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The Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) wrote two major works in his life: the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) and the posthumously published Philosophical Investigations (1953). With Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein at once built on and contradicted his earlier work, arguing that the meaning of language wasn’t in its relationship to reality (as he’d argued in the Tractatus) but in its vast web of crisscrossing usages – a ‘language game’, as he called it, in which all people are engaged. Further, he said, any attempt to step outside this language game was doomed to fail as, in the human mind, thinking and language are inseparable. In this video from 1987, the celebrated UK broadcaster and philosophy populiser Bryan Magee (1930-2019) discusses Wittgenstein’s intricate ideas with the US philosopher John Searle (1932-). Highlighting how Wittgenstein twice upended the philosophy of language – once by disagreeing with his own earlier views – Searle points to the philosopher’s wide influence, and what he perceives as the strengths and limits of his life’s work.
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Film and visual culture
At the movies with Pauline Kael – in the arthouse cinema where she got her start
19 minutes
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History of ideas
Tantra is, and was, a subversive philosophy of feminine power
19 minutes
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Archaeology
Ancient Greek sculptures were colourful. Why does the white marble ideal persist?
6 minutes
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Thinkers and theories
Metaphysics and beyond – Martha Nussbaum on Aristotle’s indelible ideas
43 minutes
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Art
Dizzying discs and obscene wordplay – revisiting Marcel Duchamp’s 1926 film debut
7 minutes
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Politics and government
Is mass media still ‘manufacturing consent’ in the internet age?
5 minutes
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Metaphysics
Knowing if you’re awake seems simple. Why has it vexed philosophers for centuries?
5 minutes
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Stories and literature
Solaris and beyond – Stanisław Lem’s antidotes to the bores of American sci-fi
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Art
Grotesque imagery meets religious conservatism in Hieronymus Bosch’s art
51 minutes