فتغنشتاين : شكل لغة، شكل حياة

Abstract EN

: Philosophy is ‘a critique of language’, states Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations, adopting what was argued by Fritz Mauthner (1849-1923), and declaring by the way his theoretical debt to him.

This principle takes with Wittgenstein the appearance of a theory of knowledge.

Philosophical Investigations can be seen, from this point of view, as a model for a ‘critique of pure language’.

Language would be the natural environment of knowledge, as a means to understanding the constitution of meaning with discourse and in discourse.

Since ‘everything is done with and in language’, the natural conclusion is that, when we imagine a language, we imagine a ‘form of life’.

And, like all forms of life it is linked to the environment and community, hence ‘language forms’ and ‘language games’ vary depending on different cultures, natural environments, time, social relations and rules of conduct.

Thus the mode of human behavior, according to Wittgenstein, is the reference system that allows us to interpret an unknown language.

It is in this way that Wittgenstein pushes us in the tumult of pragmatic linguistics, where there is no mutual understanding of the language outside the experience of the formed group.

However, even if Wittgenstein moves from seeking the answer to the question ‘What is the meaning’ by answering a question that seems simpler: ‘Where is the meaning?’ - by keeping it in the contcxt of use - these issues have direct implications for translation in general and obviously for our Arabic translation of Philosophical Investigations, in particular.