Product Description

Product Description
Intent upon letting the reader experience the pleasure and intellectual stimulation in reading these classic authors, the How to Read series provides a context and an explanation that will facilitate and enrich your understanding of texts vital to the canon.Approaching the writing of major intellectuals, artists, and philosophers need no longer be daunting. How to Read is a new sort of introduction--a personal master class in reading--that brings you face to face with the work of some of the most influential and challenging writers in history. In lucid, accessible language, these books explain essential topics such as Wittgenstein's determination to insist on the integrity and the autonomy of nonscientific forms of understanding.

Though Wittgenstein wrote on the same subjects that dominate the work of other analytic philosophers — the nature of logic, the limits of language, the analysis of meaning — he did so in a peculiarly poetic style that separates his work sharply from that of his peers and makes the question of how to read him particularly pertinent.

At the root of Wittgenstein's thought, Monk argues, is a determination to resist the scientism characteristic of our age, a determination to insist on the integrity and the autonomy of non-scientific forms of understanding. The kind of understanding we seek in philosophy, Wittgenstein tried to make clear, is similar to the kind we might seek of a person, a piece of music, or, indeed, of a poem. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Possibly the Best Introduction to Wittgenstein Available
I developed a fascination with Wittgenstein and his work as an Undergrad reading various philosophers who to me, inevitably, seemed to get him wrong. Ray Monk was the first credentialed Wittgenstein expert I came across who seemed to read him correctly. He is that rare author who is able to see both the subject and its history as inextricably linked, and he has the technical expertise to follow Wittgenstein's more logico-mathematical peregrinations as well. So naturally, when this was published, I snatched it up eager to see what Monk had to say about the reading of Uncle Ludwig. I am happy to say I was not disappointed. Monk presents the proper framework for understanding Wittgenstein with customary alacrity and his selections are interesting and clever as an introduction. I now regularly recommend this book to anyone who asks me about Wittgenstein as the best introduction available. This book is an excellent choice for people curious enough to want a rigorous engagement with Wittgenstein's thought that will provide a launchpad for further investigations in the future, and for philosophy Profs teaching Wittgenstein, I would suggest adding this to the recommended supplemental reading for the course along with the usual suspects of Anscombe, McGuinness, and Hacker.

A clear intro to a difficult text.
The insights this book gives on Wittgenstein's text is fascinating. As a lay person who reads a lot of philosophy, I've been in interested in W. for years. But getting grounded in W's ideas was difficult, as the text and explanations on the text were confusing.
But Ray Monk's book changes all that. In it, he clearly leads the reader through the main points of the Tractatus. Monk includes letters and discussions W had with Russell, Moore, Frege to give clarity to the ideas.
I'm reading Monk's book through for the 3rd time, and i learn more each time.

I find it highly ironic (infuriating, actually) that W wrote a book with one theme discussing the need for clarity in writing, and he writes a book that's confusing. I won't discuss some interpreters opinion that W created the confusion in his book as 'proof' of his ideas presented in the book.

I read "Introducing Wittgenstein" by John Heaton 4 years ago, and learned nothing. I threw it away.
Monk's text is clear, with great explanation and references.

Very Useful
The books in this series are aimed at being a explication of the work of their subjects but the format is a little unusual.Each chapter begins with a quotation from important writings of the subject, followed by an gloss of that section.This is the point of departure for general discussions of the subject.This method works well in this book because Wittgenstein wrote little and his published work consists often of rather delphic conclusions.Ray Monk is the author of the best biography of Wittgenstein and presents a very clear and apparently objective interpretation of Wittgenstein's philosophic work.For what it is attempting to do, provide a good introduction to Wittgenstein's difficult thought, this book is excellent. I recommend reading this book in conjunction with Monk's very good biography of Wittgenstein.

Great Guide to a Difficult Thinker
I am interested in philosophy but not a graduate student or academic, so my time and background are limited.This book was very useful in helping me understand a writer who is considered Important but who I have not been able to get any sort of handle on.I remember taking an undergraduate course and having the part on Wittgenstein go right over my head.This book allowed me to go back and read the texts and actually understand them ... a bit; he's still a difficult read.

Not what I'd hoped for
A reviewer of my book, `Concepts: A ProtoTheist Quest for Science-Minded Skeptics,' was critical of my not having cited authors "... such as Hegel, Wittgenstein and Rorty ..." and for not making "... aspect[s] central to postmodern narrative construction ... part of [my] approach." In order to understand what he's taking about, I've since read several books about Wittgenstein and postmodernism. Admittedly, based on my previous readings of scientists who dismiss postmodernism as unscientific, I had not open-mindedly explored purported postmodern authors.

Assuming the texts Monk selected are representative, I can see why Wittgenstein is so difficult to understand -- this English translation of the original German comes across as exceedingly terse and impenetrable. One of my primary interests was in understanding what is meant by `language games' so I was especially attentive to Chapter 8. Again assuming Monk's is an accurate explanation of what Wittgenstein meant by `language games', it seems trivial. It seems like something only a philosopher would appreciate (and reportedly, not all philosophers do). I read the book over a few times and gave it time to gestate but so far I'm not impressed with Wittgenstein's profundity. So I'm sorry to say that I didn't get from the book what I'd hoped for; whether that's Monk's fault, Wittgenstein's or mine, I can't say (unlike the February 23rd reviewer, I've not read Monk's `Duty of Genius').

Monk's final Chapter 11 is on Wittgenstein's later work on `imponderable evidence' and the importance of non-scientific forms of understanding characteristic of the arts. Yet in the half-century since Wittgenstein's death, science has made, and continues to make, inroads into understanding our brain/mind thus illuminating some of the `imponderables' and the powers of our unconscious mind (see my chapters 9 & 10).
... Read more

Product Description
Continuum's Reader's Guides are clear, concise and accessible introductions to classic works of philosophy. Each book explores the major themes, historical and philosophical context and key passages of a major philosophical text, guiding the reader toward a thorough understanding of often demanding material. Ideal for undergraduate students, the guides provide an essential resource for anyone who needs to get to grips with a philosophical text. Wittgenstein's "Tractatus" - the only book he actually published within his lifetime - was an immensely important work, which changed the direction of philosophy in the first half of the twentieth century. Highlighting the importance of the nature of language in philosophy and the problematic nature of metaphysics, it strongly influenced the work of Russell, the Vienna Circle and A. J. Ayer. An understanding of the ideas in the "Tractatus" is essential to fully grasp Wittgenstein's remarkable thought. In "Wittgenstein's 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus': A Reader's Guide", Roger White provides a thorough account of the philosophical and historical context of Wittgenstein's work.The book provides a detailed outline of the themes and structure of the text, guiding the reader towards a thorough understanding of this remarkable text. White goes on to explore the reception and influence of the work and offers a detailed guide to further reading. This is the ideal companion to study of this hugely important philosophical work. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

very helpful
I'm studying Wittgenstein for my doctoral comps (in philosophy), and I must say, not only is this book extremely clear and helpful, it might be the best secondary source on Wittgenstein that I've read.The author stays even-handed and open about his premises, expositing the text with brilliance and clarity. ... Read more

Product Description
Published in 1953, Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations had a deeply unsettling effect upon our most basic philosophical ideas concerning thought, sensation, and language. Its claim that philosophical questions of meaning necessitate a close analysis of the way we use language continues to influence Anglo-American philosophy today. However, its compressed and dialogic prose is not always easy to follow. This collection of essays deepens but also challenges our understanding of the work's major themes, such as the connection between meaning and use, the nature of concepts, thought and intentionality, and language games. Bringing together leading philosophers and Wittgenstein scholars, it offers a genuinely critical approach, developing new perspectives and demonstrating Wittgenstein's relevance for contemporary philosophy. This volume will appeal to readers interested in the later Wittgenstein, in addition to those interested in the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mind, metaphysics and epistemology. ... Read more

Product Description
Published to widespread acclaim between 1980 and 1996, the monumental four- volume Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations has become the definitive reference work on Wittgenstein’s masterpiece. This revised edition of Volume I, Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning, which itself comprises two parts (‘Essays’ and ‘Exegesis §§1–184’), takes into account much material that was unavailable when the first edition was written. Following G.P. Baker’s death in 2002, P.M.S. Hacker has thoroughly revised both parts, rewriting many sections completely and often proposing fresh interpretations. Part I: Essays now includes two new essays: ‘Meaning and Use’ and ‘The Recantation of a Metaphysician’, while Part II: Exegesis §§1–184 has been exhaustively reworked in the light of the electronic publication of Wittgenstein’s Nachlass. These revisions will ensure that this remains the essential reference work on the Philosophical Investigations for the foreseeable future. ... Read more

Product Description
The New Wittgenstein offers a major reevaluation of Wittgenstein's thinking. This stellar collection of original essays by the "third wave" of Wittgenstein critics presents a significantly different portrait of the philosopher, not as a proponent of metaphysical theories but as an advocate of philosophy as therapy--a means of helping us grasp the essence of thought and language by attending to our everyday forms of expression. Boldly criticizing standard interpretations and offering unorthodox perspectives, these controversial essays will change the way we look at Wittgenstein's entire body of work.

Contributors: Stanley Cavell, David Cerbone, James Conant, Alice Crary, Cora Diamond, David Finkelstein, Juliette Floyd, P.M.S. Hacker, John McDowell, Hilary Putnam, Rupert Read, Martin Stone, Edward Witherspoon. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Mostly mediocre articles on our greatest psychologist
Ludwig Wittgenstein is the most famous philosopher of modern times but very few understand his pioneering work and there has been a collective amnesia regarding him in recent decades. Most of the essays are new but some date as far back as 1979 and whether they give a new view of his ideas depends on one's understanding of what he said.For me, the interpretations are not new and mostly just as confused as nearly all the other commentary on W and on human behavior throughout the behavioral sciences and by the general public. As usual, nobody seems to grasp that philosophy is armchair psychology, and that W was (in my view) the greatest natural psychologist of all time.He laid out the general structure of how the mind works, which is often referred to as intentionality and is roughly equivalent to cognition or personality or thinking and willing or higher order thought (HOT). He can thus be regarded as a pioneer in evolutionary psychology, although hardly anyone but me seems to realize it. W was thus nearly 50 years ahead of his time as the first to reject (though not entirely consistently) the blank slate or cultural view of human nature, though this has gone unrecognized and he has generally been interpreted as supporting a communal consensus view of psychology--exactly the opposite of his overall thrust (eg., see Short's comment on p 115).

As always in philosophical writing, it is quite striking that nobody (in my view) fully grasps what W was doing and noone to this day has succeeded (and few even try) to follow his Socratic method with constant recourse to perspicuous examples of our psychological functioning.

His wholly novel ideas and unique style and telegraphic writing, coupled with his often solitary, almost solipsistic lifestyle, and premature death in 1951, resulted in a failure to publish anything of his later thought during his lifetime and only slowly has his huge nachlass of some 20,000 pages been published- a project which continues to this day. The only complete edition of the largely German nachlass was first issued by Oxford in 2000 with Intelex now publishing it, as well as all the 14 Blackwell English language books on a searchable CD. The Blackwell CD costs ca. $100 but the Oxford CD is over $1000 or over $2000 for the set including the images of the original manuscripts. They can however be obtained via interlibrary loan and also, like countless other volumes in behavioral science, at even lower cost on p2p. One reason I mention this is that, though most of his best work has now been translated and published in English, it is useful and often indispensable to consider his German remarks in the nachlass and few scholars are up to it. Editing and translating of his work by his executors has also been less than perfect and capturing the precise meaning of the original German is a huge problem as several authors here note (eg, the need in many passages to translate "darstellung" as an action and not as a disposition (propositional attitude)--one of many distinctions W was the first to elucidate.One can get a graphic view of this by looking at Victor Rodych's two revelatory articles (the first without and the latter with the benefit of the nachlass) on W and Godel in the journal Minds and Machines. Interested readers may wish to consult my other reviews of W books and that of Hofstadter's "I Am A Strange Loop".

It is well known that W dramatically altered his views beginning in 1929 and by the mid 30's essentially totally rejected his prior work, including the famous Tractatus.However, the Tractatus continues to fascinate and several of the current authors (Diamond, Conant) follow a long tradition in trying to explain just what he meant and how this changed or did not in his later work.For me, the only value in this is to see how early in his life (ca 1914) he began to express the germs of his later understanding of human psychology.On this issue I think Hacker's final essay here is definitive. His affirmative answer to "Was he trying to whistle it?" indicates that W of the Tractatus was trying to describe what he so famously insisted could not be said but only shown.Hacker (along witheveryone else on the planet) does not seem to realize that this meant that W was trying to describe the functioning of the axioms of our innate evolutionary psychology by giving examples from our everyday use of language (ie, from our thought), but he does a beautiful job of refuting Diamond and Conant's views in their essays here, and many others elsewhere, and provides chapter and verse for this view.See eg, various comments on pg 360,363, 372, 373, 376-81 for W's clear references to our innate and unquestionable (ie denying our axioms lacks sense) intentionality. Hacker puts an end (one hopes) to the view that W was actually writing Kierkegaardian nonsense.

Crary's introductory essay is tolerable, but makes a grotesque understatement on p3 when she states that there is "something essentially unsatisfactory" about the view that W supported the idea that there is "no such thing as fully objective agreement."In fact such a view is utterly mistaken, as is amply demonstrable throughout his latter writings in which he shows that our normal behavior is the very definition of objective agreement and it's denial is incoherent (see eg. his last work "On Certainty").

Cavell was one of the first to begin to penetrate deeply into W and his typically brilliant essay (reprinted from 1979) almost gets to the core of the matter, but he tends to get rather more florid and poetic than I think useful, and just does not quite get that W was laying out the structure of our evolved EP.Of course he can be forgiven as nobody else does either.

McDowell's essay from 1981 is quite dated and severely hampered by his rather opaque style, but has some good points, in spite of the expected oblivion to W's defining the modern study of innate intentional psychology.

I find Finkelstein's article on W and Platonism to be excellent and agree that Kripke and Wright are wrong and McDowell and Tait are right about this. Though neither he nor anyone I have read sees it this way, it seems to me very useful to view Plato's Ideals as our cognitive modules programmed by our genes.No term will be perfect, but if we have to label W's views, then I agree with Finkelstein and McDowell that "naturalistic Platonist" get pretty close. Certainly he dealt the death blow to the idea that an interpretation is required to follow a rule.

Read's comments on word meanings seems unexceptionable but the writing is horrific (ie, more or less standard philosophy).

Stone on W on Deconstruction has its moments but for me Decon and Derrida are an utter waste of time and it is comical how he tends to lapse into the typical Decon word salad (I first typed "world salad", which seems apt as well) when he discusses Derrida.Again we find Kripke's bizarre skeptical interpretation of W discussed and rejected. In spite of occasional lapses, it is clear as crystal that W rejected the blank slate community consensus view in favor of his novel innate axiomatic description of our psychology. Meaning is normative because it's innate, automatic and invisible and not subject to interpretation--a word W reserves for "the substitution of one expression of the rule for another."(p100). Neither Kripke nor Derrida gets the point since (like nearly everyone) they are hopelessly ensnared in the blank slate defaults when trying to explain behavior.

Crary's essay on W and political thought is clever but standard blank slate again and so hopeless. Politics, like all of culture, is a slight extension of our evolutionary psychology which demonstrates the ineluctable dominance of nature over nurture and W's contribution was to point this out, though usually indirectly.

Putnam's "Rethinking Mathematical Necessity" shows that by 1994 he had begun to understand W, but even so it's a big advance over his earlier work.

Floyd on W and mathematical philosophy is pretty good stuff, but does not grasp the overall picture of W as an evolutionary psychologist and math as a slight extension of our intuitive psychology. There is no boundary between math and the rest of our intentionality and W interleaved math examples throughout his work.Many of his most incisive revelations on our psychological functions and the relation of language to the world he demonstrated with mathematics or geometry.Floyd gives a good discussion of W's example of trisecting the angle which requires that we carefully examine the operation of disposition words like think, doubt, imagine, believe, know, decide and realize they depict actions or potential for actions and not mental states, as W first pointed out in the 1930's. But in this case, as in all cases (ie, all of language and philosophy) this is only the beginning of what W shows us and we need to realize that "question", "answer", "mathematics", "proof", "equation", etc., the various uses of which comprise complex language games (concepts or cognitive modules or groups of them) which often have little or NOTHING in common except that they are all included in our psychology (our form of life as he liked to say,) but this all operates invisibly and automatically in our subterranean psychology and thus is overlooked by virtually everyone including, incredibly, nearly all philosophers (even specialists on W), as this book also sadly illustrates.To Floyd's great credit, she gets it mostly right and the book is worth buying just for her article! Those intrigued by mathematical avenues into intentional psychology, as well as a general view of W might find a few things of interest in my comments on W and Godel in the Hofstadter review.

Diamond wastes her article on W by spending most of it discussing such items of philosophical esoterica as what the Tractatus implied regarding Russell's work, which is probably one of the least interesting ways to investigate human behavior.

Cerbone likewise expends his energies mostly on the historical aspects of W's relation to Frege, though he does make some good points about the limits of sense along the way (eg, that the language games W proposed often would require a substantial remodeling of our psyche to work).Sadly and almost inevitably (ie, oblivion to how our mind works is another of the hundreds of universals of our EP) he seems to evince no real grasp that it was his insights into our evolutionary psychology that gave such power to W's work, that these innate axioms (or concepts or cognitive modules) provide our "conceptual skin"(p308), is not clear that T and F do not apply to logic and math in the same sense as to empirical facts and that they are extensions of limited parts of our psychology, and that if we have a reasonable test for "illogical" then this term definitely characterizes much of our behavior.But a reasonably stimulating read nonetheless.

Witherspoon's article on W and Carnap ( member of the Vienna circle and the only person W ever accused of plagiarism) leaves me cold, as he has no insight at all into the workings of the mind, although he uses (abuses) lots of the right words--"logical syntax", "linguistic framework," "grammar."Yes, he is certainly right that we often misunderstand W, but the really important point is that we ought to understand behavior. He justly gives attention to W's last work "On Certainty" which some regard as his best (though he was dying of prostate cancer at the time and was often barely able to work) and seems on the way to becoming (with TLP and PI) his most famous (eg, see the two recent books by Daniele Moyal-Sharrock).But, he wastes his time on vague theorizing about "quasiunderstanding" rather than explicating the depths of our intentional psychology, so beautifully laid out by W.

Those who wish to have a more conventional (but in my view typically confused-- in spite of some good points) review of this volume may consult Philosophical Investigations 24:2 p185-92(2001).

Exciting Philosophy
This is one of the more important recent books on Wittgenstein.I daresay that it is one of the most exciting and interesting texts since McDowell's Mind and World.

The most interesting and pertinent articles are by Cavell (who is often unclear but is otherwise here), McDowell (Non-Cognitivism and Rule-Following, which is also in his Mind, Value...anthology), Conant, Putnam (on mathematical necessity--so good--he's soon to have a new book released [UW lectures] by Columbia UP), J. Floyd (on math), and C. Diamond (esp. the article on the PL Arg. in the Tractatus).

This is a very exciting anthology.I highly recommend it.

I also recommend: Wittgenstein in America (Oxford UP) and Smith, Reading McDowell.

Proof that Wittgenstein's work has not yet been exhausted
Ms. Crary and Mr. Read have compiled texts from unorthodox philosophers young and old, who take Wittgenstein's statement '...Our investigation gains its importance from what it destroys' seriously, without giving way to uncompromising (& incomprehensible) forms of skepticism and relativism. However, that is not to say they do not take skepticism seriously or even believe that it must inevitably appear as an inherent part of philosophical discourse. Skepticism appears, rather, in almost all of these texts as both an impetus and impediment, in need of philosophical treatment. They see the need of destruction in light of the need of discourse, of creation, & if not in light of 'theory' (per se) in light of (textual) investigation. To this end, many of the essays re-examine the Tractatus in terms of W.'s later work, e.g. in the Investigations; they attempt to draw out certain similarities that have been covered up by the forthright assumption that the later work is only a critique of the earlier stuff.

Crary herself was a student of John McDowell at Pittsburgh, who is represented here with his beautiful treatment of non-cognitivism ('Non-cognitivism and rule-following'); followed by Cavell with a text on language learning; followed by Crary with a text on Political Philosophy, by Conant & Diamond with texts on the Tractatus and the Private-Language Argument respectively, etc. Finally, in the role of defendant is a text by P.M.S Hacker representing a more orthodox Wittgenstein - a Wittgenstein in an outright battle against the threat of Skepticism. -dg ... Read more

Product Description
Wittgenstein made use of his insights into the nature and powers of language to search out the source of conceptual confusions in the foundations of mathematics and in the philosophy of psychology. Once he has established the use account of language, his Philosophical Investigations opens out into an extensive coverage of psychological phenomena and the concepts with which we identify and manage them. In this book Harre and Tissaw display Wittgenstein's analysis of the 'grammar' of the most important of these concepts in a systematic and accessible way. Previous studies of the psychological aspects of Wittgenstein's writings, admirable as exegeses of his thought, have paid little attention to the relevant psychology. Here, the 'adjacent' theories and empirical investigations from mainstream psychology have been described in sufficient detail to show how Wittgenstein's work impinges on psychology as it has actually been practised. In using this book, philosophers will be able to get a sense of the relevance of Wittgenstein's philosophical psychology to the development of psychology as a science.Psychologists will be able to see how to use Wittgenstein's insights to enrich and discipline their attempts to gain an understanding of human thinking, feeling, acting and perceiving, the domain of psychology as science. The book includes an historical overview of the sources of Wittgenstein's philosophy in the Vienna of the last years of Austro-Hungary, as well as a brief presentation of the main themes of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus as it anticipated computational models of cognition. Student use is emphasized with frequent summaries and self-test questionnaires. ... Read more

Product Description
Zettel, an en face bilingual edition, collects fragments from Wittgenstein's work between 1929 and 1948 on issues of the mind, mathematics, and language. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Ludwig and the Edge of Reason
Wittgenstein's "Zettel" is an underrated masterpiece. It has, in embryo, the ideas that would be more clearly formulated in the Philosophical Investigations. While Wittgenstein comes across as cold and intimidating, he is TRULY HUMAN. He says, "A poet's words can pierce us" and "soulful expression in music-this cannot be recognized in rules." He understood, as all truly human philosophers do, that the human experience transcends propriety, rules, and language itself. Wittgenstein doesn't deny the existence of feelings;he discusses fear, grief, and pain.One of his most powerful lines is, "Love is not a feeling. Love is put to the test, pain not. One does not say 'That was not true pain, or it would not have gone off so quickly.'" Wittgenstein wasn't without empathy either--in (548) he discusses empathy and the concept of another's pain.

One could argue that Wittgenstein is arguing nihilistically for the end of philosophy, and an end to emotions--when that is not the case. He has been tragically misinterpreted. He is discussing language, belief, and the human experience (especially emotions) "Zettel" is a perfect companion for Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and the Philosophical Investigations. One might also want to check out the only art film on this great 20th century philosopher by the late, great Derek Jarman Wittgenstein (Special Edition)

Consumate questions -- the edge of meaning
Keeping in mind that the early Wittgenstein intended to express everything clearly that could be said, though the most important things could not be said, they could only be shown, this book is a marvelous collection of just the sort of questions I suppose led him to change his mind. Each is thoughtful and leads no where -- which is precisely the point.

Buy This Book First
Before you buy one of the books on Wittgenstein's thought about philosophical psychology, buy the Philosophical Investigations and Zettel.Most of the notes in these other "books" are alternate workingsof thoughts already expressed in better form in the Investigations and thisvolume. ... Read more

Product Description
This book comprises material on colour which was written by Wittgenstein in the last eighteen months of his life. It is one of the few documents which shows him concentratedly at work on a single philosophical issue. The principal theme is the features of different colours, of different kinds of colour (metallic colour, the colours of flames, etc.) and of luminosity--a theme whichWittgenstein treats in such a way as to destroy the traditional idea that colour is a simple and logically uniform kind of thing.
This edition consists of Wittgenstein's basic German text, together with an English translation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Color as a Way in to Discuss the Status of Concepts
I've had this book for so long (without ever having read it) that the price on it is $2.95.So it's an earlier edition than the one here.

Color had at one time been a kind of standard philosophical topic. The empiricists had deemed color a "secondary quality" of objects, something that arises and is dependent on our perceptual interaction with objects rather than a "primary" quality of objects themselves.Goethe's Theory of Color, in the context of advances in optical theory, had provoked the question of how physical explanations of color relate to the experience of color.

What especially interests Wittgenstein is what always interests him -- what is the status of our color concepts?Is the fact that white is not included among the primary colors, or that we never speak of "bluish yellow" reflective of facts in the world, or are they more like the logic of our linguistic behavior?If the latter, are they changeable? The Remarks on Color come from the same time as the remarks in On Certainty, just before Wittgenstein's death from prostate cancer.Those questions about the grounding of apparently empirical statements were very much on his mind.

One of the discussions reading the book stimulated for me goes against the idea that precision is a requirement for "understanding" or for competence, as if the application of concepts (like our color concepts) were governed by rules held up against our experience of reality.People are generally very competent at telling the colors of objects, but very few could give you definitions of colors or say precisely where one color ends and another begins.And even the definitions and boundaries that some could give would be questionable.Defining a color in terms of a wavelength of light, for example hardly captures what is meant by the color.Pointing to a spot along a spectrum and saying, "Here is where orange ends and yellow begins" will always seem declarative, not factual.

Surely some of this is what the empiricist philosophers were getting at by treating color as a "secondary quality" of objects .But it won't do just to say that, well, color is an imprecise thing because it isn't completely objective.Other qualities -- hardness, softness, slickness, . . . we operate confidently with all of these but we can't set boundaries to them or recite confident definitions.

All of this has to do with a kind of autonomy of speech, something overdone in the postmoderns, maybe, but valid nevertheless.The application of terms (or better maybe, the practice of language) isn't bound by objects and their properties in any simple way.

But then some (thank God, only some) will see all of this as a "problem" -- confusion, disorder, imprecision, lack of clarity.And they will propose to solve the problem with precise definitions and strict boundaries.Such things, they say, are needed for clarity and accuracy in our concepts.All that precision and clarity are really needed only in extraordinary circumstances, as when a painter color-matches paints.The extraordinary circumstances don't reveal a flaw in the ordinary circumstances.

Worse yet, others (like traditional AI researchers) will say that, whether we can articulate it or not, we do have an implicit, precise understanding of what colors are and where one color stops and another begins.It's as though it must be that way because they can only imagine it that way.Failures of the imagination are hardly the key to truth.

Wittgenstein also discusses color-blindness, and since I am color-blind, I always get caught up by the topic -- peoplewho are curious about color-blindness often ask me "what do you see?" as if that were a question I could make sense of in a way that would make them understand something.Suppose I ask them "What do you see?"They say, "I see red."So do I . . . when I see red.

Here's one way to explain it, maybe.Suppose you are sitting with an artist, one with a great sensitivity to colors, and you have a bunch of red color samples in front of you.The artist sees many different reds, while you see red in each one.To you they just seem so close together as to be indistinguishable.To her, they seem different.Then imagine it's you and me sitting in front of the color samples, but this time they aren't all red.To you, they seem different.To me, they don't.It's not a matter of seeing something different from color-sighted people; it's a matter of not seeing distinctions that others see, just as you don't see distinctions that the artist sees.Don't know if that works, but . . . wth.

Wittgensteinian stream of consciousness on aspects of color
This is not a polished, coherent work but simply, as the title suggests, collected scattered thoughts, questions and observations on color. Wittgenstein is most interested in issues of clarity, purity, transparency, luminosity, muddiness, mixing and shading of colors. Also in the nature of individual colors, such as brown, which can't be "pure" and is not a rainbow color; in how white and black, light and shadow can affect colors; and in the nature of being sighted, blind and colorblind. He mentions a game in which one would arrange shades of a color with differing amounts of another color mixed in, e.g. "reddish green".

The book is quite repetitive and very out of date - there are many things that physics at its current level of development could have clarified for W. One interesting bit: W says that people on the street often took him to be blind, which I guess one can sort of see in his gaze in the cover portrait of him.

The edition featured here, like the Basil Blackwell one I read (I think the content is the same; the translators are Linda L. McAlister and Margarete Schättle), is a German-English bilingual edition, a definite convenience, since I could always look back on the original German when either the English was ambiguous, or there was some unusual term for which I wondered what the German was. The English translation is overall very well done and faithful to the original. I finished the whole book since it is short and I am interested in color theory, but I can't say I really recommend the book unless you're a die-hard Wittgenstein fan. I haven't read much W, and this book has not succeeded in motivating me to try anything else by him for now.

Unfair to Goethe, Witty disappointingly missed Schopenhauer
**** - Four Stars, and not two as shown above.

--Remarks on Colour-- is the last fruit of one of the greatest intellectuals of the XXth century. It is a book that allows a most clear view of how intuitively brilliant Wittgenstein is; but in more than one sense, it is disappointing. Above all because he writes it largely on the shoulders of Goethe's --Farbenlehre-- and Runge's observations, without dedicating a single comment to him who has been increasingly disclosed as his mentor and master of youth: the unsurpassed creature of insight named Schopenhauer.

As a whole, Wittgenstein's book can be considered a bundle of topic additions and observations to the Farbenlehre. As everything he wrote, it is extremely sharp and illuminating, indeed of inestimable value. However, it lacks what Goethe's readers would be expecting to see: a personal position on those which were Goethe's main aims; firstly, the critique of Newton's famous spectrum of colors: two centuries ago, Goethe brilliantly challenged the Newtonian notion, still held in utmost esteem in our days, that white is composed by a melange of seven colors through a prism. Secondly, an appreciation of Goethe's attempt to postulate what he intuited as the original phenomenon, Urphaenomen, without being able to explain why: colors complement each other qualitatively in pairs - the most important examples would be orange and blue; yellow and violet; and, above all else, green and red.

Wittgenstein is also unfair to Goethe: criticizes him for not having presented a finished theory (III, 125) as if he had ambitioned that; whereas Goethe expressly states in his work that what he has to offer is but "Data zu einer Theorie der Farben". In fact, to translate --Farbenlehre-- in any language as "Theory" of Colors would be a similar mistake. The gap between Goethe's objective observations and subjective self-awareness is bridged precisely by Schopenhauer's treatise of 1816, --On Vision and Colors--, an attempt to account for the subjective forms of colours; Wittgenstein does not mention it once.

Maybe one could, very scholarly speaking, call this a case of bad bibliographical review by a genius thinker. For --Remarks on Colour-- does bring the impression that Wittgenstein did not really know Schopenhauer's treatise at all. But this can only bring astonishment to the reader: the same astonishment that arises when one sees how unnoticed the book has slipped through almost 200 years; for example by Rudolf Steiner, the brilliant thinker who prepared and commented the intents of Goethe in the present edition of the Farbenlehre (3 vols. Verlag Freies Geistesleben). In the case of Wittgenstein, this is especially striking when one considers how much he dwelled with the philosopher's works as he prepared his earlier projects, particularly as the Tractatus was written (a good account can be found at Bryan Magee's --Philosophy of Schopenhauer--, 2nd. ed.). Had Wittgenstein read --On Vision and Colors--, things would have been a lot different, and maybe this entire book would have followed a completely alternate path, since it would have to rise up to the task of judging the treatise of 1816. A sad instance of his neglect can be seen when, at page III-26, Wittgenstein makes comments which he does believe are quite decisive and original, and which would be indeed, had Schopenhauer not already explained why. Witty writes: "Blue and yellow, as well as red and green, seem to me to be opposites - but perhaps that is simply because I am used to seeing them at opposite points on the colour circle". It is something to be truly mourned that a man with such a marvelous intuitive grasp of this fact has missed the chance to meditate the theory that seeks to account for his perceptions. Because they bring no novelty to whomever has had the chance to read Schopenhauer's thoughts of why colors are qualitatively complementary.

At the end, the general impression that remains is that, theoretically, Wittgenstein's comments about colors stand one step below Schopenhauer's treatise, corroborating and indeed confirming it; exactly in the same way in which the --Tractatus-- stands one step below the --Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason--, corroborating and confirming it; and, likewise, not mentioning it.

Schopenhauer's treatise has been for many years out of print in English. Shouldering and even surpassing the Farbenlehre, it is perhaps the most important but, at once, the least read human study of the borderline where philosophy and physiology meet. Which is where Wittgenstein also stands with this little red book, so acclaimed by his own fans. ... Read more

Product Description
David Stern examines Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations in this new introduction to a classic philosophical text, paying particular attention to the arguments of the Investigations as well as the way in which the work is written, especially the role of dialogue. While he concentrates on helping readers interpret the primary text, he also provides guidance to the unusually wide range of existing interpretations, and why they have inspired such a diversity of readings. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Excellent Guide to Reading Wittgenstein
I don't have too much to add to Taylor's review.Reading Wittgenstein is notoriously difficult.As with Wittgenstein, and so much of philosophy, the more you reread Stern's book the more you will get out of it.There is a lot of really good guidance on how to approach the Philosophical Investigations.

I would modify Taylor's review a bit by saying that Stern emphasizes the tension in Wittgenstein between the Pyrrhonian and non-Pyrrhonian.That is, while Wittgenstein seems to be driven to understand and remove philosophical confusion, etc., he is also continually being seduced by philosophy and its problems.Philosophy is very much a struggle for Wittgenstein and Stern addresses this issue directly.

Another helpful thing that Stern does is to distinguish between three different voices in the Investigations as opposed to the usual two, namely, Wittgenstein and his interlocutor.Stern argues that there is Wittgenstein's narrator, an interlocutory voice, and a third voice, a commentator, who "provides an ironic commentary on [the exchanges of the narrator and interlocutory voice], a commentary consisting partly of objections to assumptions the debaters take for granted, and partly of platitudes about language and everyday life they have both overlooked" (Stern, 2004, p22). According to Stern, none of the voices can unproblematically be taken as Wittgenstein's own, though what he calls the narrator and the commentator voices are typically taken by other writers to express Wittgenstein's own views (by contrast, Stern understands the commentator to come closest to Wittgenstein's own views) (Stern, 2004, pp.22-23).

While I have certain disagreements with Stern, he is very much on top of Wittgenstein's material and brings much needed clarity and insight to a literature filled with many one-sided Wittgensteins.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

An excellent but demanding introduction
There are plenty of books about Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations currently on the market, but this is among the best.David Stern has achieved a remarkable feat of combining a clear and cogent explanation of Wittgenstein's ideas with a discussion of a large part of the leading secondary literature, and all within the space of 200 pages.

Central to Stern's approach to Wittgenstein's text is the contrast between what he calls a "Pyrrhonian" and "non-Pyrrhonian" interpretation (a distinction he takes from Robert Fogelin's Pyrrhonian reflections on knowledge and justification (Oxford University Press, 1994)).The Pyrrhonian interpretation is sceptical about all philosophical claims; it aims to prevent philosophy from getting started in the first place by dissolving the questions that lead to philosophical speculation.By contrast, a non-Pyrrhonian interpretation of Wittgenstein attributes to him specific philosophical theses: his aim, on this account, is not to put an end to philosophy, but to do philosophy better.Most of the standard introductions and commentaries (including Baker and Hacker's multi-volume Analytic Commentary) adopt a non-Pyrrhonian interpretation, but this is hard to reconcile with Wittgenstein's own professed statements about putting an end to philosophy.Stern reads the Philosophical Investigations as a dialogue between several different voices in the course of which Wittgenstein exposes the temptations that lead to philosophical theorising. In so doing he makes a compelling case for the Pyrrhonian reading.

One word of warning for potential readers. Although described as an "Introduction", and intended for the undergraduate market, the book is philosophically quite advanced and requires some familiarity with both Wittgenstein's text and the relevant secondary literature to be fully appreciated. That said, Stern's book can be highly recommended as a guide to Wittgenstein's later philosophy.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Revealing on many levels...
This is a truly incredible volume of recollections from five individuals who knew Wittgenstein in one capacity or another, giving the reader a new perspective or human side to a philosopher that is shrouded in misunderstanding and myth. On the surface, the text does not comment on Wittgenstein's philosophy as such, however, from these recollections and conversations, if one reads between the lines, so to speak, gains a possible unique access point into the philosopher's thought processes, revealing a religious and somewhat mystical Wittgenstein, a man deeply concerned about his fellow man and the conditions of the modern world.

The recollections begin with his older sister's memoir, Hermine Wittgenstein, and her view of her little brother shows nothing less than admiration, her genuine concern for his well being and acute observations about his incredible capacity for work and his constant striving for perfection in himself and in everything he attempted. At the outset of WW1, Wittgenstein was not medically fit for service, thus he volunteered, placing himself, as the war progressed, closer and closer to the front lines. She found it humorous that the military authorities believed Wittgenstein to be avoiding battle, when in fact he wanted to put himself squarely in the middle of it. In the end he succeeded, and won medals for bravery and the admiration from his fellow soldiers. Hermine's recollections of Wittgenstein designing and building her sisters famous house in Vienna, reveals again, the razor sharp thought and perfection of the philosopher, as the house, architecturally, was truly an example of modern style that was spawned and flourished in Germany and throughout Europe after the war.

The famous literary critic and teacher, F.R. Leavis, writes an anecdotal piece that reveals Wittgenstein's "single-mindedness" and genius on many levels. As many people who knew the philosopher would testify, Wittgenstein rarely conversed philosophy but lectured, sometimes for hours, never letting anyone else get a word in edgewise. Leavis's dislike for Bertrand Russel is no secret, however it becomes even more than clear when he illustrates Wittgenstein and Russel's differences in personality, one striving for selflessness and the other immortality.

The most revealing of all the recollections would have to be M.O'C. Drury, a student and life long friend of the philosopher who was present at his death at Cambridge. Drury would immediately, after spending anytime with Wittgenstein, return to his rooms and write down, as best he could, the subject of their discussion. He continued this habit over many years, which shows Wittgenstein's value of the truth, his views on music, and the constant struggle with his writing. I would have to admit that Dr. Drury's recollections are the clearest and better written of the entire group. Conversely, Rush Rhee's "Postscript" is an exceptional analysis of Wittgenstein's struggle with self-deception and his Jewishness.

This is a fine volume and the type of memoir that one can return to time and again and find new perspectives on the philosopher.

Excellent.
... Read more

Product Description
This revised edition of Sir Anthony Kenny’s classic work on Wittgenstein contains a new introduction which covers developments in Wittgenstein scholarship since the book was first published.

• Widely praised for providing a lucid and historically informed account of Wittgenstein’s core philosophical concerns.
  
• Demonstrates the continuity between Wittgenstein’s early and later writings.
  
• Provides a persuasive argument for the unity of Wittgenstein’s thought.
  
• Kenny also assesses Wittgenstein’s influence in the latter part of the twentieth century.

Customer Reviews (2)

Incredibly confusing
I don't know why anyone would think that this book is "clear" or good for beginners. I'm taking a class on Wittgenstein where we've had to read a couple of chapters of this, and every page is a struggle. Maybe I'm just dense, but Kenny chooses to focus on all the wrong things in setting up the background to Wittgenstein's thought in the work of Frege and Russell... he spends an unnecessary amount of time on how Frege tried to reduce arithmetic to logic (which is not really Wittgenstein's focus), but meanwhile spends only a paragraph or two on Russell's theory of types. For another example, the explanation of of the critical concept of the distinction between "saying" and "showing" in chapter 3 is incredibly difficult to understand in Kenny's account of it, when really, once one figures it out, it is straightforward in my opinion. But I had to consult a number of other sources to figure it out, because Kenny's explanation was so garbled.

If you need an introductory book on Wittgenstein, I recommend instead "Wittgenstein: A Very Short Introduction" by A.C. Grayling, which does a much better job of telling you in clear language the philosophical background you need to know to understand Wittgenstein.

Excellent
This book started with some bio and then some basic logic (!), which I felt was condescending, but I quickly changed my mind when it became clear how important this was to understanding the Tractatus and W.'s later works.There are real insights in this book, i.e., it isn't just a basic introduction.
Furthermore, Kenny does an outstanding job of making it all clear in straightforward prose.He doesn't latch on to catch phrases or assume you are already a Wittgensteinian.He simply spells out the evolution of W.'s thought in a clear and precise way.
This is just good scholarship, whatever you may think of his interpretation at the end of reading it. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a superlative graphic guide described as 'warm, witty and wise' by Jonathan Ree to an enigmatic master of twentieth-century philosophy. ... Read more

Product Description
"These two volumes must be welcomed in particular for the illumination they shed ...on Wittgenstein's already published discussions ...the characteristic deluge of examples, analogies, questions and challenges is as ever, maddening, provoking and thought-provoking, and with the earlier-published works they constitute not just the most detailed but also the best treatment of these profoundly important issues." - Kathleen Wilkes, "Times Higher Education Supplement". ... Read more

Product Description
The life and culture of Hapsburg, Vienna before World War I--the city of Freud, Schoenberg, Klimt, and Wittgenstein, whose philosophy announced the birth of the modern era. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

The Birth of the Modern
Wittgenstein's Vienna
Wittgenstein's Vienna

Ludwig Wittgenstein was the youngest of eight children born toAustrian steel tycoon Karl Wittgenstein.At the family'ssumptuous estate, major figures of European cultural life frequently appeared and performed... among them Mahler and Brahms. The entire brilliant but dysfunctional family was musically and intellectually gifted.Paul Wittgenstein was a world-renowned classical pianist despite the loss of one arm.Two of his brothers committed suicide within a few years of each other, and a third killed himself during World War I.Karl Wittgenstein was the undisputed master of his universe, tolerating no deviation from his standards by his children.

A mathematical and musical prodigy largely tutored at home, Wittgenstein distinguished himself in philosophy at Cambridge and became a protégé of Bertrand Russell. His most influential philosophical treatise, TractatusLogico- Philosophicus, was not published until after his death.
Wittgenstein's Vienna was an astonishing confluence of creativity.
Psychiatrists argued with conventional medical practitioners; poets talked with painters; philosophers argued with theologians.
The Vienna of Wittgenstein's time was a city of paradoxes.Described by some as a second-rate power, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was characterized by extremely bourgeois values, excessively ornamental art,
and mindless obedience to order and discipline.In their excellent overview of Hapsburg Vienna, "Wittgenstein's Vienna,"Alan Janik and Stephen Toulminwrite: "As the Good Old Days drew to a close, Vienna was above all a city of the bourgeoisie. Most of the leading figures in all fields came from a bourgeoise background.Though Vienna had been a commercial center from time immemorial and had been the center of large=scale public administration since the reign of Maria Theresa, the Viennese bourgeoisie acquired its individual character during the third quarter of the nineteenth century. ... if any single factor can be singled out to account for the special character of Vienna's bourgeois society... it is the failure of liberalism in the political sphere."

Against this background came a group of intellectuals and artists dedicated to reforming the antiquated society.Led by Karl Kraus, Adolf Loos, the composer Arnold Schonberg, and Gustav Klimpt. They organized a withdrawal from the Royal Academy, calling it "The Secession" and built a monument to it , "The Secession House."
The motto of the movement was "Der Zeit ihre Kunst, der Kunst ihre Freiheit" ("To the era its proper art, and to art its proper function.""
This is brilliant social and cultural history, well worth the reading.

See Also:
A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888-1889
Thunder At Twilight, Vienna 1913/1914
The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War
Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius

Kulturgeschichte of a remarkable cultural and intellectual watershed
This is a dazzlingly dense intellectual history of a time when there was an explosion of new ideas in both the arts and sciences.The place was Vienna, at the end of the Habsburg monarchy, where not only Sigmund Freud (psychlology) but also Loos (design), Schoenberg (music), Kochoscka (painting), and many others were establishing what we now call "modernism." It is also a philosophical tract of great depth, focusing on Wittgenstein.What is so remarkable is how commonplace their ideas and techniques have become in our everyday vocabulary - think "unconscious", but also "form follows function" - and how they all originated there, at the end of the 19C.

According to the authors, the starting point of the modernist movement is to be found in the deterioration of the Habsburg monarchy, spread as it was across a vast central european empire with dozens of languages and ethnic groups.To keep it all together in the face of rising nationalisms, the Habsburgs strove to maintain appearences of power and cohesion at all costs.This created a kind of living falsehood, in which issues were avoided by the use of code words and empty symbolic rituals.

Add to this the rise of new bourgeois fortunes, whereby a new middle classe arose based on industries.They too constructed their own private worlds within their homes, mimicing the Habsburgs and ignoring issues - in particular sexuality - to the point that it generated a latent hysteria in its women and anxiety in the working men, whose children despised them as fakes.Their houses were studded with overly ornate decorations, which were designed to ape the lifestyles of aristocrats, and they lived by elaborate codes of conduct and narrow career choices.

Obviously, this explains the biases in Freud's theories towards explaining too much by "suppressed impulses" buried in the unconscious (read hysterical women), but the authors argue that the great innovator of the age was Karl Krause, an independent satirist who called for honesty in language and the way one chose to live one's life.All of the others, they claim, were direct followers of Krause, from Klimt - he rebelled against the formalism of the royal academy of art with his Secessionist movement - to Wittgenstein and his study of language structure and meaning; even the great physicist Ernst Mach was apparently a follower of Krause, as was Canetti.They all knew eachother and were interested, and even participated, in eachothers' disciplines.This was a total surprise to me.

This is a fascinating intellectual tour (in the first 120 pages) that is evoked in dense prose that I had to read more than once to fully comprehend.I was particulary interested in their explanation of how Loos was attempting to strip away all ornament in an attempt to concentrate on the actual function of the buildings he designed as well as the household objects his followers created.This led directly to Bauhaus and all the other modernist schools of design, which exploited the new materials coming available, such as aluminum and tubular steel, to re-invent furniture, homes, and office spaces in ways that are still ripe for exploration today.I never understood the context in which this movement arose until I read this book.

The remaining 200 pages place Wittgenstein's philosphy in this context.To be honest, this interested me a lot less, but it is a must for students of modern philosophy. This is where the structure of language was explored, which led to the structuralists and to a degree the existentialists.It follows him to England, which comes in for heavy criticsm by the authors.In a way, this reads like a separate book.

Highly recommended.It is an intellectual adventure that is truly first rate.

An unforgettable book about an unforgettable time and place
As someone with a strong interest in modern philosophy as well as modern classical music, art and literature, I received more honest pleasure and enlightenment from reading this book than from any other book in recent memory. It is not per se a book about Wittgenstein, but rather an in-depth analysis of the milieu and mind-set of Vienna and its cultural elite circa 1900. Before immersing yourself into this delightful book, it might be a good idea to review the history of Austria-Hungary, how it came to be, the key events surrounding it, the emporer Franz Josef, and the territories which made up the dual monarchy. It also helps if you have some acquaintance with the German language, since German terms are used liberally throughout, often without denoting what those terms mean in English. Not being familiar with German, I found this mildly annoying, but certainly not enough to dampen my enthusiasm for this book.

Some of the most interesting sections of the book concern Viennese social philosophers and the artists whose works were a commentary on the corruption of the "gilded age": Otto Weininger, Kokoschka, Klimt, Schoenberg, Fritz Mauthner, and of course the unforgettable Karl Krauss. There is also a lengthy section on the scientific work of Mach and Hertz, the development of Hertz's "model" theory and its influence on Wittgenstein's Tractatus, as well as a beautifully written synopsis of Schopenhaur's philosophy.

And this is only the barest overview of a stupendously rich and rewarding book, one which all thoughtful people should and must read. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

THOUGHT AS AN HISTORICAL COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT
PHILOSOPHY...PHILO-SOPHIA...THE LOVE OF TRUTH IS MOST DIFFICULT WHERE THOUGHT IS CONCERNED.BUT WAIT A MINUTE, DO WE NOT USE THOUGHT TO EXPRESS WHAT WE FEEL TO BE TRUE..PROVIDE A REASON FOR FEELING SUCH?AHHHH.THE PROBLEM..'WE' USE 'THOUGHT'.IS THE 'WE' DIFFERENT THAN 'THOUGHT'..IS THERE A LITTLE MAN/WOMAN SOMEWHERE IN THE BRAIN USING THIS TOOL CALLED THOUGHT?QUESTION THE PROCESS!I FEEL THAT WITTGENSTEIN FOUND LANGUAGE, THOUGHT TOO LIMITED TO COME UPON TRUTH. VIENNA WAS A HOTBED OF IDEATION WITHIN WHICH A PERSON SUCH AS A 'WITTGENSTEIN' COULD SEE WHERE THOUGHT WAS AND WAS NOT VALID.A WONDERFUL BOOK

intellectual history??
okay i've been trained both in sociology and philosophy and would say the book brings the poorest of both worlds.. never believed in intellectual history in general, but this kind of book, with its judgements about Kierkeggardian or Wittgensteinian 'individualism' as a 'natural pathology' of early twentieth century continental bourgeoise society, does nothing but buttress the self-complacency of our now liberal societies. Therefore despite some 'interesting' anectodes and impressions from Habsburg Vienna, the philosophical depth of the book doesnt go above our usual journalistic wisdom. I dont understand how other reviewers found this book brilliant or anything like that. I think recommendable as passtime only. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Worth Buying for the Exegesis Alone
This work is a criticism of Saul Kripke's work Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. McGinn offers firstly an exegesis of Wittgenstein's position, emphasising that his concerns were predominantly negative rather than positive. The second section of the work deals with Kripke's work. McGinn (p. 68) firstly points out that Wittgenstein, after stating the sceptical paradox, immediately makes it clear that his position is that the paradox arises from a misunderstanding; that is, he does not endorse the conclusion drawn.McGinn then discusses whether Wittgenstein is to be taken as generally sceptical about meaning-related facts (pp. 70-71), concluding that Wittgenstein should be read as proposing a straight solution whereby understanding consists in the fact of having an ability to use signs.McGinn concludes the chapter (pp. 82-92) by criticising Kripke's community conception of rule-following for failing to recognise: Wittgenstein's epistemological naturalism; his emphasis on the blindness or lack of reasons for rule-following; and his emphasis on the equivalence of meaning and use (a distinction that Kripke must exploit for the sceptical paradox to be formulated). McGinn continues in the third chapter to critically analyse Wittgenstein's views.McGinn agrees with Wittgenstein's criticism of inner interpretative states determining meaning, but argues that the role of mental states should not therefore be ruled out entirely, noting (p. 117 n. 33) that "we should preserve the idea that understanding per se is a causal source of use [...] Also, we do not want to pull apart the causal and normative bases of use: what causes use should also be what makes it correct". Overall though, McGinn clearly outlines what he takes to be Wittgenstein's positive position, that meaning "rests ultimately on the bedrock of our natural propensities" (p. 138), and, notwithstanding minor quibbles that are non-essential to its formulation, concurs with it.Finally, McGinn critically analyses Kripke's sceptical solution, offering a variety of objections to both community conceptions of meaning and language modelled on assertability rather than truth conditions.

While my own incliniation is towards a sceptically grounded naturalistic solution to the sceptical paradox, and I find McGinn's attempts to sketch a dispositional account to be highly flawed (refer to the huge amount of secondary literature for the arguments), the real value of the work is the extremely lucid and well-argued exposition of Wittgenstein's main concerns in the Philosophical Investigations, together with the critique of the Kripke interpretation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

the Man with Modern Nerves
Who's afraid of modernism?
A neglected house, a residual example of a true modern mood, is taken, to apologetically demonstrate what modern nerves are and what this means for modern architecture.
This house built by Wittgenstein in 1928, after a personal crisis of vocation for philosophy, has been categorized as a built philosophy, a positive manifestation of the most intricate logical speculation of the past century.
It is not.
It is a perfect act of architecture.3
This is true for a finite number of reasons: it is built by an intelligent engineer, a reflexive person obsessed with truth and morality, a creative mathematician who was genuinely questioning the basis of mathematical logic, a non-creative-non-artistic-disinterested-not trained architect (means literally out of history), and finally a man with `pathologically modern' nerves.
Many critics have looked at this house as a formalistic composition with a specific and universal proportion system, as a built philosophy, and as a biographical manifestation: it means they've looked at it as an object upon which formulate or project pre-formed methodologies.
This happens because this house is virgin. It has no built-in theoretical formulation: it is a null point that generated, in a specific moment in time, a true zeitgeist epiphany, a condensation of invisible historical forces that shaped it despite the author or through his hands.

"I think there is some truth in my idea that I am really only reproductive in my thinking. I think I have never invented a line of thinking, but that it was provided for me by someone else and I have done no more than passionately take it up for my work of clarification. That is how Boatsman Hertz Schopenhauer Frege, Russel, Kraus, Loos Weininger Spengler, Sraffa have influenced me. Can one take Breuer and Freud as an example of Jewish reproductive thinking? - What I invent are new comparisons."(Ludwig Wittgenstein, diaries)4


As a preliminary assumption Wittgenstein's house can be read as the 20th century's Secret Moral Machine: its bare white walls, its bare light bulbs, address with a force that is mystified in other modern projects, the need for morality, the need for moral integrity opposed to the guilty forces of capitalism. In other terms, it managed to render visibly and clearly how capitalist economy and the realm of mass production needed their rational, illuminist background to be wrapped by a moral project. Truth is full of beauty.

Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of GeniusAdolf Loos - Teorias y Obras (Spanish Edition)

Wittgenstein's Concrete Mind
This is a fine and lovely book that covers everything from blueprints to color photos of details.Between the years 1926 and 1928 Wittgenstein and Paul Engelmann designed and built a house in early Modernist style for W.'s sister, Margaret Stonborough.I love this book for its presentation of W's lean prose and thinking here shown in a concrete form. ... Read more