Ambiguity and the Natural Language Crisis: An Investigation in the Philosophy of Language

Abstract

This paper intends to investigate the situation of modern philosophers towards language and highlight their attitudes taken therein, showing how the linguistic phenomenon was a main reason behind the shaping of the philosophical discourse related to language in the 20th century which witnessed some writings which dealt with the attitude to language. Titled “Linguistic Curves”, such writings sought to place language in the philosophical frame to highlight the problems and crises encountering natural language and the historical stages in which linguists-philosophers viewed this problematic issue, namely the logical positivism. The view Ludwig Wittgenstein, the Austrian philosopher who typically represents this attitude is particularly relevant. Through out the various stages of his intellectual development, he had a unique attitude to the linguistic phenomenon, especially in his later intellectual stage in which he saw that the task of philosophy is summarized as being criticism of language.