Wittgenstein and Language as the Universal Medium

Abstract

We shall begin our investigation of Wittgenstein by presenting, in this first chapter, a viewpoint which helps one to understand not only Wittgenstein but also much of recent philosophy of language. This viewpoint was introduced into scholarly discussion in a special case by Jean van Heijenoort in his perceptive paper on Frege’s conception of logic.1 He characterizes it as a contrast between two conceptions of logic, which he labels ‘logic as language’ and ‘logic as calculus’. He explains the former view in effect as a doctrine of the universality (in the sense of inescapability) of logic. We cannot as it were get outside our logic and its intended interpretation. For instance, an ‘important consequence of the universality of logic is that nothing can be, or has to be, said outside of the system.’