Way of life (philosophy)
Since Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations (1953), the term “form of life” has become a much-discussed term in philosophy. There it describes the totality of practices or actions that are carried out by a community. It is the templates or patterns according to which the members of this community live their lives or which give them orientation for their lives. The totality of these patterns gives the different expressions of life, as it were, a form.
Life forms represent the not further justified and not further justifiable basis on which the individual language games receive their meaning. So z. B. “Asking questions”, “having doubts”, “giving orders” or “making gifts” only take place within a framework of customs that are in turn unquestionably recognized.
Wittgenstein's most concise formulation of this term can be found in his remarks on the philosophy of psychology :
- Instead of the indivisible, specific, indefinable: the fact that we act like this, e.g. punish certain actions, determine the facts like this, give orders, report, describe colors, we are interested in the feelings of others. What is to be accepted, given - one could say - are facts of life / be forms of life /
literature
- Primary literature
- Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations . (= Work edition. Volume 1). Frankfurt 1989. Bes. Part I: §§ 19, 23, 241; Part II, pp. 485, 572.
- Secondary literature
- Nicholas F. Gier: Wittgenstein and Forms of Life. In: Philosophy of the Social Sciences. 10, 1980, pp. 241-252.
- Allan S. Janik, Stephen E. Toulmin: Wittgenstein's Vienna . Munich 1984, ISBN 3-446-13790-4 , pp. 307-311.
- Gerhard Mittelstädt: Forms of Life. In: HWPh . Volume 5, pp. 118-119.
- Jesús Padilla Gálvez , Margit Gaffal (Eds.): Forms of Life and Language Games . de Gruyter, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-032190-6 .
- Jesús Padilla Gálvez, Margit Gaffal (Eds.): Doubtful Certainties. Language Games, Forms of Life, Relativism. 2nd Edition. de Gruyter, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-032192-0 .
Web links
- Rafael Ferber : "Life Form" or "Life Forms". Two addenda to the controversy between N. Garver and R. Haller . (PDF; 440 kB)