Ludwig Wittgenstein was born in 1889 into one of the richest families in Austria. Ludwig was the youngest of eight children and grew up in a very musical family. As a child, Ludwig was not an exceptional student, and he was sent to a technical school in the hope that he would learn engineering and follow his father in the family business. For one year, he was a pupil at the same school as a younger boy named Adolf Hitler. Wittgenstein developed an interest in the nascent field of aeronautics and went to the University of Manchester to study aeronautical engineering. While he was there, he became increasingly preoccupied by mathematical and philosophical questions. Understanding that the highest authority on these questions at the time was Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein impulsively traveled to Cambridge in 1911 and requested that Russell take him on as a student. Russell was hesitant at first but was soon impressed by Wittgenstein’s intelligence. Wittgenstein was brought into philosophy by Bertrand Russell, who was one of the founders of the analytic movement in philosophy. In the Investigations, Wittgenstein is concerned primarily with the very impulse to think philosophically more than he is with any particular philosophical views. Nevertheless, we find in the Investigations a preoccupation with language, and we can see the enduring influence of Frege and Russell in Wittgenstein’s conviction that a proper understanding of language will expose the hidden flaws in philosophical reasoning.

Wittgenstein takes the example of game, showing that there is no rigid definition that includes everything we consider a game and excludes everything we do not consider a game, but we nevertheless have no difficulty in using the word game correctly. As far as Wittgenstein is concerned, ordinary language is perfectly adequate as it is. His aim is not to show the underlying structure of language but rather to show that all attempts at digging beneath the surface of language lead to unwarranted theorizing and generalization.

One of Wittgenstein’s primary targets in the Philosophical Investigations is the language of psychology. We are tempted to think that words like understanding, meaning, thinking, intending, and the like denote mental states or processes. Wittgenstein conducts what he calls a “grammatical investigation,” looking closely at the way these words are used to show that the criteria we use for judging whether someone has, for example, understood how to play chess have nothing to do with that person’s mental state and everything to do with that person’s behavior.

The philosophy that Wittgenstein preaches and practices in the Investigations is concerned primarily with dissolving problems rather than solving them. A philosophical problem, in Wittgenstein’s view, is not a difficult question for which we must search long and hard for an answer. Rather, a philosophical problem is a mental knot we create by thinking theoretically, and untying it requires considerable mental clarity. For example, in the early sections of the Investigations, Wittgenstein criticizes the idea that there is a fundamental, abstract link between names and objects, but he does not criticize this theory in order to replace it with some other theory of language. Instead, he wants us to recognize that, when we consider language in the right light, there is no need to develop a theory to explain the connection between language and reality at all. Some commentators have observed that the Investigations is therapeutic in its aim. A therapist does not attempt to solve a patient’s problems but rather attempts to help to shift the thinking of a patient so that the problems no longer seem like problems. Similarly Wittgenstein aims to shift our philosophical thinking so that the problems of philosophy no longer seem like problems.

One of Wittgenstein’s main targets is the mental realm and the very idea of a sharp distinction between “inner” and “outer.” When we think of inner and outer as two distinctive, parallel realms, we are tempted to think that the kinds of understanding we have about the outer world should apply similarly to our inner lives. There must be inner states and processes about which we can have knowledge or fail to have knowledge and this knowledge must be based on some sort of data, and so on. Wittgenstein devotes a great deal of the Investigations to showing how these parallels between inner and outer break down.

The Investigations consist to a large extent of an extended criticism of old ways of philosophical thinking. Philosophy has generally concerned itself with metaphysical theories and deep explanations that cut to the core of the concepts that govern human life and reality. Wittgenstein suggests that this kind of theorizing can only lead us astray: there are no concepts or explanations hiding beneath the surface of everyday phenomena. These metaphysical theories are built upon unwarranted assumptions or generalizations, often born out of the structure of our grammar. The purpose of Wittgensteinian philosophy is to lead us to recognize these temptations toward metaphysical thinking, and to learn to subdue them.

A child uses such primitive forms of language when it learns to talk.
Here the teaching of language is not explanation, but training. This ostensive teaching of words can be said to establish an association between the word and the thing. When a child learns this language, it has to learn the series, of 'numerals' a, b, c, . . . by heart. And it has to learn their use.—Will this training include ostensive teaching of the words?—
When we say: "Every word in language signifies something" we have so far said nothing whatever; unless we have explained exactly what distinction we wish to make. It will often prove useful in philosophy to say to ourselves: naming something is like attaching a label to a thing.

Our language can be seen as an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, and of houses with additions from various periods; and this surrounded by a multitude of new boroughs with straight regular streets and uniform houses.

And to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life.

But we could also imagine the tone's being the same—for an order and a report can be spoken in a variety of tones of voice and with various expressions of face—the difference being only in the application

"language-game" is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life.. that a word has no meaning if nothing corresponds to it

We said that the sentence "Excalibur has a sharp blade" made sense even when Excalibur was broken in pieces. Now this is so because in this language-game a name is also used in the absence of its bearer.

Solve philosophical problems with logic.
-Two distinct philosophies.
Vienna.
Studied Mathematics and Science. Adolf Hitler’s class. Austrian. Brother’s committed suicide. Father suffered with cancer.
Abandoned engineering and studied philosophy with Russell. “Knowledge was limited to logic and not experience.”
First work – Notes on logic - A is the same as the letter A. Things needed to be shown in symbolic form rather than said because they simply could not be said and unsayable.
Identified philosophy with logic.
A logical preposition can be regarded to be true or false regardless of its constituent parts. For eg. I we say, the apple is red or not red, this is a tautology, this will always be true! Likewise, if we say this apple is neither red or not red, this is a contradiction and will always be false. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrpvBJrnhRQ&feature=related
Language gives us a picture of the world.
Second attempt to destroy philosophy – New philosophy/anti-philosophy.
Philosophical Investigations 1953 – Logical analysis of particular sensations and the meanings of words. Not philosophy but rather philosophizing which consists of unraveling mistakes in our thinking. These arise through linguistic errors. Language is not a picture of the world, it is like a net which consists of many pieces of interconnected strings. Our understanding becomes knotted when we misuse a word in a situation to which it does not apply. The duty of philosophy is to unravel these knots, hence philosophy is complex. Died with cancer.