the limits of my language mean the limits of my world
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"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world" is Ludwig Wittgenstein’s famous aphorism expressing his view that our capacity to think, understand, and experience reality is bounded by the structure and scope of our language.
Observed surface forms (1)
| Surface form | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The limits of my language mean the limits of my world | 0 |
Statements (39)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
philosophical aphorism
ⓘ
quotation ⓘ |
| appearsIn | Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus ⓘ |
| associatedPhilosopher | Ludwig Wittgenstein ⓘ |
| associatedWork | Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus ⓘ |
| author | Ludwig Wittgenstein ⓘ |
| clarifiedBy | Wittgenstein’s distinction between saying and showing ⓘ |
| contextWithinTractatus | part of the discussion of the general form of the proposition ⓘ |
| hasEnglishTranslationVariant | The limits of my language are the limits of my world ⓘ |
| hasInfluenced |
20th-century philosophy of language
ⓘ
discussions of the limits of expression ⓘ later debates on linguistic relativity ⓘ |
| influencedBy |
Bertrand Russell
ⓘ
Gottlob Frege ⓘ logical atomism ⓘ |
| interpretation |
our capacity to think is bounded by the structure of our language
ⓘ
what cannot be expressed in language cannot be meaningfully thought ⓘ |
| languageRoleInContext | logical representation of possible facts ⓘ |
| mainTheme |
limits of thought
ⓘ
linguistic representation of the world ⓘ relation between language and reality ⓘ |
| notableFor | succinct expression of early Wittgenstein’s view of language ⓘ |
| oftenMisinterpretedAs | claim that language completely determines reality ⓘ |
| originalForm | Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt ⓘ |
| originalLanguage | German ⓘ |
| philosophicalField |
epistemology
ⓘ
philosophy of language ⓘ |
| philosophicalTradition | analytic philosophy ⓘ |
| positionInWork |
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
ⓘ
surface form:
Tractatus proposition 5.6
|
| quotationType | aphoristic statement ⓘ |
| relatedConcept |
ineffable
ⓘ
Sapir–Whorf hypothesis ⓘ
surface form:
linguistic relativism
logical form ⓘ picture theory of language ⓘ sayable and unsayable ⓘ |
| relatedWork | Philosophical Investigations ⓘ |
| statusInPhilosophy | widely cited Wittgenstein quotation ⓘ |
| worldDefinitionInContext | totality of facts, not of things ⓘ |
| yearOfPublication | 1921 ⓘ |
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
→
centralThesis
→
the limits of my language mean the limits of my world
ⓘ