ABSTRACT
The Viennese had little inclination to consider the possibilities of change, and the over-ripe era in which Ludwig Wittgenstein grew up did not really end until Austria-Hungary's defeat, in the First World War, and subsequent dismantling. The Southern Kingdom of the Judaeans sought to retain their identity in exile. A culture dies when it has exhausted all of its possibilities. Language is a part of life, and insofar as life changes, language and meaning change too. Though there is nothing in Wittgenstein's, or Oswald Spengler's, comments about culture and civilization to suggest that one of these is less in need of philosophy, the variability of the sorts of epochs makes it quite unlikely that an a priori case could be made for the inevitable need for philosophy. Spengler's account of religion is not all that different from his account of philosophy.
