“Getting hold of the difficulty deep down is what is hard. Because if it is grasped near the surface it simply remains the difficulty it was. It has to be pulled out by the roots; and that involves our beginning to think about these things in a new way. The change is as decisive as, for example, that from the alchemical to the chemical way of thinking. The new way of thinking is what is so hard to establish. Once the new way of thinking has been established, the old problems vanish; indeed they become hard to recapture. For they go with our way of expressing ourselves and, if we clothe ourselves in a new form of expression, the old problems are discarded along with the old garment.”

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About Ludwig Wittgenstein

Austro-British philosopher

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austro-British philosopher associated with logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is known for work that shaped twentieth-century philosophical debate, especially in these fields. His writing centers on how language works, how thought is expressed, and the foundations of reasoning and meaning.

More from Ludwig Wittgenstein (113 quotes) →

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Books by Ludwig Wittgenstein

Tractatus logico-philosophicus

1921

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Zettel

1967

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Philosophische Untersuchungen

1953

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Über Gewissheit

1972

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