During my recent shallow dive into the deep pool called Wittgensteinian Philosophy, I did find some of his ideas regarding language-games interesting.
Specifically, although I don’t fully accept that all problems of philosophy are problems of language, I do believe quite a few of the misunderstandings within society are misunderstandings of language.
One example: Consider the word “health.” What a patient considers health (perhaps subjectively feeling good) may contrast sharply with what their physician considers health (perhaps minimizing disease risk factors), which may differ from what the insurance company considers health (perhaps a low BMI) and what the healthcare organization considers health (perhaps a low need for resource utilization).
Key point: Before getting into arguments about various topics, it’s helpful to spend some time discussing foundational words, grammars and definitions—just to make sure everyone is playing the same language-game.
Why?
Because if we can’t even agree on definitions, then any further discussion may be a waste of time.