1.1 The world is the totality of facts.
1.11

1.11 is comment on 1.1, and so on.  He claims that knowledge is tentative to the truth, or the facts, and thus that nothing is a priori in and of itself, such as “I think, therefore I am.”  Furthermore, Wittgenstein claims that everything in the world is valueless ? including ethics.  He claims that truth must have the form of “p or not p”.  Ethical claims do not have this form; they all have the form “should be p or should not be p.”  Wittgenstein claims that all true statements must be expressed in a “p or not p” form, thus showing that language is a limit of knowledge.  Knowledge is not an entity that exists outside of objects in themselves as Kant suggested. Our search for absolute truths may just be a reflection of our desire to understand everything perfectly; there may not even be any absolute truths for us to understand.  Even if there were absolute truths, our limitations (such as language) may prevent us from understanding them.
 Philosophical Investigations is a critique of everything presented in Tractatus.  Basically, Wittgenstein claims that his Tractatus was an insufficent description of language, and that nothing everything can be reduced to a “p or not p” form.  For example, his famous example of what a game is clearly shows that language is not as precise as we think it is.  Not every term has a clear and distinct definition.  Thus, the function of language is to serve everyday means, not to give clear and distinct definitions, and every search for knowledge must take this into account.

Heidegger
(1889-1976)
 I do not like Heidegger’s discussion of the meaning of being.  Most of it seemed pointless to me.  However, I do like how he makes clear that we are social beings ? what we do and who we are is strongly influenced by society, family, friends, and everyone we interact with.