Wittgenstein's Language: The Limitations Of Language

Abstract
This paper attempts to analyse the limitations of language despite it being used thoroughly by us in our everyday lives. Divided into four sections, the first section of the paper attempts to comprehend the implications of Wittgenstein’s ideas about the lack of a fixed meaning of any word. The second section discusses in detail Nagarjuna’s belief in the basic inadequacy of language to grasp the ultimate nature of things. The third section examines the notion of inexpressibility in various other schools while the fourth section is the authors take on the extent to which language can be reliable to express or to understand anything.
Introduction
“Knowledge can be transferred, but not wisdom. It can be found and lived, and it is possible

Instead there are, he claims, many different similarities and relationships between every denotation of a word i-e there is a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing each other referred to as ‘criss-cross family resemblances’. Like there is no common characteristic in each and every member of a family, there is no common characteristic which connects every meaning of a word. Instead “there is a gradual transition from one use to another although there may be nothing in common between the two ends.” Wittgenstein’s argument for the lack of fixed meaning of a word further implies that the meaning of a word depends on its use. Wittgenstein writes “the meaning of a word is its use in the language.” The word ‘good’ for example, argues Wittgenstein, does not mean the same every time it is used in a sentence. The meaning of the word varies every time the context of the use changes. A ‘good’ restaurant is hence different from a ‘good’ person. The definition of a word thus does not restrict the meaning of a word by coming prior to it. Rather, it acts as a tool which reflects the various ways a word is

The Upanishads describe the Brahman as neti-neti (not this not that). The concept of neti-neti implies that it is only possible to say what the Brahman is not and not what the Brahman actually is. The Advaita Vedanta, continuing with the tradition of the Upanishads also believes in a nirguna Brahman i-e a Brahman whose nature is inexpressible. Moksa for Sankara is also described negatively. This however does not mean it is a mere nothing. Sankara clarifies that the “Brahman seems non-existent only to the feeble minded.” The concept of salvation in most Indian schools remains something which can only be felt, only be attained but not preached or expressed. This notion of inexpressibility is not limited to Indian philosophical schools. While Kant talks about the unknowability and the inexpressibility of the noumenal world, Plato in his Republic, giving the cave analogy talks about how the individual must go on a quest to attain knowledge about the forms which are otherwise inexpressible and the closest we can come to expressing them is through an analogy. Perhaps this is why salvation is something which has to be attained by every individual on his own. A teacher can guide the person but not tell him/her what salvation truly is. It is incapable of being thought of or being