Wittgenstein as philosopher of culture

Abstract

Interest in Wittgenstein came to Norway in a period of unrest on the Norwegian philosophical scene. The dominant Oslo School of empirical semantics was dissolved during the same period, not because it refused to take the locutionary/ illocutionary distinction seriously enough, but mainly because of its blind spot, caused by its exaggerated honesty. This paper argues that the semantic theory of ‘proposition and occurrence’ led the empirical semanticist into an intellectual attitude, overlooking language as part of a cultural landscape. Through overlooking this possibility, the empirical semanticist became an animal without a habitat. The way out was an interpretation of the notion of a language‐game which makes Wittgenstein a philosopher of culture.