Ideal language philosophy

Part of a series on
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Early philosophy Picture theory of language Truth tables Truth conditions Truth functions State of affairs Logical necessity
Later philosophy Meaning as use Language-game Private language argument Family resemblance Ideal language analysis Rule-following Form of life Anti-skepticism Philosophy of mathematics
Movements Analytic philosophy Linguistic turn Ideal language philosophy Logical atomism Pyrrhonian skepticism Ordinary language philosophy Fideism Quietism Therapeutic approach Postanalytic philosophy
Works Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus "Some Remarks on Logical Form" Blue and Brown Books Philosophical Remarks Philosophical Investigations On Certainty Culture and Value Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics Zettel Remarks on Colour Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief
People Bertrand Russell G. E. Moore John Maynard Keynes Paul Engelmann Friedrich Waismann Moritz Schlick Rudolf Carnap Francis Skinner Frank Ramsey Vienna Circle G. E. M. Anscombe Norman Malcolm Rush Rhees Peter Winch Peter Geach G. H. von Wright
Interpreters G. E. M. Anscombe Gordon Baker Stanley Cavell James F. Conant Alice Crary Cora Diamond Terry Eagleton Juliet Floyd A. C. Grayling Peter Hacker Oswald Hanfling Cressida Heyes Jaakko Hintikka Anthony Kenny Saul Kripke Warren Goldfarb Sandra Laugier Sabina Lovibond Norman Malcolm John McDowell Stephen Mulhall Colin McGinn Marie McGinn D. Z. Phillips Rupert Read Constantine Sandis Barry Stroud Stephen Toulmin Michael Williams Peter Winch John Wisdom Crispin Wright Hans Sluga
Other topics Cambridge Apostles Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club New Wittgenstein Stonborough House
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Ideal language philosophy is contrasted with ordinary language philosophy. From about 1910 to 1930, analytic philosophers like Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein emphasized creating an ideal language for philosophical analysis, which would be free from the ambiguities of natural language that, in their opinion, often made for philosophical error. During this phase, Russell and Wittgenstein sought to understand language (and hence philosophical problems) by using formal logic to formalize the way in which philosophical statements are made. Wittgenstein developed a comprehensive system of logical atomism in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (German: Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung, 1921). He thereby argued that the universe is the totality of facts and not things: actual states of affairs and that these states of affairs can be expressed by the language of first-order predicate logic. Thus a picture of the universe can be construed by means of expressing atomic facts in the form of atomic propositions, and linking them using logical operators.