Rating: 
Summary: Who is Shirley?
Review: 'If all you have is a hammer, then everything seems like a nail.' Phish gets it. Einstein with his theories on relativity got it. The stream of consciousness guys, James and Faulkner got it. The nude coming down the stairs and the cubist got it. Wittgenstein (hereafter W) does the same for logic. The above all changed their fields, what they were, by their work, W changed what philosophy is. Which it Shirley needed.
But you ask, 'If he was so important then why do I not know about him or his works?' 'Why isn't there a billboard on Sunset for him?' Well there are reasons for that. 1. Few have figured out how to make his works a business and sadly that is all our society is now, our main context is money. 2. The philosophy he changed was quite irrelevant so he is tainted by the past he rejected and changed. 3. Generally when you revolutionize a field your peers load you on their shoulders and carry you through town. They do this since you have made the field and thus them more important. Einstein did this for physics, everyone loves smoked string cheese now. But W made his peers go down the hall and get a new office sign, reading, 'History of Philosophy'. 4. Yes there are more reasons. Most quit at three since triangles are pleasing to us and we like to be pleased. People like to stay in the herd or the Matrix, it is a comfort level. W's world leads out.
So are you ready for the red pill? When you left the movie you told yourself 'I would have taken it.' Well here is your chance. Give it a go. Check out the rabbit hole. But it is not a pill, it is not part of our society's preoccupation with self-medication. It is more like trying to straighten out the tackle box with the hooks and flies, untangle the mess a bit, to go phishing.
If this is all new to you, great. Go to it fresh and see what you find. Forget the dissertations on it. W told people not to bother. But I do reccommend you read about the man and his life first, come to the work with that context. It is a fascinating story. Maybe someday it will have a billboard on Sunset? Maybe you will do it?
I do not wish to minimize the value of art, just the opposite. This is the most important book you can buy from this store. Now right or wrong, how many reviews tell you that?
Rating: 
Summary: Shew the fly out of the fly-bottle *yourself*!
Review: A fantastic book, a more or less self-confessed mind snare, now available in an affordable *en face* format the way it always could have been (the Macmillan blue-book value was a shocker for booksellers). Was Wittgenstein the greatest philosopher of the 20th century? He was the most irresponsible, and this is not nothing, especially considering the twin dedications of this book to mathematical wizard Frank Ramsey but also Marxist economist and amateur bookseller Piero Sraffa (said here to be the preponderance of influence). Perhaps it is time to dispense with fear of a *European* Wittgenstein, although he himself doesn't make it easy: this book is the culmination of a style of intellectual inquiry more frequently identified with the somewhat camped-up version provided by John Austin. But as we say in the US only Nixon can go to China, and this book is also very much in the philosophical tradition of "dialectics of nature" initated by Friedrich Engels, the nondestructive assimilation of mentalistic vocabulary to a thoroughly scientific world-view: and much as the *Tractatus* is modelled upon a treatise of physical science, this book owes something to a genre of "naturalist's reflections" which was quite outdated in *Wittgenstein's* day. Is this anything you will hear in a class on Wittgenstein? No, that class will be dedicated to puzzling out Wittgenstein's instructions for the ordering of the mind: but although this may have its "therapeutic" uses for wild-eyed youth, it may also be premature: this book is really designed to have no heirs without eliminating the insititution of intellectual primogeniture, although in all fairness you will find yourself able to say you have read it.
Rating:
Summary: Wittgenstein and Problem Solving
Review: Contrary to the thoughts of some, Wittgenstein's thought has nothing at all to do with behaviorism. Rather, by introducing the second person into dialogue with the first, that is, by putting "I" and "thou" into conversation, he showed the way out of the dream world of solipsism and the way back into the world. Somewhat like George Herbert Mead in America, Wittgenstein made the existence of the self testable by means of the difference it makes for another and for the world from which the two are inseparable.
Rating:
Summary: Wittgenstein and Problem Solving
Review: Contrary to the thoughts of some, Wittgenstein's thought has nothing at all to do with behaviorism. Rather, by introducing the second person into dialogue with the first, that is, by putting "I" and "thou" into conversation, he showed the way out of the dream world of solipsism and the way back into the world. Somewhat like George Herbert Mead in America, Wittgenstein made the existence of the self testable by means of the difference it makes for another and for the world from which the two are inseparable.
Rating:
Summary: Change the very way you think about philosophy starting now
Review: I must respectfully disagree with the person who gave this book one star and called it one of the greatest intellectual frauds of the 20th century.
This book is beyond doubt one of the greatest works of philosophy not only of the 20th century but ever.
Without going deeply into the details here, it should be apparent that difficult and persistent problems require radical solutions. While Wittgenstein's solutions to age old philosophical problems may infuriate those with a vested interested in continuing to discuss them endlessly, anyone with an open mind will immediately see the value in his work. If you think that a good deal of philosophizing thoroughout its history has been the utterly misguided search for so-called real essences, then Wittgenstein's later philosophy provides an interesting and insightful response to that history of philosophy.
After reading this book you will never think the same way again.
Rating:
Summary: </i>If a lion could speak...
Review: it would probably say something about The Tao. What does the Tao have to do with Wittgenstein? Very little. I bring it up because there are three books of philosophy which I believe everyone should struggle with at some point in their lives. The first is Plato's Republic, for what I hope are obvious reasons. The other two are The Tao Te Ching and Philosophical Investigations. These two books have common threads that are often unremarked on, but perhaps the most pertinant point to this review is the fact that both are often mistaken, by people who should know better, for being much more esoteric than they actually. The Tao Te Ching is in many ways a manual for surviving in tumultuous times, and most of it's advice, stripped of it's poetry, is nothing if not practical.
Similarly, Philosophical Investigations is a user's guide for the urge to philosophize. Throughout the book, Wittgenstein instructs the reader on not what to think, but how to go about thinking. If there is a thesis at all in this book, it is that we must be cautious about how we use language. He goes to great lengths to illustrate why this is, and exactly what sort of nonsense happens "when language goes on holiday."
Unfortunately, it is not a lesson that everyone in the philosophical community learned from Uncle Ludwig. One suspects that the history of philosophy in the 20th century might have gone quite differently if folks like Quine, Lewis, Nagle, Harman, and Ryle had spent a little more time putting together Wittgenstein's puzzles. There is a great deal of confusion in the world of philosophy, a great deal of disagreement, and a great deal of nonsense. Wittgenstein's legacy is that he realized that this was the first problem that must be faced by anyone at all tempted by the questions of philosophy.
Was he right? Are all philosophical problems reducible to linguistic puzzles? Are we led astray by our picture of the world as it is presented to us by our language? Is there an important distinction between an empirical and a grammatical truth?
I, for one, was convinced by this book. Others are not. But to possess an interest in philosophy at all and to not have at least engaged this book is unforgivable.
Rating: 
Summary: The Total Package
Review: My graduate class on Wittgenstein just concluded and we read this book cover-to-cover. Because professional philosophers can easily spend a career attempting to explain what exactly is contained in the Philosophical Investigations, it would be a bit silly of me to attempt to do so here (and even sillier of anyone placed any stock in it!). As such, my comments will be more to the technical side of this edition, but with a little personal opinion at the end.
This edition, according to my Wittgenstein teacher, Professor David G. Stern, is wonderful due to the English and German being side-by-side, allowing German speaking philosophers (which Stern is) the opportunity to conveniently compare the translation with the original text. Many of my colleges found this quite useful, and a few classes were spent elucidating certain translation issues that were quite illuminating. For example, in the 660s-670s the German term "meinen" is very often translated as "meaning" (which obviously "looks" right) where "intend" (or one of it's cognates) is probably the better choice.
Since I do not speak any German, such instances have led me to believe that this particular translation has left room for improvement. The best thing, of course, would be to learn German and read it over again. At the least, I'd recommend that one learn Wittgenstein from one who knows German. At any rate, this edition of the Philosophical Investigations was the one we were assigned from someone who knows a bit about him (see David G. Stern, "Wittgenstein on Mind and Language" (1995) and "Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations: An Introduction" (forthcoming 2004)), so I have to recommend it by default.
For those who are not acquainted with Wittgenstein, reading him can be painstaking and frustrating. It takes a good deal of time (unless you are some kind of natural Wittgensteinian) because one has to carefully read a little snippet of the Investigations, then read any and all secondary literature on the portion read, then read who it is Wittgenstein's target of criticism is, and then read whomever Wittgenstein is attacking. What stinks, of course, is that this takes a simply HUGE amount of time, which is why one can literally make a career of it.
The reasons why so many people (myself included) find Wittgenstein difficult is likely a combination of a few things. First, I think people try to read him too quickly. Second, Wittgenstein very rarely tells the reader what he's doing, literally and intentionally leaving the door wide open for misinterpretation (one will notice further that there are many "voices" speaking in the Investigations, and sorting out which one is "Wittgenstein" can often be challenging). Third, the translation. I think these three factors (which is by no means an exhaustive list) combine to form fairly widespread misunderstanding and overestimation of Wittgenstein (just take a look at the breadth of secondary scholarship out there - it's amazing!). My own personal view about Wittgenstein (and I stress that this is just my opinion) is that he is a little bit over-rated, and I would not by any stretch call myself a "Wittgensteinian." Wittgenstein does, however, deserve a good deal of praise for the way in which he engages the reader to stop and really think about things.
Rating:
Summary: The Total Package
Review: My graduate class on Wittgenstein just concluded and we read this book cover-to-cover. Because professional philosophers can easily spend a career attempting to explain what exactly is contained in the Philosophical Investigations, it would be a bit silly of me to attempt to do so here (and even sillier of anyone placed any stock in it!). As such, my comments will be more to the technical side of this edition, but with a little personal opinion at the end. This edition, according to my Wittgenstein teacher, Professor David G. Stern, is wonderful due to the English and German being side-by-side, allowing German speaking philosophers (which Stern is) the opportunity to conveniently compare the translation with the original text. Many of my colleges found this quite useful, and a few classes were spent elucidating certain translation issues that were quite illuminating. For example, in the 660s-670s the German term "meinen" is very often translated as "meaning" (which obviously "looks" right) where "intend" (or one of it's cognates) is probably the better choice. Since I do not speak any German, such instances have led me to believe that this particular translation has left room for improvement. The best thing, of course, would be to learn German and read it over again. At the least, I'd recommend that one learn Wittgenstein from one who knows German. At any rate, this edition of the Philosophical Investigations was the one we were assigned from someone who knows a bit about him (see David G. Stern, "Wittgenstein on Mind and Language" (1995) and "Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations: An Introduction" (forthcoming 2004)), so I have to recommend it by default. For those who are not acquainted with Wittgenstein, reading his is more painstaking than anything else. I want to avoid the term "difficult," as I believe that it just takes a good deal of time, in that all one really has to do to understand Wittgenstein is to carefully read a little snippet of the Investigations, then read any and all secondary literature on the portion read, then read who it is Wittgenstein's target of criticism is, and then read whomever Wittgenstein is attacking. What stinks, of course, is that this takes a simply HUGE amount of time, which is why one can literally make a career of it. The reasons why so many people (myself included) find Wittgenstein difficult is likely a combination of a few things. First, I think people try to read him too quickly. Second, Wittgenstein very rarely tells the reader what he's doing, literally and intentionally leaving the door wide open for misinterpretation (one will notice further that there are many "voices" speaking in the Investigations, and sorting out which one is "Wittgenstein" can often be challenging). Third, the translation. I think these three factors (which is by no means an exhaustive list) combine to form fairly widespread misunderstanding and overestimation of Wittgenstein (just take a look at the breadth of secondary scholarship out there - it's amazing!). My own personal view about Wittgenstein (and I stress that this is just my opinion) is that he is a little bit over-rated, and I would not by any stretch call myself a "Wittgensteinian." Wittgenstein does, however, deserve a good deal of praise for the way in which he engages the reader to stop and really think about things.
Rating: 
Summary: The most over-rated book of the 20th century
Review: This book is deliberately obscure pretentious drivel. If anyone tells you how profound it is--run quickly in the opposite direction. It is simply behaviorism (Ryle's concept of mind is a much better book embodying similar ideas) with a pseudo-hip patina of bad coffee-house poetry pasted on. Academic philosophy is only now (at least in the US) beginning to recover from the effects of the intellectual virus let loose by this wooly-headed bit of nonsense. Buy it for the laughs you can get by contemplating how much academic ink was spilled over the latter half of the twentieth century trying to make sense out of this peurile idiocy. Fear that they were somehow missing the 'awesomely profound truths' buried (who knows where) in this pablum, had otherwise intelligent philosophers actually afraid to talk about consciousness FOR ALMOST THIRTY YEARS out of fear that Dan Dennett or some other pseudo-intellectual-Wittgensteinian would start jabbering on about beetle boxes to them. Along with BEING AND TIME, and the complete works J. Derrida, this book was the greatest intellectual fraud of the 20th century. There was actually some decent philosophy done in the 20th century, much of it connected with modal logic, but this isn't it.
Rating:
Summary: The most over-rated book of the 20th century
Review: This book is deliberately obscure pretentious drivel. If anyone tells you how profound it is--run quickly in the opposite direction. It is simply behaviorism (Ryle's concept of mind is a much better book embodying similar ideas) with a pseudo-hip patina of bad coffee-house poetry pasted on. Academic philosophy is only now (at least in the US) beginning to recover from the effects of the intellectual virus let loose by this wooly-headed bit of nonsense. Buy it for the laughs you can get by contemplating how much academic ink was spilled over the latter half of the twentieth century trying to make sense out of this peurile idiocy. Fear that they were somehow missing the 'awesomely profound truths' buried (who knows where) in this pablum, had otherwise intelligent philosophers actually afraid to talk about consciousness FOR ALMOST THIRTY YEARS out of fear that Dan Dennett or some other pseudo-intellectual-Wittgensteinian would start jabbering on about beetle boxes to them. Along with BEING AND TIME, and the complete works J. Derrida, this book was the greatest intellectual fraud of the 20th century. There was actually some decent philosophy done in the 20th century, much of it connected with modal logic, but this isn't it.
|
