Holistic Semantics

Ludwig Wittgenstein was the strongest influence among the philosophers of the twentieth century onwards. This book is an exploration of his conception of holistic semantics with reference to his ideas and insights as depicted in both his early and later writings. The contemporary analytic philosophy after Frege, Russell, Dummett, etc. has resulted in a debate between realism and anti-realism, not only in metaphysics concerning the nature of reality, but also in semantics concerning the nature of truth, meaning etc. The problem of essence which has its roots in human thinking has got a link, in this debate, with the understanding of mind that presupposes the understanding of language and reality. Philosophically, this book is an attempt to show that the most significant development to overcome the problem in this regard is the idea introduced by Wittgenstein that neither truth nor reality can be delinked from the use of language and the forms of life associated with it. This is possible on the basis of his contention of a holistic discourse in which language, grammar and reality remain within a system as a whole.