I asked myself “Which modern philosopher is the greatest?” And after much  cogitation I decided on Ludwig Wittgenstein, the Austrian thinker who made two absolutely definitive contributions to the history of Western thought. Immanuel Kant ran a close second, but Wittgenstein’s role in defining the nature and direction of philosophy since his day (1889-1951) I believe outshined even Kant’s pivotal contribution in his time (1724-1804). I’ll try to explain my reasons for this distinction in what follows.

To be sure, the contributions of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Hume, and Hegel were all pivotal in charting the philosophical thought of their day, but Wittgenstein seems to have had an even more definitive role because he did, in fact, contribute two crucial, quite different phases to modern philosophy. To begin with, the young Wittgenstein served as the pivotal thinker behind the articulation of what came to be a major turning point of contemporary Western philosophy away from the speculative reasonings of the 19^th century thinkers, such as Hegel, Bergson, and Nietzsche toward the more logical and empirical approach of Bertrand Russell, Wm. James, and John Dewey on the one hand, and the logical concerns of the likes of Rudolph Carnap, Bertrand Russell and the Vienna Circle on the other. Wittgenstein’s early work focused this approach ever so clearly.  

The young Wittgenstein focused the concerns of these more empiricist thinkers in his initially handwritten Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, a document that within a few years became a sort of “bible” for the logical-empiricist thinkers who were seeking to redirect philosophy away from abstract speculations and toward more hard-headed, verifiable issues and theories.  As a young man from Vienna, not as yet having begun his graduate studies with Bertrand Russell at Cambridge, Wittgenstein offered what turned out to be the most succinct, if somewhat cryptic, statement of the “Logical Empiricist” point of view on the relation between reality and language. This view focused on what has been called the “picture theory” of this relationship and remains as its cornerstone.

However, after he began to teach at Cambridge the later Wittgenstein began to rethink his initial views and explored a more flexible, dynamic understanding of the relationship between language and reality. In his later work, published as Philosophical Investigations in 1951, he focused on the notion of the “use” of terms and statements as the key to and basis of their meaning. In his later work he explored the various “language games” that speakers participate in as they seek to communicate their thoughts, ideas, and even their actions. The views of this “later”, or more mature Wittgenstein, eventually came to dominate and filter out through the contemporary philosophical understanding of human language. It is often called the “ordinary language” theory of meaning.

So, with apologies to the likes of Plato and Aristotle and Kan, for these reasons, by way of the depth and wide influence of his views, I would argue that Ludwig Wittgenstein is the most important and influential philosopher in Western thought. His influence is still felt strongly throughout the philosophical world. His motto was “Don’t ask for meaning”, ask for “use”.  Today Wittgenstein’s later work still remains at the center of philosophical discussions and has opened the way for useful explorations in various related fields of study. My own dissertation was on Ian Ramsey, who in turn was very much influenced by the later Wittgenstein as he sought to discern the nature of talk about God. 

THE TALE OF THE WANDERING FURNITURE

Back in 1963 our set of wooden furniture left our home in the countryside and travelled to my Grandparents’ residential home in the town of Bellingham, Washington. The set consisted of two small dining-room type tables, two long benches with full backs, and six chairs, all of dark, rough-hewn wood. The set had come into my mother’s possession as the result of the closure of the local restaurant “Jerry’s Italian Village”. This “Jerry” was no relation to my mother’s son by the same name. The set served our family well for a number of years.

The set had been handmade in Italy and sent to Jerry Polargio specifically for his restaurant in Bellingham. Now that his restaurant had closed, Jerry sold some of its furniture to my mother. And she brought it to our home where it served well for several years. When we moved to live with my Grand-folks the furniture went with us. After my grandparents had died, it remained there in partial use for some twenty years.

However, when a group of us in Seattle decided to open a church-related coffeehouse where we could sponsor and engage in open conversations about important contemporary issues, my mother donated the furniture to the project. She even became the coordinator of the business side of the new enterprise and   took charge of the menu, which soon became the best coffee-house menu in town. The whole project was a roaring success and lasted ten years, receiving rave reviews amongst the coffee-house participants and even the local press.

In the meantime, I had moved on to pursue my career as a college professor. One of my good friends stored the furniture in the church basement thinking that I might some day want it. When I showed up teaching at a college in Florida my friend asked if I might need the furniture, which I did, so I had it shipped from Seattle to Florida and used it there for a number of years and in several different places. Later, when I moved north from one college to another, I always took this special furniture. It fit beautifully in every home where I lived.

            It has now been over sixty years since I first acquired those chairs, tables, and benches, and I am, as you might guess, extremely attached to them, both for their survivability and for their rustic beauty. They still grace our dining-room and prove ever so useful when we have larger groups of guests. Not only do they show their special signs of wear and tear, but they are each adorned with various scars, cigarette burns, and are held together with wooden pegs. It is amazing and wonderful to speculate about what diverse and different locales and adventures these pieces of rustic wooden furniture have encountered. I love them dearly. They have become my longest-lasting memories and landmarks