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When I look introspectively, I cannot deny the huge influence Wittgenstein has had on my thinking. He has paved the way for some of my ideas, partly by helping me understand where he is wrong.
Feyerabend has offered the best summary of Wittgenstein. He is just a nominalist. This is part of the appeal because, in our modern world, nominalism is suspected to be true by virtue of the absurdity of any other view. Modern men do not want to believe in substances, ideas, and so on.
I cannot give a general overview of Wittgenstein’s philosophy, nor is it my intention to interpret him as a whole.
I am among those who dare to doubt that the distinction between the early and later Wittgenstein is so fundamental. One needs to understand that we may be talking about different things.
1. Somebody recognizes an error and corrects it. Very few people want to be factually incorrect on purpose. It may be embarrassing to declare it publicly, but behind closed doors, they adjust.
2. Somebody changes their view in a single event, as Paul did on the road to Damascus.
3. Somebody thinks about a topic for a long time and changes their view slowly and continuously.
4. Somebody thinks basically the same way but changes focus. It’s not an actual change in opinion, one could say, but rather a shift in talking points.
Between the author of the Tractatus and the author of the Philosophical Investigations, there is clearly a gap. The latter even corrects the former on the correspondence theory of truth. However, there was no Damascus experience. Or, if there was one, it occurred during the war, when the previously antireligious Wittgenstein found his Christian faith.
Wittgenstein was confronted with intuitionism for the first time and slowly began a development that led to the _Investigations_. As readers, sadly, we miss Wittgenstein's chance. He would have benefited if he had taken Gödel's proof more seriously.
The logical atomism of the Tractatus could not have been developed earlier in history, it requieres a develped logical theory.
It is possible that it could not have developed much later. The discouvery that there are more than one logic put the enterprise too much into question.
You can put it simple:
Tractatus == All about a correspondence theory of truth. Truth as a mapping to certain facts.
Philosophical Investigations == Sprachspiel-semnatics.
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