>>4091444"Meaning" (in the linguistic sense) can only be derived from how we observe language being used. Anything more concrete than that cannot avoid skepticism (in other words, there are no "facts" about meaning). You might call it is the radical opposite of logical atomism (the idea that there are elementary propositions, like atoms, that make up the meaning of the world, or "all truths" as Russell put it).
In fact what is most famous about Wittgenstein is that he originally argued strongly for a form of logical atomism, before later realizing the entire project is pointless and writing the radical opposite thesis I am talking about here.
He uses various mind experiments to prove this sort of meaning skepticism. Two of the most famous ones are the "rule-following paradox" (Basically: No course of action can be determined by a rule because every rule is just an interpretation of courses of action. Every rule can always be interpreted in such a way that every course of action can be out to accord, or to conflict with it. Basically basically: You can never be certain you are actually following a rule at all.) and the "private language argument" (Basically: It's impossible to have a language that is only understandable to a single individual, its creator. By only I mean necessarily only, not just: "hasn't been translated yet", but rather "cannot be translated" - Such a private language would be incoherent.)
He argues that basically all philosophical "problems" are simply caused by language confusion (thus aren't really true problems at all) and that philosophy can/should do is act in a therapeutic way by clearing up the language. Ironically, the idea that philosophy is a meme is the one thing that has stayed consistent between his two changing views.
