Introduction

The expression ‘form of life’ occurs three times in Part I of Philosophical Investigations, and twice in Part II. It is used by Wittgenstein to make a number of points. In PI 23 he introduces it, together with ‘language-game’, to ‘bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life.’ We are not to suppose that the nature of language can be understood in isolation from the activities in which uses of language are embedded. Language is not, as he thought in his earlier work, a system of propositions that ‘picture’ or ‘correspond to’ states of affairs ‘in the world’. The uses of language are various, and they are interwoven with the various activities (‘language-games’, ‘forms of life’) in which human beings are engaged.