Wittgenstein

American  

[vit-guhn-shtahyn, -stahyn] / ˈvɪt gənˌʃtaɪn, -ˌstaɪn /

noun

1. Ludwig (Josef Johann) 1889–1951, Austrian philosopher.

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Wittgenstein British  

/ -ˌstaɪn, ˈvɪtɡənˌʃtaɪn /

noun

1. Ludwig Josef Johann (ˈluːtvɪç ˈjoːzɛf joˈhan). 1889–1951, British philosopher, born in Austria. After studying with Bertrand Russell, he wrote the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921), which explores the relationship of language to the world. He was a major influence on logical positivism but later repudiated this, and in Philosophical Investigations (1953) he argues that philosophical problems arise from insufficient attention to the variety of natural language use

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Other Word Forms

• Wittgensteinian
  adjective

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Wittgenstein

Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once warned that philosophical problems arise when “language goes on holiday.”

From Science Daily ● Jun. 8, 2026

Mr. Gottlieb astutely observes that although Wittgenstein bemoaned the philosophical “craving for generality,” he was prone to making broad characterizations himself.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 18, 2025

The world's only professional one-handed concert pianist, Nicholas McCarthy, makes his Proms debut, playing a concerto originally written for Paul Wittgenstein, after he lost his right arm during World War One.

From BBC ● Apr. 23, 2025

The subjects being communicated by animals may be unlike anything humans might expect or comprehend, which the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once summed up by arguing, “If a lion could speak, we would not understand him.”

From Salon ● Aug. 23, 2024

He was particularly taken with a book entitled The Myth of Progress, by Georg Henrik von Wright, a Finnish philosopher and successor to Ludwig Wittgenstein at the University of Cambridge.

From "Endgame" by Frank Brady