Piece 1: Wittgenstein

As previously mentioned, Wittgenstein's work is not a blank sheet in the world of philosophy. In this piece, I am by no means presenting a new interpretation of his work. Rather, I want to elaborate on the idea of using Wittgenstein to bridge the infamous gap between theory and practice with a concrete example. How can one actually understand and eventually build tools, instead of adding another piece of the puzzle called “theory”? Part of the answer is what Read (2007) calls a successful “application” of Wittgenstein. He suggests three criteria to differentiate between successfully applying Wittgensteinian and, so-called,  pseudo-applications (Read, 2007, p.135): 
  1. moving beyond exegesis,
  2. extending Wittgenstein’s insights or taking them to domains where he did not particularly focus,
  3. taking in a domain of thought or life that is of some moment beyond the academy
(1) While the exegesis of Wittgenstein might be fruitful and enjoyable undertaking, I am specifically looking for individual, fitting pieces in his work which interconnect with the knowledge discovery system OKM. (2) Modern scholarly communication is technology-driven and the Web 2.0 has fundamentally changed the way humans communicate. Not only did Wittgenstein not focus on the Web 2.0, but the very advent of today's technology might have been unforeseeable for that generation. (3) Well aware of the fact that OKM's main users are academics of all kinds, the project still remains a rather non-academic undertaking that aims to create a piece of technology that provides quick and easy access to scientific knowledge, rather than contributing to the vast projects known as science or philosophy.
According to these three points, I am attempting to sketch a Wittgensteinian framework to build and understand technology, which reaches beyond theory and the academy. Furthermore, and most importantly, Read emphasises the importance of seeking ‘the same kind of thing’ that Wittgenstein tried to do with his work, viz., “puncturing delusions that we are prone to, and helping us to attain peace with regard to our words” (Read, 2007,p.134). Translating this goal into the domain of OKM, i.e. modern scholarly communication, means to create solutions that resolve the delusions and misunderstandings of communication.