Language, Form(s) of Life, and Logic: Investigations after Wittgenstein

This volume deals with the relation between the capacity to speak and the human form of life. All contributions engage with Wittgenstein’s approach to this topic. As a whole, the volume takes a stance both against a reductive naturalist as well as a sociological understanding of "Lebensform" in Wittgenstein. It seeks to promote a broadly logical understanding of this notion instead.

The volume pinpoints the precise, logical function of "Lebensform" in Wittgenstein and relates it to debates in post-Wittgensteinian philosophy.

Part one focuses on the way that leads from the notion of Form in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus to the notion of Lebensform in his later work. Contributions to part two examine both the concrete philosophical function of this notion as well as its difference from related concepts. Part three puts the notion of form(s) of life in perspective by relating it to phenomenology and ordinary language philosophy.