Form of life () is a term used sparingly by

Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. From 1929 to 1947, Witt ...

in his posthumously published works ''

Philosophical Investigations ''Philosophical Investigations'' () is a work by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, published posthumously in 1953. ''Philosophical Investigations'' is divided into two parts, consisting of what Wittgenstein calls, in the preface, ''Bemer ...

'' (''PI''), ''

On Certainty ''On Certainty'' (, original spelling ) is a philosophical book composed from notes written by Ludwig Wittgenstein over four separate periods in the eighteen months before his death on 29 April 1951. He left his initial notes at the home of Eli ...

'', and parts of his ''Nachlass''. It is a term widely understood to refer to the shared background of human cultural practices, activities, and ways of living that provide the context within which language and meaning operate. Wittgenstein in his ''

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus The ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'' (widely abbreviated and Citation, cited as TLP) is the only book-length philosophical work by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein that was published during his lifetime. The project had a broad goal ...

'' (''TLP'') was concerned with the structure of language, responding to

Gottlob Frege Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (; ; 8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic philos ...

and

Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...

. Later, Wittgenstein found the need to revise the view he held in ''TLP'', because he had not resolved issues concerning

elementary propositions In logic and analytic philosophy, an atomic sentence is a type of declarative sentence which is either true or false (may also be referred to as a proposition, statement or truthbearer) and which cannot be broken down into other simpler sentences ...

. Leading up to a revised view in his ''PI'', Wittgenstein was still concerned with language, but he now focused on how language is used and did not insist that it has an inherent structure or set of rules.

Late Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. From 1929 to 1947, Witt ...

saw language as emerging from human activity. Italian philosopher

Giorgio Agamben Giorgio Agamben ( ; ; born 22 April 1942) is an Italian philosopher best known for his work investigating the concepts of the state of exception, form-of-life (borrowed from Ludwig Wittgenstein) and '' homo sacer''. The concept of biopolitic ...

uses Wittgenstein's concepts in his analysis of the history of Western monasticism in order to rethink "bare life" in contemporary (bio)politics. In ''The Highest Poverty – Monastic Rules and Form-of-Life'' (2013 but originally published in Italian in 2011), he finds earlier versions of form-of-life in monastic rules, developing from 'vita vel regula', 'regula et vita', 'forma vivendi', and 'forma vitae'. Agamben looks at the emerging genre of written rules starting in the 9th century, and its development into both law and something beyond law in the Franciscan form-of-life, in which the Franciscans replaced the idea that we possess our life (or objects generally) with the concept of 'usus', that is 'use'.Giorgio Agamben. ''The Highest Poverty: Monastic Rules and Form-of-Life.'' Translated by Adam Kotsko. Stanford University Press 2013.

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