar
is a much easier bookk to follow and much more concise in its argument. At least I think so, because I'm not too sure I fully understand what I've just read.
Like the modern Diogenes of Sinope that Wittgenstein often was, Philosophical Grammar is a kynical break with the philosophical tradition that has lead up to it. It's Wittgenstein developing on the ideas of a positivistic linguistic to to the logical end-point, where it's no longer about a precision of words and meaning, but how those signs are coupled together to form meaning, considering meaning to be more so a product how the signs are constructed rather than how the individual signs themselves are constructed.
In my reading of Wittgenstein, this is probably the closest he's been to having a truly profound point, rather than just being stuck in a weirdly solipsistic logical positivism. Don't get me wrong, there's still plenty of that. For example, Wittgenstein seem almost incapable of conceiving grammar as having a meaning that's unrelated to the individual signs that make up the grammar, just like calculus can't give a result that can't be reduced to he individual parts of the equation.
And while I understand this reasoning, and in a certain way respect Wittgenstein's project, I can't see how that's conducive to human understanding or human languages. What Wittgenstein is doing is ramming logic into the human experience until either one breaks. And unfortunately for Wittgenstein, it seems like the logic is what's going to give.
This becomes rather apparent in the appendix texts in this compilation, as those mainly deal with Wittgensteins takes on mathematics and the philosophy of mathematics.
The majority of these texts reads like someone who's reached the bottom of numbers and found nothing there. No matter how advanced or esoteric math has gotten, it's all predicated on assumptions that are only true in so far as they adhere to the internal logic build into mathematics themselves.
Also, one bit where I was truly taken aback by Wittgenstein's insight was in a short passage in the beginning of Philosophical Grammar, where Wittgenstein constructs and argument as to why language (and by extensions, grammar) is the primary object of his investigation. In that argument, which takes up less than a page, Wittgenstein makes one of the most brillant arguments for a psychological phenomenology that I've read anywhere.
Like the modern Diogenes of Sinope that Wittgenstein often was, Philosophical Grammar is a kynical break with the philosophical tradition that has lead up to it. It's Wittgenstein developing on the ideas of a positivistic linguistic to to the logical end-point, where it's no longer about a precision of words and meaning, but how those signs are coupled together to form meaning, considering meaning to be more so a product how the signs are constructed rather than how the individual signs themselves are constructed.
In my reading of Wittgenstein, this is probably the closest he's been to having a truly profound point, rather than just being stuck in a weirdly solipsistic logical positivism. Don't get me wrong, there's still plenty of that. For example, Wittgenstein seem almost incapable of conceiving grammar as having a meaning that's unrelated to the individual signs that make up the grammar, just like calculus can't give a result that can't be reduced to he individual parts of the equation.
And while I understand this reasoning, and in a certain way respect Wittgenstein's project, I can't see how that's conducive to human understanding or human languages. What Wittgenstein is doing is ramming logic into the human experience until either one breaks. And unfortunately for Wittgenstein, it seems like the logic is what's going to give.
This becomes rather apparent in the appendix texts in this compilation, as those mainly deal with Wittgensteins takes on mathematics and the philosophy of mathematics.
The majority of these texts reads like someone who's reached the bottom of numbers and found nothing there. No matter how advanced or esoteric math has gotten, it's all predicated on assumptions that are only true in so far as they adhere to the internal logic build into mathematics themselves.
Also, one bit where I was truly taken aback by Wittgenstein's insight was in a short passage in the beginning of Philosophical Grammar, where Wittgenstein constructs and argument as to why language (and by extensions, grammar) is the primary object of his investigation. In that argument, which takes up less than a page, Wittgenstein makes one of the most brillant arguments for a psychological phenomenology that I've read anywhere.
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May 8, 2024Gros livre de Wittgenstein difficile à comprendre (juste compris surtout des paragraphes de la première partie) où il présente avec des remarques éparses sa théorie des jeux de langage qui dit en gros que le sens et la vérité d'une proposition dépend du système "global" où elle se trouve. La phrase la plus claire du livre est quelque chose du genre "Une raison ou une cause ne se laisse donner qu'à l'intérieur d'un jeu.". Il y a d'abord une grosse partie sur les propositions en général puis une seconde sur les mathématiques (surtout arithmétique, géométrie, algèbre).
April 23, 2026
this is crack to me. in many ways more penetrating than the Philosophical Investigations, if you're into the later Wittgenstein vibe. if you're not, then you will not enjoy this, and if you read it you will spend your days cursing it.
October 8, 2024
A BOOK WRITTEN IN 1932-1934, ABOUT THE TIME OF THE “BLUE BOOK”
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (1889-1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher whose books such as 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus' and 'Philosophical Investigations' are among the acknowledged “classics” of 20th century philosophy. Born into a wealthy family, he gave all of his inheritance away, served in the Austrian Army during World War I, taught schoolchildren in remote Austrian villages, but ultimately taught at Cambridge for many years. The Tractatus was the only book he published during his lifetime, but his papers have been posthumously edited, and notes of lectures taken by his students have been transcribed, and have resulted in many published books.
He remarks, “What we call ‘understanding’ is not the behavior that shows us the understanding, but a state of which this behavior is a sign.” (Pt. I, III, 41) He adds, “‘Is it an accident that in order to define the signs I have to go outside the written and spoken signs?’ In that case isn’t it strange that I can do anything at all with the written signs?” (III, 46) He notes, “people think that the endless series of cardinal numbers is somehow before our mind’s eye, whenever we can use that expression significantly. A thought experiment is like a drawing of an experiment that is not carried out.” (VII, 106)
He points out, “The use of the words ‘proposition,’ ‘language,’ etc., has the haziness of the normal use of concept-words in our language. To think this makes them unusable, or ill-adapted to their purpose, would be like wanting to say ‘the warmth this stove gives is no use, because you can’t feel where it begins and where it ends.’” (VI, 76) He adds, “When I talk about language (words, sentences, etc.) I must speak and language of every day. Is this language somehow too coarse and material for what we want to say? Then how is another one to be constructed? And how strange that we should be able to do anything at all with the one we have!” (VI, 77)
He suggests, “What makes us think that a thought, or a proposition we think, contains the reality? It’s that we’re all ready to pass from it to the reality, and we feel this transition as something already potentially contained in it… because we say, ‘that word MEANT HIM.’ We feel this transition as something just as legitimate as a permitted move in a game.
"Thought does not strike us as mysterious while we are thinking, but only when we say, as it were retrospectively, ‘How was that possible?’ … Thought strikes us as mysterious. But not while we think… It isn’t while we’re LOOKING at it that it seems a strange process; but when we let ourselves be guided by language, when we look at what we say about it. We mistakenly locate this mystery in the nature of the process.” (VII, 105) He adds, “When I think in language, there aren’t meanings going through my mind in addition to the verbal expressions; the language is itself the vehicle of thought.” (VIII, 112)
He states, “Grammar is not accountable to any reality. It is grammatical rules that determine meaning (constitute it) and so they themselves are not answerable to any meaning and to that extent are arbitrary. There cannot be a question whether these or other rules are the correct ones for the use of ‘not’ (that is, whether they accord with its meaning). For without these rules the word has as yet no meaning; and if we change the rules, it now has another meaning (or none), and in that case we may just as well change the word too…
"Why don’t I call cookery rules arbitrary, and why am I temped to call the rules of grammar arbitrary? Because I think of the concept ‘cookery’ as defined by the end of cookery, and I don’t think of the concept ‘language’ as defined by the end of language. You cook badly if you are guided in your cooking by rules other than the right ones; but if you follow other rules than those of chess you are playing another game; and if you follow grammatical rules other than such and such ones, that does not mean you say something wrong, no, you are speaking of something else.” (X, 133)
He argues, “The philosophy of mathematics consists in an exact scrutiny of mathematical proofs—not in surrounding mathematics with a vapour. In discussions of the provability of mathematical propositions it is sometimes said that there are substantial propositions of mathematics whose truth or falsehood must remain undecided. What the people who say that don’t realize is that such propositions, IF we can use them and call them ‘propositions,’ are not at all the same as what are called ‘propositions’ in other cases; because a proof alters the grammar of a proposition.” (Pt. II, V, 23)
This is an interesting “transitional” work, where Wittgenstein is clearly moving into the direction that will ultimately result in the Philosophical Investigations. It will be of great value to anyone studying his philosophy.
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (1889-1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher whose books such as 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus' and 'Philosophical Investigations' are among the acknowledged “classics” of 20th century philosophy. Born into a wealthy family, he gave all of his inheritance away, served in the Austrian Army during World War I, taught schoolchildren in remote Austrian villages, but ultimately taught at Cambridge for many years. The Tractatus was the only book he published during his lifetime, but his papers have been posthumously edited, and notes of lectures taken by his students have been transcribed, and have resulted in many published books.
He remarks, “What we call ‘understanding’ is not the behavior that shows us the understanding, but a state of which this behavior is a sign.” (Pt. I, III, 41) He adds, “‘Is it an accident that in order to define the signs I have to go outside the written and spoken signs?’ In that case isn’t it strange that I can do anything at all with the written signs?” (III, 46) He notes, “people think that the endless series of cardinal numbers is somehow before our mind’s eye, whenever we can use that expression significantly. A thought experiment is like a drawing of an experiment that is not carried out.” (VII, 106)
He points out, “The use of the words ‘proposition,’ ‘language,’ etc., has the haziness of the normal use of concept-words in our language. To think this makes them unusable, or ill-adapted to their purpose, would be like wanting to say ‘the warmth this stove gives is no use, because you can’t feel where it begins and where it ends.’” (VI, 76) He adds, “When I talk about language (words, sentences, etc.) I must speak and language of every day. Is this language somehow too coarse and material for what we want to say? Then how is another one to be constructed? And how strange that we should be able to do anything at all with the one we have!” (VI, 77)
He suggests, “What makes us think that a thought, or a proposition we think, contains the reality? It’s that we’re all ready to pass from it to the reality, and we feel this transition as something already potentially contained in it… because we say, ‘that word MEANT HIM.’ We feel this transition as something just as legitimate as a permitted move in a game.
"Thought does not strike us as mysterious while we are thinking, but only when we say, as it were retrospectively, ‘How was that possible?’ … Thought strikes us as mysterious. But not while we think… It isn’t while we’re LOOKING at it that it seems a strange process; but when we let ourselves be guided by language, when we look at what we say about it. We mistakenly locate this mystery in the nature of the process.” (VII, 105) He adds, “When I think in language, there aren’t meanings going through my mind in addition to the verbal expressions; the language is itself the vehicle of thought.” (VIII, 112)
He states, “Grammar is not accountable to any reality. It is grammatical rules that determine meaning (constitute it) and so they themselves are not answerable to any meaning and to that extent are arbitrary. There cannot be a question whether these or other rules are the correct ones for the use of ‘not’ (that is, whether they accord with its meaning). For without these rules the word has as yet no meaning; and if we change the rules, it now has another meaning (or none), and in that case we may just as well change the word too…
"Why don’t I call cookery rules arbitrary, and why am I temped to call the rules of grammar arbitrary? Because I think of the concept ‘cookery’ as defined by the end of cookery, and I don’t think of the concept ‘language’ as defined by the end of language. You cook badly if you are guided in your cooking by rules other than the right ones; but if you follow other rules than those of chess you are playing another game; and if you follow grammatical rules other than such and such ones, that does not mean you say something wrong, no, you are speaking of something else.” (X, 133)
He argues, “The philosophy of mathematics consists in an exact scrutiny of mathematical proofs—not in surrounding mathematics with a vapour. In discussions of the provability of mathematical propositions it is sometimes said that there are substantial propositions of mathematics whose truth or falsehood must remain undecided. What the people who say that don’t realize is that such propositions, IF we can use them and call them ‘propositions,’ are not at all the same as what are called ‘propositions’ in other cases; because a proof alters the grammar of a proposition.” (Pt. II, V, 23)
This is an interesting “transitional” work, where Wittgenstein is clearly moving into the direction that will ultimately result in the Philosophical Investigations. It will be of great value to anyone studying his philosophy.
November 28, 2013
I read this while working as a teaching assistant at Loyola University Chicago for Dr. William Ellos, S.J., whose dissertation (from the Pontifical Institute in Rome) about Wittgenstein I was editing.
July 5, 2019
گرامر را در زندگی با زبان یاد میگیریم. پس نمی توان مثلا پرسید لحظه ی اول زبان را چگونه اموختیم. لحظه اول نداریم. زبان آغاز ندارد. آنچه هست در زبان هستن است.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews