Philosophy and Literature

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations is a prime example of how an intellectual text can simultaneously advance theoretical positions and allude to profound, troubling personal experiences and emotions. And, having—to save his skin—taken up an alien, refugee existence, Wittgenstein was well equipped to call our attention to how there is no language in which we can be ourselves. Language has brought us our feelings. It is in this sense that this paper connects our and Ludwig’s experiences with one that Moses stamped on his son: we are indeed strangers in a strange land.