Anscombe claims that Wittgenstein is a “philosopher’s philosopher” (‘Wittgenstein: Whose Philosopher?’ published in From Plato to Wittgenstein), in contrast to “an ordinary man’s philosopher”, to which category Aristotle apparently belongs.
Her point is that the ideas to which W. directed his philosophical attention tended to focus on those which only philosophers bother to think about. Together with the fact that many of his comments are hopelessly obscure:
Philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday.
This must be the most irritating comment in the Investigations. Anyway, I disagree with her sentiment and find many salient aspects of his philosophy directly relevant to human life and society (“practical” applications of philosophy, if you will), but it’s undeniable that his work was nevertheless tremendously influential in philosophy philosophy; certainly, at least, in shaping some people’s attitudes toward it.
A relevant comment from Wittgenstein (in Lectures on Philosophical Psychology, pointed out– also– by Shanker):
There was an idea that Newtonian mechanics MUST explain everything; and that it must be founded on principles that, so to say, would be sensible for laws for a Creator to make (Laws of Minimum This, of Conservation That). Why this idea? ‘Because everything pointed to it.’ Everything? No, only everything that they concentrated on. So it isn’t (as Lord Russell might say) that everything points to the existence of a trace of French in the brain; only everything of the things that fill his mental vision.
