Wittgenstein, Ludwig

Ludwig Wittgenstein famously taught
About language, its meaning and thought:
"Whereof speech will not serve,
Thereof silence preserve."
Of yourself it is best to say naught.

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) was an Austrian philosopher who, after completing his major work Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) outlining a theory he labelled logical atomism, considered philosophy to be a finished piece and so he became a gardener. Finding that too hard, he went back to Uni. His famous expression "Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen" translates as "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." Wittgenstein's view was that no meaning could be taken from language of a personal, subjective nature—that is, about one's inner dialog (for example, expressions such as "I believe in God" or "I am in love").

Perhaps this is so - yet a poet, through his art, attempts to communicate this inner dialog on the assumption that we have a common nature. The web the words weave is one that holds us all together.