"Wittgenstein: A Very Short Introduction" by A. C. Grayling

This was my initiation into philosophy and was prompted by the fact that Joyce Carol Oates often cites Wittgenstein in her more recent fiction. Wittgenstein was a 20th century philosopher who lived from 1889 to 1951. His eccentric nomadic lifestyle, never staying in more than one place for more than a couple years at a time, leads Grayling to conclude that even if future generations do not judge him as one of the great philosophers, he will surely count as one of the great personalities of philosophy. The reason why posterity's consideration of him is at stake is due to his unusual style and method and the fact that he does not accept the importance of the traditional questions of philosophy. Wittgenstein does not devote space to explanation and theory building, rather, he espouses his views in a patchwork of short remarks set out in outline form. (Grayling claims this style has made it easy for aphorism hunters to take quotations out of context and use them incorrectly.) Here is an example from p.40 of Grayling's book:
1 The world is all that is the case.
1.1 The world is the totality of facts, not of things.
2 What is the case - a fact - is the existence of states of affairs.
2.01 A state of affairs (a state of things) is a combination of objects (things).

Wittgenstein's basic premise is that philosophical problems arise because we misunderstand the workings of our language and that we will solve the problems of philosophy when we understand "the logic of our language". He therefore sets out to show how language works and what its limits are. He claims that such things as ethics, aesthetics, religion and “problems of life” are beyond the realm of what language can conceptualize and therefore it is impossible, nonsensical to attempt to say anything about them, they belong to the realm of the mystical. However, most philosophers do not accept his diagnosis of the source of philosophical perplexity. Yet his ideas are still discussed. The one which Grayling claims has had the most impact on the philosophical community comes from Wittgenstein's philosophy of mind. It is the denial of the idea that words mean by denoting, by standing for things. Rather, meaning arises from use.

I won't attempt to explain any further. I'm not a philosopher and it would probably take me a year of blogging, anyway. If any of these ideas have been of interest to you, I recommend this little book. It's only 134 mini pages long. Now I have to go back and figure out whether or not Joyce Carol Oates correctly refers to Wittgenstein's ideas ...