ON THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL LANGUAGE IN THE CONTEXT OF WITTGENSTEIN’S MANUSCRIPTS FROM 1929–1933

Abstract

The article treats Ludwig Wittgenstein’s manuscripts and typescripts where he formulates the problem of impossibility of “phenomenological language” defined by him as the “description of immediate sensual perception without any hypothetical supplementation.” One may find this phase of his philosophy (1929–1933) a bit paradoxical because the philosopher claims this phase, from the very beginning, to have been overcome; we deal here with philosophical self-criticism. The Lewis Carroll’s paradox is considered in terms of analogy to this criticized project of “phenomenological language”—the paradox of a ridiculously exact map which coincides with the mapped area. We open up new possibilities for comparison between the Wittgensteinian project of the “primal language” and Husserlian, Heideggerian and Finkian projects of “phenomenological language.”