Form of life - a non-technical term used by Ludwig Wittgenstein in the analytic philosophy and philosophy of language traditions. While the term is often used in various ways by Wittgenstein, it connotes the sociological, historical, linguistic, physiological, and behavioral determinants that comprise the matrix within which a given language has meaning. Comments about a concept are simple, non-controversial, statements of ordinary understanding. Once strung together, however, the remarks illuminate something that is supposedly already understood. This illumination comes about because the human animal engages various forms of life, that vary but agree at the most basic levels.

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