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PHILOSOPHY - Ludwig Wittgenstein

中级 ⏱ 6:57 故事

Ludwig Wittgenstein was a philosopher obsessed with the difficulties of language, who wanted to help us find a way out of some of the muddles we get into with words. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/3K869 Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to your inbox: https://t.ly/jOd_J SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ X: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ CREDITS Brought to you by http://www.theschooloflife.com Inspired by an essay by David Edmonds. Produced in collaboration with Mad Adam http://www.MadAdamFilms.co.uk #TheSchoolOfLife

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A lot of unhappiness comes about in this world
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because we can't let other people know
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what we mean clearly enough.
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One of the philosophers who can help us
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with our communication problems
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is Ludwig Wittgenstein.
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He was a recluse.
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He had a stutter, paused for ages in the middle
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of his sentences and had a habit of
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storming out
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if he didn't like what people were saying.
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It was weirdly the ideal background
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for someone intent on studying how easily
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communication between people goes wrong.
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Ludwig Wittgenstein
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was born Vienna in 1889.
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The youngest child of a wealthy,
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highly cultured
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but domineering steel magnate.
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Three of Ludwig's four brothers took their own lives,
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and Ludwig himself was frequently
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troubled by suicidal thoughts.
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When he was young, he was interested in engineering.
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After studying at Cambridge,
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his father died and he inherited a lot
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of money.
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He gave it all away,
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mainly to his already very rich relatives
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and went to live in spartan solitude
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in Norway.
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Then he started writing a book published in 1921
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called Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.
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It was a short, beautiful
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and baffling work.
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The big question that Wittgenstein
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asks in it is:
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How do human beings
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manage to communicate ideas to one another?
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And his answer,
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which felt revolutionary,
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is that language works by triggering
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within us
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pictures of how things are in the world.
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Wittgenstein thought of this
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while reading a newspaper article about
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a Paris court case in which,
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in order to explain with greater efficacy, the details of
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an accident that had taken place a road junction,
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the court had arranged for the accident
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to be reproduced visually
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using model cars and pedestrians.
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It was a Eureka moment.
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In Wittgenstein's view words enables us to
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make pictures of facts.
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To say: The palm tree is by the shore,
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paints a rapid sketch
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that like the model lets another person see
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the situation in their mind and understand.
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We're constantly
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swapping pictures between us.
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But the Paris court needed to resort to an actual model
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for a very important reason.
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Because on the whole,
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we're very bad at managing to
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make good pictures in the minds of others.
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Communication typically goes wrong
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because other people have, as we put it,
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the wrong picture of what we're meaning.
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It can take an age for two people to
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realize divergences over quite basic things.
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Problems of communication typically start because
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we don't have a clear and accurate enough picture
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of what we mean in our own heads.
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We say quite meaningless or modeled
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or unelaborated things
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which therefore can go nowhere in the minds of others.
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There's another danger:
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That we read more meaning into the words of others
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than they ever intended or than is warranted.
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You tell your partner you had a conversation with
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an interesting person at the hotel reception.
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The picture in your mind
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is an innocent one.
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But your partner swiftly forms
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a very different impression.
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The Tractatus is a plea
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by a very taciturn, silent and precise
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Austrian philosopher
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to speak more carefully and less impulsively.
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As he famously put it:
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"Wovon man nicht sprechen kann,
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darüber muss man schweigen."
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When he published it,
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Wittgenstein thought somewhat grandly
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that the Tractatus was the last work of philosophy
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that would ever need to be written.
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So he looked around for how to fill the rest of his life.
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He turned to architecture and spent a couple of years
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designing a house for his sister in Vienna.
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He spent ages getting the
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door handles and radiotors right.
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Very late on in the project, he got increasingly
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bothered about the ceiling in one of the rooms
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and came to the conclusion
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that is was too low.
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At immense inconvenience to everyone,
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he insisted on having it raised
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by three centimeters.
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It made all the difference, he thought.
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Then, in 1929
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Wittgenstein suddenly returned to Cambridge
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and to philosophy
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because he realized he had some new things
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to say about language and communication.
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And so he began to write a second book
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published posthumously,
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and that we know know as
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Philosophical Investigations.
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Instead of thinking that
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language is only just about pictures,
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he developed the idea
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that language is like a kind of tool
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that we use to play different games,
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which doesn't literally mean
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games, more patterns of intentions.
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So if a parent says
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to a frightened child:
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"Don't worry - everything's gonna to be fine",
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they can't know it really will be fine.
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They aren't playing
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the Rational Prediction From Available Facts Game.
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They're playing another game:
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The Words as an Instrument of Comfort and Security Game
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Wittgenstein's point is that
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all kinds of misunderstandings arise
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when we don't see
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which kind of game someone is involved in.
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If one's partner says:
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"You never help me. You're so unreliable."
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The natural inclination might be
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to hear this as a part of
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a Stating the Facts Game;
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like saying:
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The battle of Waterloo was in 1815.
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So one might respond by citing facts about
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how actually you got the car insurance yesterday,
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and you bought some vegetables at lunch time, too.
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But actually,
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this person is involved in a different language game.
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They're using words
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not to capture facts.
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They're playing The Help and Reassurance Game.
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So in the language game, they're involved in,
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"You never help" means
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"I want you to be more nurturing."
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Working out the game in question,
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is, Wittgenstein realized,
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key to good communication.
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In the Philosophical Investigations
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Wittgenstein also wanted to draw attention
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to how much of our self-understanding
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depends on the words of others,
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on languages that have
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developed publicly and communally
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over many centuries
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long before we're born.
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For example, on Sunday afternoon
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I might fall prey to a worried, confused mood
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as I think about the week ahead
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and everything I've got to do.
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My ability to know this very private side of myself
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and to help others know me
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will be hugely enhanced if I have to hand a word
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that's been around a while:
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Angst.
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A word which was helpfully formulated
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by the philosopher
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Kierkegaard in 19th century, Copenhagen.
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Words like angst or also
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nostalgia,
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melancholy or
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ambivalent
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and many others
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help us to name elusive areas of our own experience.
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Language is a public tool
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for the understanding of private life.
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The richness of the language we're exposed to
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is therefore really important to our self-knowledge.
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Reading many books
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gives us tools with which to help to know
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who we are.
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Though a lot of Wittgenstein's philosophy
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is deeply complicated,
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it's underpinned by a desire always to be helpful.
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The task of philosophy, said Wittgenstein,
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is to show the fly the way out of the fly bottle.
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The particular fly bottle, he was interested in,
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was language.
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And before his death from cancer in 1951,
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he managed to let out for us

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