Wittgenstein is an interesting philosopher to study. He is famous for his contribution to a different understanding of language, the concept is known as Language games. He wrote in his work 'Philosophical Investigation' that Language is a game. The meaning of any word depends on context. Some of his significant ideas about language are...
-Language is a private thing. As the meaning which one people generate in his mind is very much individual for example the meaning of love, hate etc. words have personal meanings.
-Language is necessarily comprehensible only to its the single originator and inaccessible to other people. ('Problems of other mind').
- Then how do people communicate? Due to its intersubjectivities. There are communities which share similar thoughts, context so becomes similar linguistic community as well. Understanding of the meaning/communication within these similar linguistic communities is possible. So even if language is a private thing, remaining in similar thought communities, the message can be passed.
- Saul Kripke has elaborated Wittgenstein's many concepts. He further develops a paradox about how meaning is generated. There is so much guessing in understanding the meaning of a word. For example, pointing towards an object and speaking "table", other person may guess that the object is called table or the action of pointing is called a table or the guess can be anything else. So as learning words includes guessing, true meanings of words are never attainable. This leads to the inadequacy of knowledge.
- Meaning changes over time. So study of language as rigid, logical system is not possible.
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