Editing Philosophical Investigations (section)

=== Family resemblances ===
{{Main|Family resemblance}}
Why is it that we are sure a particular activity (e.g. [[Olympic Games|Olympic]] target shooting) is a game while a similar activity (e.g. military sharpshooting) is not?{{citation needed|date=November 2018}} Wittgenstein's explanation is tied up with an important analogy. How do we recognise that two people we know are related to one another? We may see similar height, weight, eye colour, hair, nose, mouth, patterns of speech, social or political views, mannerisms, body structure, last names, etc. If we see enough similarities we say we've noticed a [[family resemblance]].<ref>See §&nbsp;66-§&nbsp;71.</ref> This is not always a conscious process—generally we don't catalogue various similarities until we reach a certain threshold; we just intuitively <em>see</em> the resemblances. Wittgenstein suggests that the same is true of language. We are all familiar with enough things that <em>are games</em> and enough things that <em>are not games</em> that we can categorise new activities as either games or not.

This brings us back to Wittgenstein's reliance on indirect communication and on thought-experiments. Some philosophical confusions come about because we aren't able to <em>see</em> family resemblances. We've made a mistake in understanding the vague and intuitive rules that language uses and have thereby tied ourselves up in philosophical knots. He suggests that an attempt to untangle these knots requires more than simple deductive arguments pointing out the problems with some particular position. Instead, Wittgenstein's larger goal is to try to divert us from our philosophical problems long enough to become aware of our intuitive ability to <em>see</em> the family resemblances.