Wittgenstein- philosophical invesitgations

In his work , Philosophical Investigations , Wittgenstein makes the claim that the work of the philosopher consists in assembling reminders for a particular purpose (127 ,

. 84 . One premise on which this idea is based is that commonplace things contain clues and answers to many philosophical questions , yet they often become obscured by their familiarity . The role of the philosopher , therefore , is to recall to the mind of his /her readers these matters that elucidate certain problematic issues in to lay them to rest . This is precisely what is done in Wittgenstein 's

writings on the use and meanings of rules , in that his claims are substantiated through his employment of examples (reminders from everyday life to which his readers can relate and which demonstrate precisely what he means to convey through his aphorisms . The effectiveness of these reminders lie in their ability to provoke as well as focus thought , and ultimately to resolve much of the confusion that might have initially attended these thoughts

In speaking of the nature of rules and their meanings , Wittgenstein does follow his own of philosophy by amassing examples as reminders of how rules are used in everyday living . One such example refers to the mathematical rules of adding two (Wittgenstein , 123 . He writes of the student who has succeeded in adding two to each number until he (or she ) has reached 1000 , after which he /she proceeds to come up with results such as 1004 , 1008 , and so on . These results , which would clearly demonstrate a misinterpretation of the rule , are confounding in light of the fact that the student has been carrying out the calculations in the expected way up until that time . Wittgenstein brings up the question of the ground on which this student might be considered to have erred or misunderstood the instruction . This he attributes to the fact that the rule does not have the particular numbers contained within it , but just a means of getting those numbers based on the understanding of the rule . The example that Wittgenstein provides seems contrived , because very rarely (if ever ) would such a thing occur in real life . In the event that this situation does occur in a mathematics class , the teacher would consider the student to have misinterpreted the rule somehow and further instruction would prove able to rectify the situation . It seems , however , that this is precisely Wittgenstein 's point : that instruction is what determines people 's interpretations of rules . The rules themselves do not denote their meanings rather , the customary actions that follow the rules are what determine the meanings of these rules

Another (related ) possibility that exists with this example is the fact that this particular rule (of adding two ) demonstrated perhaps through writing down the first few terms may be interpreted in different ways This reminder ' succeeds in pointing out that the student might have adopted the interpretation of adding two until 1000 , but then of adding 4 after reaching 1000 . So many possibilities for meaning...