Wittgenstein on the foundations of language: a non-foundational narration

Abstract

For later Wittgenstein, language cannot be founded upon something more primordial than the language itself, something that has a definite origin and boundary that marks it off and yet has a magical power of pulling the entire corpus of language to come to rest on it. None of the usually proposed foundations- universals, physical ostension, mental images, verbal rules, nervous excitements, brain-patterns, or even forms of life can be claimed to have a pre-linguistic or extralinguistic the character that can serve as the desired origin and justification of language.