It's a bit like "Gödel for transcendentals". But this has been mostly ignored, while the tools used by Wittgenstein have been an inspiration to many.

The relationship between the Russell/Gödel camp and Wittgenstein is complicated - In some ways at odds (as they grew apart Russell thought Wittgenstein was dedicating his life to not thinking) but I think they were concerned with the same questions.

Gödel and Wittgenstein would probably both agree that you can't describe the system from within the system. Gödel was more interested pulling the threads and exploring the edges of that, whereas Wittgenstein took that to mean philosophy (at least as it pertains to living) was a lost cause and distraction from reality. In other words, I feel they were on the same page but had completely different ultimate interests.

And ultimately, the Russell camp won - a modern echo of that is the search for the one equation that will describe all of reality, or at least a belief that even if we never find it there is still one out there. Wittgenstein would probably believe that no man made system could fundamentally describe reality.

It's largely been ignored, yes, because where do you go from there? Someone who believes in Wittgenstein is probably more likely to join the army or become an architect than become a philosopher, which guarantees that it will be ignored. Evolutionarily it's an idea that doesn't fit into the ecosystem.

Mind that I do not mean to suggest any kind of parallelism in a strict sense (hence the emoticon.)

Regarding the lost cause as a distraction, I'm not so sure about that. I guess, Wittgenstein would have insisted on this being about all, which was important to us, but nevertheless being out of reach of any kind of theory in the strict sense.

(And this is, because – according to Wittgenstein – it is essentially outside of any reality, which is accessibly to us. On the other hand, it may have still reality beyond this, "The contemplation of the world sub specie aeterni is its contemplation as a limited whole." [6.45], "Die Anschauung der Welt sub specie aeterni ist ihre Anschauung als-begrenztes-Ganzes." However, there are no legitimate question that may be actually posed regarding this limited whole, which is reflected just as a feeling from the inside; hence, the proposed riddle – which is really about existence – doesn't exist on any level of disciplined discourse.)

Regarding evolutionary fitness, there may have been a niche: According to the Tractatus, the mystical arises, which might have been further explored by some theory of emergence. But this developed only much later and – as far as I know it — a connection was never made.

Whereas W II does get more specific and deeply explores the real-world implications, partly as a rejection of W I's tendency to speak in abstract, high-level ideas. But W II doesn't dwell on the implications of the inherent fallacy of logic as Godel does, just uses that as a rung in the ladder to somewhere else.

And I didn't take it as you making a direct like to Godel, but it's interesting to think about because they were all part of the same zeitgeist which is still strongly echoing in our culture. They didn't see eye-to-eye in their life despite some common threads, and it got me thinking about WHY that was.

(While some of this may remind of Kant's thing in itself, it is comes from an entirely different direction, namely, a proposed teleology of philosophy, while Kant addresses this from the fundamentals of perception.)

Nāgārjuna is one particularly impressive philosopher of the Madhyamaka school, a school which he set the groundwork for in his book Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (Madhyamaka means middle way, a kārikā is a work composed of verses that concisely formulate some doctrine). There's a great translation and explanation by Mark Siderits and Shōryū Katsura if anyone is interested.

I think there are a lot of parallels with Wittgenstein's philosophy, and it speaks to Wittgenstein's genius that he was able to conceive of a similar philosophy largely independently.

My advisor at university, a philosophy professor, said the same thing about Wittgenstein. During the initial part of his graduate studies, philosophy left him empty, and depressed. Discovering, and focusing on, Wittgenstein, changed his life.

There is a fantastic book that I recommend along these lines: https://www.amazon.com/American-Philosophy-Story-John-Kaag/d...

This suggests, as Chalmers has pointed out, that the disagreement is not semantic. It’s rather a substantial philosophical issue. No linguistic analysis will resolve the debate. Science might someday, if the matter can be settled empirically.

In this case it comes to something also very common in philosophy, discussions that can be questioned as “are we discussing terms or philosophy or both at the same time?” and often the case is “both” making it very hard to have a philosophical discussion when opposing sides disagree both on the terminology and the philosophy and don’t separate the two disagreements very well.

Apologies in advance as I haven't read any Wittgenstein myself, but am I wrong in thinking this is what the Philosophical Investigations was about (as opposed to the Tractatus)?

Both had a sort of "end philosophy" ambition, to a degree. The Tractatus, with its ambition to address the ways that language touches the world in a picture theory, was more akin to the idea of "solving" philosophy in a sense. In PI, he makes a change in his view of philosophy towards anthropology and remarks on language that is rooted in behavior and use. PI "ends philosophy" more in the sense of dissolving philosophical issues, by revealing the conceptual underpinnings of a number of philosophical debates as nonsense. Philosophy's job, thus, becomes conceptual clarification.

So to answer your question, yes, though there is some overlap.

"2.12: The picture is a model of reality", "3: The logical picture of the facts is the thought.", "4: The thought is the significant proposition.", "4.001: The totality of propositions is the language.", "4.002: Language disguises the thought", "4.003: Most propositions and questions, that have been written about philosophical matters, are not false, but senseless. We cannot, therefore, answer questions of this kind at all, but only state their senselessness. Most questions and propositions of the philosophers result from the fact that we do not understand the logic of our language."

The problem he had with Tractatus was the absurdity of trying logically construct an argument against logic - Tractatus was strongly influenced by Russell. But he wasn't trying to define a universal logic system like Russell or poking at the limits of one like Godel. He makes that clear at the end:

"6.54: My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly.", "7: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

The difference between "early Wittgenstein" and "late Wittgenstein" is mostly (though not entirely) about form, he's just much clearer about and does deeper dives into his ideas in Philosophical Investigations and other later writing. He started hating the whole idea of writing a "general, abstract form", but doesn't shift the fundamental thrust of his worldview.

Of course, the Tractatus is pretty dense and there's a lot of disagreement about interpretation, this is just my opinion on it. It's a really wonderful book if you spend time with it, the structure is very fascinating, it feels like a puzzle. I assume anyone on HN trends nerdy, and though it might be more difficult that Investigations, I think Tractatus appeals more to my nerdy side.

How about Epicurus?

I'm not at all in the philosophy realm, so I don't know who is revered or reviled. Maybe he's not noteworthy enough, too idealistic or just plain wrong? Perhaps he's passed over for some other reason.

The few things I've read about his philosophies seem like they're focused on finding basic happiness. Am I just oversimplifying?