Abstract

This dissertation is a structural-developmental study of Wittgenstein and Heidegger which focuses upon issues of ontology, understanding and language. I maintain that the two thinkers share a common problematic, in that both must find an alternative language for philosophy while conceding that ordinary language and the language of positive science largely determine the standards for coherence. Although Wittgenstein and Heidegger understand the task of philosophy quite differently, I contend that there is an important similarity in the problems and issues they encounter, and in the developmental pattern of their respective works. I describe this pattern as a movement from a projective model of understanding, in which understanding and language are grounded upon the affectivity of the self, to a "play" model in which language is ungrounded and ungrounding