Barry Smith - Wittgenstein and the ambition of philosophy, logic and language

Barry Smith, Director of the Institute of Philosophy at the School of Advanced Study, discusses Wittgenstein, logic and language.

About Barry Smith "I'm a professor of philosophy and Director of the Institute of Philosophy at the University of London School of Advanced Study. I'm a philosopher of mind and language, and I'm interested in how these systems help put us in touch with the world around us and with ourselves, and I'm especially interested in the senses and our sense of taste and smell."

Key Points

• Originally an engineer, Wittgenstein became deeply concerned with logic, language and the nature of philosophy itself. • In his work Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein tries to understand how language can describe reality, suggesting the foundations for a logically perfect language. • Having realised that he hadn’t exhausted the problems of philosophy, Wittgenstein begins to write about the nature of explanation. He thinks that sometimes what we need is not another explanation but a better description.

While trying to understand these big questions about the nature of logic and how science is equipped to describe the ultimate structure of reality, Wittgenstein also wondered: what are we doing as philosophers? What is this subject matter that is not itself science, but somehow comes before or underpins the scientific inquiry? It’s a question to the nature of truth, the nature of representations of reality, the nature of logic. That makes his project very central to philosophy.