The Dawn of Aspects: Wittgenstein and the Life of Meaning

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue, The Dawn of Aspects: Wittgenstein and the Life of Meaning, explores the ethical and aesthetic dimensions that run throughout Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophical work—dimensions that have often been overlooked or treated in isolation from the broader arc of his thought. Our goal is to recover the underlying deeper continuity in Wittgenstein’s reflections on how we see, respond to, and dwell in the world, and to consider what this legacy might offer in response to the challenges of our time.

Far from engaging in abstract theorizing, Wittgenstein’s thought opens a space for rethinking philosophical practice as a form of attentiveness to how meaning is lived—emerging not as a fixed structure but as something enacted, negotiated, and renewed in our everyday practices, relationships, and forms of life. His later work, especially on aspect-seeing, gestures toward a kind of ethical–aesthetic responsiveness that speaks directly to contemporary conditions marked by moral uncertainty, perceptual disorientation, and the erosion of shared sensibilities. Rather than approaching Wittgenstein merely as a philosopher of language, this Issue invites contributions that draw on his work to explore the transformation of perception, the expressive dimension of feeling, and the cultivation of ways of inhabiting the world—where meaning is inseparable from how we see, feel, and respond. We welcome essays that engage Wittgenstein in dialogue with aesthetics, ethics, psychoanalysis, education, and the care of the self, and that consider philosophy as a practice of orientation in a fractured world.

Prof. Dr. Victor J. Krebs
Prof. Dr. Gordon Bearn
Dr. Niklas Toivakainen
Guest Editors

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• Wittgenstein
• aspect-seeing
• ethics and aesthetics
• ordinary language
• perception and experience
• care of the self
• form of life
• responsiveness
• feeling and expression
• philosophical practice