the limits of my language mean the limits of my world
E80231
"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world" is Ludwig Wittgenstein’s famous aphorism expressing his view that our capacity to think, understand, and experience reality is bounded by the structure and scope of our language.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| the limits of my language mean the limits of my world canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T641583 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: the limits of my language mean the limits of my world Context triple: [Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, centralThesis, the limits of my language mean the limits of my world]
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A.
Language and Mind
Language and Mind is a collection of influential essays by Noam Chomsky that explores the nature of language, human cognition, and their implications for philosophy and psychology.
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B.
Treatise on the Origin of Language
Treatise on the Origin of Language is an influential 18th-century philosophical work that explores the natural, cultural, and historical origins of human language.
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C.
Meaning and Necessity
"Meaning and Necessity" is a seminal work in analytic philosophy by Rudolf Carnap that develops a rigorous theory of meaning and modal logic using the framework of semantic analysis.
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D.
The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener
The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener is a collection of essays in which Martin Gardner explores and defends his views on philosophy, religion, and rational inquiry with his characteristic clarity and wit.
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E.
Conversations with Myself
Conversations with Myself is a collection of Nelson Mandela’s personal letters, diaries, and reflections that offers an intimate insight into his life, thoughts, and struggle against apartheid.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: the limits of my language mean the limits of my world Target entity description: "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world" is Ludwig Wittgenstein’s famous aphorism expressing his view that our capacity to think, understand, and experience reality is bounded by the structure and scope of our language.
-
A.
Language and Mind
Language and Mind is a collection of influential essays by Noam Chomsky that explores the nature of language, human cognition, and their implications for philosophy and psychology.
-
B.
Treatise on the Origin of Language
Treatise on the Origin of Language is an influential 18th-century philosophical work that explores the natural, cultural, and historical origins of human language.
-
C.
Meaning and Necessity
"Meaning and Necessity" is a seminal work in analytic philosophy by Rudolf Carnap that develops a rigorous theory of meaning and modal logic using the framework of semantic analysis.
-
D.
The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener
The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener is a collection of essays in which Martin Gardner explores and defends his views on philosophy, religion, and rational inquiry with his characteristic clarity and wit.
-
E.
Conversations with Myself
Conversations with Myself is a collection of Nelson Mandela’s personal letters, diaries, and reflections that offers an intimate insight into his life, thoughts, and struggle against apartheid.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (39)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
philosophical aphorism
ⓘ
quotation ⓘ |
| appearsIn | Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus ⓘ |
| associatedPhilosopher | Ludwig Wittgenstein ⓘ |
| associatedWork | Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus ⓘ |
| author | Ludwig Wittgenstein ⓘ |
| clarifiedBy | Wittgenstein’s distinction between saying and showing ⓘ |
| contextWithinTractatus | part of the discussion of the general form of the proposition ⓘ |
| hasEnglishTranslationVariant | The limits of my language are the limits of my world ⓘ |
| hasInfluenced |
20th-century philosophy of language
ⓘ
discussions of the limits of expression ⓘ later debates on linguistic relativity ⓘ |
| influencedBy |
Bertrand Russell
ⓘ
Gottlob Frege ⓘ logical atomism ⓘ |
| interpretation |
our capacity to think is bounded by the structure of our language
ⓘ
what cannot be expressed in language cannot be meaningfully thought ⓘ |
| languageRoleInContext | logical representation of possible facts ⓘ |
| mainTheme |
limits of thought
ⓘ
linguistic representation of the world ⓘ relation between language and reality ⓘ |
| notableFor | succinct expression of early Wittgenstein’s view of language ⓘ |
| oftenMisinterpretedAs | claim that language completely determines reality ⓘ |
| originalForm | Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt ⓘ |
| originalLanguage | German ⓘ |
| philosophicalField |
epistemology
ⓘ
philosophy of language ⓘ |
| philosophicalTradition | analytic philosophy ⓘ |
| positionInWork |
Tractatus proposition 5.6
ⓘ
linked to:
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
|
| quotationType | aphoristic statement ⓘ |
| relatedConcept |
ineffable
ⓘ
linguistic relativism ⓘ
linked to:
Sapir–Whorf hypothesis
logical form ⓘ picture theory of language ⓘ sayable and unsayable ⓘ |
| relatedWork | Philosophical Investigations ⓘ |
| statusInPhilosophy | widely cited Wittgenstein quotation ⓘ |
| worldDefinitionInContext | totality of facts, not of things ⓘ |
| yearOfPublication | 1921 ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: the limits of my language mean the limits of my world Description of subject: "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world" is Ludwig Wittgenstein’s famous aphorism expressing his view that our capacity to think, understand, and experience reality is bounded by the structure and scope of our language.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
→
centralThesis
→
the limits of my language mean the limits of my world
ⓘ