The philosophy of language asks a deceptively simple question: how does language mean? Two foundational contributions shape the field. Frege distinguished between sense and reference: 'the morning star' and 'the evening star' both refer to Venus, but they present it differently — they have different senses. This distinction matters because it shows that meaning is not just aboutwhat words pick out, but how they pick it out. Wittgenstein's later philosophy moved away from the idea that words correspond to objects in the world. Meaning, he argued, is use: words have meaning within 'language games' — practices embedded in forms of life. There is no private language, no purely mental meaning behind public words. Austin extended this by showing that language does not only describe reality — it acts on it. When we promise, warn, or declare, we are not reporting facts but performing actions.

💡 Did you know? Wittgenstein is the only philosopher to have produced two completely different and influential philosophical systems. His early 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus' and his later 'Philosophical Investigations' are both considered masterpieces — and they directly contradict each other.