Concept

Can we ever fully express complex ideas with words?

Imagine trying to explain the feeling of happiness to someone who's never experienced it.

Wittgenstein's 'language games' suggest that words have different meanings in different contexts, which can limit our ability to convey complex emotions like happiness universally.

Example

You might say "happiness is a warm glow," but someone else might picture a sunny day or a smiley face.

Remember this

The insight is that language has limits in expressing complex ideas because meanings shift in different 'games' or contexts.

Text adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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