Wittgenstein left some nicely quotable statements behind, that people think they understand, when in fact they don't. Like Nietzsche's "God is dead"[1], there i

Wittgenstein left some nicely quotable statements behind, that people think they understand, when in fact they don't. Like Nietzsche's "God is dead"[1], there is a lot more behind the statement than most people know or even suspect. People repeat Wittgenstein's 'conclusion' from his Tractatus, but don't appreciate how much nuance his later publications give to that statement. This is still the trap I was talking about. I'm not moving the goal posts: I'm just asserting that they are further away than most people think. Some people say: "everyone is a philosopher", to which you can reply "indeed, and most are awful ones". Instead of asserting all kinds of things in this essay, pg should have asked a series of constructive questions: if something seems obvious, yet smart people disagree, then perhaps, just perhaps, there is something to learn there. Somewhere with deeper knowledge of the subject could then have pointed to material that explains why it just isn't so simple. That is the bottom line: it just isn't so simple. It is unclear which things 'we cannot speak of', if anything. It is unclear how to make language precise enough to speak of certain things and whether that is possible. Many people have written many things about 'language and truth' and simply majoring in philosophy is just not enough to appreciate the whole of it, like majoring in physics is not enough to understand most Ph.D. theses in physics. It certainly doesn't enable one to conclude that "philosophy is just confusion over language". If only because there are branches of philosophy that investigate that exact question. [1] This is the entire aphorism and the sentences that follow the proclamation of God's death are essential to understanding what Nietzsche is saying. Those who don't know what follows the proclamation don't understand anything about what Nietzsche was saying. First and foremost: he is not (just) talking about the Christian God. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?