Philosophical Investigations
by Ludwig Wittgenstein · Philosophische Untersuchungen
Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- 1953
- Form
- Treatise
- Language
- German
- Length
- Long · 300 pp300 to 700 pages
- Difficulty
- Formidable5 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendPhilosophical Investigations, translated by G. E. M. Anscombe, P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim SchulteWiley-Blackwell, 2009The revised fourth edition, with facing German and the corrections Hacker and Schulte made to Anscombe's text.
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Published two years after Wittgenstein's death, and written against his own earlier Tractatus. In numbered remarks rather than chapters, he attacks the assumption that words work by naming things and that meaning is a mental accompaniment of speech. Meaning is use, learned in the practices he calls language games; rule-following cannot be secured by any further interpretation; a private language would have no criterion of correctness; and philosophical problems are confusions to be dissolved rather than theories to be built. Part two, on seeing aspects and the inner life, includes the duck-rabbit and the remark that the human body is the best picture of the soul.
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The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns Philosophical Investigations are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.