Philosophyspeaking topic
“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”
— Ludwig Wittgenstein
hint ✧ If we have no word for something, can we think or experience it? Does language really limit our world?
practice with this topic
Set the timer (5-30 min), take 20 seconds of prep if you like, start talking. Jot your thoughts onto the sticky-note board.
similar topics
- Moore's naturalistic fallacy: is it a mistake to reduce 'good' to pleasure or to what is natural? If 'good' cannot be fully defined by anything else, how do we know it?
- Mutineers on a ship each think 'my one blow won't sink it', and together they sink the ship. If no single person is to blame, who is responsible for the sinking? How does individual innocence add up to collective disaster?
- The grandfather paradox: travel back in time and stop your own grandfather from ever meeting your grandmother, and you are never born; but if you are never born, you cannot go back to stop him. Does this logical loop make time travel impossible from the start?
- The fool pursues the pleasures of life and finds himself their dupe; the wise man avoids its evils.
- Heraclitus says you cannot step into the same river twice, because the water has flowed on. But think again: is it only the river that changes, or is the person stepping in also someone new? Can anyone step into any river even once?