Wittgenstein's Anti-Essentialism: Family Resemblance

A few clips of John Searle and Bryan Magee discussing one of Wittgenstein's most important notions, that of family resemblance, which in many ways runs against the entire philosophical tradition. For although the search for the essence of concepts like Truth, Justice, Knowledge, Goodness, and Beauty is the very paradigm of conceptual or philosophical analysis (as Socrates famously showed us), Wittgenstein suggested that abstract terms do not have (or do not need to have) such underlying essences which all the particular instances share in common. We understand the meaning of such terms enough to be able to use them, even if we cannot spell out their precise conditions. Indeed, things of the same kind need not share any underlying universal or common nature, but only a variety of overlapping similarities, which Wittgenstein called "family resemblances". In this way, Wittgenstein was something of a nominalist, rejecting essentialism. (My Description)

#philosophy #wittgenstein #bryanmagee

[SimpMaker]

Thats what I like about wittgenstein. He applies the logic of set theory in a way that doesn't create conflict with natural usage.

[Three-Chord-Trick]

Can someone explain why everyone thinks Wittgenstein was so bleedin' clever? 😲 I've always thought he was doing, in his later phase, no more than paraphrasing Protagoras and the other Sophists (or even Berkeley). And in his first phase he was reviving the enterprise of the early Socrates/Plato. 🤔 What do "all" rivers have in common? Or flames? Or human beings?

[alwaysgreatusa]

It should be obvious that natural language is not a scientific invention like code, and therefore that it lacks the logical rigidity of significance characteristic of code. But it is an altogether different question whether a particular concept such as justice has an essence. Yes, there are many different things that are called 'just', and not all the things that go by that name have an essence in common, but this does not mean there is still not a concept of justice. This is already made clear in Plato's 'Republic', as Thrasymachus implicitly makes the point that every government calls its own laws just, yet Socrates shows that real justice is not simply whatever is declared to be just, but what is in fact fair and harmonious for everyone in social relations. In fact, every government declares their own laws 'just' only because they want to pretend that their laws accord with this concept of justice. What government has been so honest to declare they are making the laws only to benefit themselves, while trying to pretend that this was just ? No, instead, they make the laws to benefit themselves (the powerful), yet declare these laws are what are fair and harmonious for everyone. This is because they already know that by trying to declare justice to be the advantage of the stronger, they are in fact destroying the real concept of justice itself !

[Anicius_]

Could you decrease the level of saturation in colored videos

[alwaysgreatusa]

Does 'nomanilist' have an essence ? What do all nomanilists have in common, if anything ? Or, be so good as to explain the various family resemblances there are between each of those who are called 'nominalist', and then go on to explain the various family resemblances each of them lack, that we do not also call any of them ''essentialists'.

[pilleater]

I like John because he likes Asian women.

[JS-dttn]

I don't understand. Games all have the same essence of competition. Is this not a coherent feature all games have in common? Hence the word game has meaning becuase it signifies an object of competition? Why is this not considered valid in his mode of thought?

[radaandreev]

Apreciando a una mujer tan hermosa. 2:4 sentadillas son unos X18TINDER.Uno muchas y un buen ejercicio. 5:25 Se deja ver que hay muy buenos resultados 😍👍 Saludos desde la Cd.. de world losk mortales abian apreciado tan hermosa mujer

[MarcosJ-mqlk]

Philosophy is such an incredible waste of time