[previous posts are here, here and here]

Let me show you now how Wittgenstein changed his views during the last part of his life. The most important change concerned the way he regarded our language. At first he thought that the human language is a mirror of the world. Afterwards he started to think he was wrong.

He has also said that he was wrong in admitting that the structure of language and world is captured by logic. Logical rules are no different from grammar rules. They are agreed upon by convention and may change. The language is not a mirror, but a kit of many different tools which we use for different purposes.

Words mean what they use to mean not because they are accompanied by a mental object – the meaning, but because we use them the way we do. Roughly speaking, for the later Wittgenstein there are no mental objects. There is no use to speak of our ideas, feelings, sensations, memories a.s.o.

Hopefully, you understand what I say now. But if you ask: “What does it mean that I understand what he says?” the answer won’t come from the presentation of some configuration of objects, no matter how special.

The young Wittgenstein thought that by presenting the linguistic objects (words, sentences), the physical (things, states of affairs) and the mental ones (meanings) which mediate in some strange way between the first two, he could make someone understand something important about what we may say and what we may not etc.

The later Wittgenstein points out that no combination of objects by itself will count as an explanation or as an argument.

In fact, Wittgenstein would deny that there are any mental objects. We use to speak of meanings, sensations, memories and so on as if they were some sort of internal objects, residing ‘somewhere’ in the mind of each of us. But this is only a metaphor and it shouldn’t be taken seriously.

There are some very difficult problems with this view. Fortunately, they are not related to the point I wish to make here, so I’ll leave them aside.