In this, my third and (for now) final post about Ludwig Wittgenstein and the liberal arts, I’ll talk about one of his most important contributions to the philosophical study of language: the concept of “family resemblance.” And if ever a philosophical concept radiated relevance across the liberal arts, it’s this one. 

Like a number of my college classmates (and not a few of my relatives) I was a teenage legacy student. Not exactly a werewolf, but close. In fact, I’m a member of the even more incestuous subspecies of double-legacy students. Simply put, around the year 1946 my mother left her wallet in a telephone booth in the college administration building, my father found it, and I was one of the results.

Once considered a “melting pot,” my hometown, the City of New York, is now more of a test tube, and a harbinger of where – for better or worse – the nation is heading.