To talk about a relation of teaching and learning implies, first of all, that it actually makes sense to speak of a concept or term of learning. This, I’d like to contradict by means of my contribution. Speaking of concepts or terms (as for a concept of learning or of teaching) implies a supposed uniformity of a described object which does not meet its complexity. Ever since the linguistic turn and referring to Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, is has been proposed not to speak of concepts and their intents but of uses in language-games. In terms of Educational Philosophy, this inevitably leads to a crucial question: Which are the consequences for an understanding of learning if it is no longer possible to presuppose a consistent definition of its meaning. Taking into consideration the later investigations by Wittgenstein, the following explanations will focus on this very idea. Two aspects will be our main concern: Which role does learning play in the later investigations of Wittgenstein and bearing this in mind, which conclusions may be drawn for learning itself? According to Wittgenstein, the thesis is that the uniformity of the term of learning disintegrates into a multitude of activities that qualifies as learning. These differing activities are linked by family resemblances, i.e. learning is not static, it lacks definite boundaries; its boundaries are, on the contrary, blurred. Along the lines of Wittgenstein’s language-games, activities of learning are nothing else than learning-games, their meanings change as forms of living change. To be bound by multiple forms of Life implicates a flowing change of meanings that is kept going by the activities of the members of a language-game-association. Nevertheless meanings cannot be widened at any order; however they are linked to the contents of what is learned. Therefore, learning is of particular importance in Wittgenstein’s thoughts. Only the fact that man can learn guarantees that a word does not have infinite meanings. People do not just act arbitrarily in the world they are surrounded by but interact and are engaged in it. What is found or learned by these interactions enables man to develop habits – habits characteristic of the particular language-game-association. Though Wittgenstein only rarely mentions it in his investigations, the phenomenon of learning is crucial to separate sense from nonsense, because it marks a point of rest in a temporarily certainty.

From a methodical point of view, the available proposal can be described as a combination of a non-linear approach according to the aphoristically style of Wittgenstein’s notes, with predominantly hermeneutic-interpretative aspects in the descriptive part and systematically-constructive aspects in the final remark.

A systematically key position in Wittgenstein’s conception corresponds to learning by marking the spot on which the apparent arbitrariness of meanings anchors in the use. The contents of what has been learned negate the mode of exchangeability. That means for learning itself, that there is not an ideal core of learning that can be felt out, but only different or in part similar situations which are called ‘learning of something’. Therefore propositions about learning do not wear the character of universal validity but rather of irregular description of the particular learning situation. The term of learning opens out, in an analogical way to the term of language-games: Learning happens in activities. Simultaneously this includes that speaking of ‘learning to learn’ is an illusion of language that sets a concept where phenomena speak for themselves.