Introduction
This paper explores certain Wittgensteinian perspectives in my research study in Wholisitic Education. One of the research questions I ponder is, “what are the ends of wholistic education?” In today’s postmodern world, both educational policy-makers and seekers endorse education as an economic good – that which begets a job or helps fashion a career. The All India Council for Technical education relates education to the economy of the country. Such education may make people economically well off, but does it help develop an independent worldview and contribute to truth and gain wisdom? An important end of wholistic education as I conceive of it is “developing a free, responsible and complete human being.” The present paper, drawing upon Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of the Inner and Outer, focuses on language and explores the idea of “complete human being” or in the words of Dr. Jose Nandhikara, “being fully human”.
Complete Human Being
The well-known Cartesian maxim, “I think, therefore I am,” seems to make subjective thought the foundational aspect of being completely human. Descartes said that he could doubt the existence of the external world and even be sceptical of his own body. For Descartes, the only fact he could be certain about, was the fact that he was doing the doubting. In order to doubt the existence of the world, he must exist as a thinking entity. This gave rise to the Cartesian model of the mind where humans have an internal identity that is independent of the world. However, Wittgenstein does not agree. For Wittgenstein, all aspects of the human mind are depen ...