ABSTRACT
During the period between Ludwig Wittgenstein’s early and late philosophy of language, the Austrian philosopher designed and built a house in Vienna for his sister, Margarethe Stonborough-Wittgenstein. As it is designed by a philosopher of language, the house raises the question of what relation, if any, exists between Wittgenstein’s philosophy and his architecture. While there have been several responses to that question, they often implicitly posit a gap between Wittgenstein’s practice of architecture and his philosophy that this essay argues should not be assumed. By contrast, this essay is premised on the belief that Wittgenstein’s practice of architecture played a critical role in the development of his philosophy of language from its early to late phases. It argues that his grappling with physical and habitable space in the design of the Stonborough-Wittgenstein house showed the restricted spatial logic that underlay his early philosophy of language to be untenable. By countering that logic, practicing architecture introduced a new spatial logic that had a transformative impact on his understanding of how language functions. The impact of this is evident in the specific, spatial way in which Wittgenstein rethinks the philosophy of language in his “Philosophical Investigations.”
