Profound ideas often arise from the most disturbing situations. Ludwig Wittgenstein composed what may be the most influential philosophical work of the twentieth century as a prisoner of war during World War I. His poignant writings included many propositions that clashed with contemporary philosophers of the time, revealing a new perspective from which to consider the study of logic. While colleagues wrestled with the rules governing the logic of semantics, Wittgenstein sought to emphasize the whimsical nature of language. One of Wittgenstein's key points states: “Logic must take care of itself.” He elaborates, explaining that “In a certain sense, we cannot make logical errors.” These statements at first glance seem cryptic. You might wonder whether they contain any meaningful thoughts. These two ideas, however, represent the fundamental difference between Wittgenstein's philosophy and that of his colleagues. According to Wittgenstein, any conceivable name, symbol or designation is logically permissible. Consider, for example, the sentence “Socrates is identical.” Many well-known philosophers, such as Frege and Russell, would argue that this sentence makes no sense because the term “identical” is the wrong kind of symbol for such a sentence structure. Logic requires that the expression “Socrates is” can only be followed by a particular group of symbols. In general, logic is assumed to determine how words can be put together to form a logical thought. Wittgenstein, however, explicitly denies this sentiment. This sentence, according to him, makes no sense not because of a mismatched symbol, but because we have failed to assign any meaning to “identical.” This departure from the antecedent... middle of the paper ......t from the repeated symbol. The key to understanding Wittgenstein's philosophy is to recognize that language itself does not add meaning to sentences: people do. Confusion arises when we assume meanings for words that don't apply, or take meanings for granted when they don't exist at all. Logic, fortunately, does not deal with such confusion. For a symbol or name to be conceivable means that it is logically valid in any context, but the symbol itself has no meaning until we assign one. This is exactly what is meant by the statement: “Logic must take care of itself.” The phrase "Dandelion run cow", as nonsensical as it may seem, makes perfect sense if we define the words to mean "he", "entertains" and "cinema" respectively. This illustrates the ultimate whimsical nature of language and its independence of logical value, a point masterfully made by Wittgenstein.