“If a person could not speak it, it was not real,” Wittgenstein
was famous for saying.
Wittgenstein was the Albert Einstein of Western philosophy.
As Einstein completely transformed physics,
Wittgenstein transformed philosophy. In fact, some scholars
argued that by introducing new paradigms and categories
for discussion, he ended philosophy as a viable discipline.
Like Martin Heidegger, he argued that reality was merely
language. If a person could not say it, then it was not real. In
other words, philosophy was irrelevant. Only language was
relevant. While Western philosophy purported to discuss
essential foundations of justice, reality, and ethics, these
were, according to Wittgenstein, false problems distracting
people from the real issues. Philosophy tried to push people
beyond their language. For example, Plato’s forms were
irrelevant abstractions because no one could really articulate
what he meant by a “form.” Mankind, Wittgenstein
argued, was captured in the reality of language. If he could
not speak or describe it then it was not real. This had profound
ramifications on Western philosophy and made
Wittgenstein one of the early leaders of postmodernism.
Postmodernism is a philosophy that argues that there is no
objective theory of knowledge and truth.