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Wittgensteinian

Wittgensteinian

1 9.9
A way of thinking about language and meaning that follows the ideas of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein
  • adjective
  • /ˌwɪtɡənˈstaɪnɪən/
  • Formal
: wittgensteiniano
  • The first is related to what Odilon Redon, in an almost Wittgensteinian expression, called "hints of aspects (images within images), forms that are about to come into being or will take their being from the onlooker's state of mind."

Examples

  • In any event, I agree, systems are messy, and perhaps the best we can do is formulate some kind of Wittgensteinian "family resemblance."

    Blog text (20)
  • Wittgensteinian forms of analysis are deliberately hostile to cognitive science and to the Darwinian James-Lange theory of emotional signaling.

    Academic text (1999)
  • A book on Wittgensteinian poetics.

    Academic text (2008)
  • And then the answer to all those questions, that's the world that, that that's the we like to joke that it's a Wittgensteinian answer.

  • The Wittgensteinian kinds of questions I have posed raise paradoxical issues: can one study a subject without the subject? Does such subjectless study produce research that is more open and vigorous than traditional approaches?

    Academic text (2000)
  • Among the lawyers, an attempt to fashion a Wittgensteinian pragmatism (for which Richard Rorty rather than Wittgenstein would appear to be the philosophical mentor) may have delayed a grasp of Peirce's thought.

    Academic text (1994)
  • So even if we follow Wittgenstein in distinguishing "interpretation" from "perception," we still cannot distinguish "perception" from "reading" as the difference between nonlinguistic and linguistic behavior without adding un-Wittgensteinian intermediaries like "meaning" or "experience."

    Academic text (2001)
  • The professor explained the concept of a Wittgensteinian approach, emphasizing the importance of language in shaping our understanding of reality.

  • In her lecture, she presented a Wittgensteinian view on meaning, highlighting how the use of words is influenced by their context.

  • His writing demonstrates a Wittgensteinian style that focuses on the nuances of everyday language and its philosophical implications.

Surface Forms

Wittgensteinian positive

Morphology

Wittgensteinian = Wittgenstein (transparent) = Wittgenstein + ian

The adjective is formed by adding the productive suffix '-ian' to the proper name 'Wittgenstein', so its meaning 'relating to Wittgenstein or his philosophy' is directly predictable from the base.

Etymology

Wittgensteinian comes from the name Wittgenstein and the ending -ian meaning 'like' or 'related to'. It describes ideas or a style that follow his view that the meaning of words comes from how we use them in everyday speech, so a Wittgensteinian view is 'like Wittgenstein's'.