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Summary: A slow reading of W's "Philosophical Investigations".
Review: I recommend your own reading of this Wittgenstein. Do not lean on others to show you the path. LW is clear enough if you go slowly, paragraph by paragraph. No one will know more of him than you. #1Paragraph, for instance, is his take on a piece from a church writer of millenia ago -- not that he's particularly devoted to Christian scholars, but that he uses the piece to show where others are in this matter of learning language from one's elders. From this rudimentary start, he goes on to develop other languages, set in rather a very limited word-language range. He shows how it works within these limited ways of life and cultures. "Purchasing apples" in a store is one scene for us to look at LW. A construction set-up "with four words and four actions" are all of another particular way-of-life, and the total use of a simple language form. Note LW's very simple beginnings. You can easily get the gist of his words and expositions here. Read slowly and carefully. Remember his presentations. He will refer to them again. I recommend that when you return to your reading to continue your study, that you start not exactly where you left off. Start the new readings a few paragraphs before your previous last. Get a running start into the new.
"Philosophical Investigations" does come with a German text also, but is not necessary for this excellent translation.
I find that another who has struggled over this book as you will, can offer some other assistance -- but don't depend on it. As Ludwig Wittgenstein says about those who will come after him in this subject material, it is necessary that you do it mainly by yourself, to get the most out of him and it. Only by immersing oneself in what he is saying, can one come out of it touched, a bit perplexed, but into this new introduction to language, ways of life, Wittgentstein, and yourself.
Good luck in your meeting with this most interesting fellow, dead in 1951 at the age of 62, but writing his ideas until a day or so before he slowly died (these latter remarks have been gathered into a book, "On Certainty").By the way, after his death, his remaining papers and writings have been combined into other books. He gave his all to his calling. Rest assured, you too will have to give something of yourself as you too get something from a most interesting fellow human being.
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Summary: One of the Seminal Works of Twentieth Century Philosophy
Review: I'm not sure how one goes about reviewing a book like this since it cannot be captured in a paragraph or two. Suffice it to say, when I read it in my undergraduate days it was an eye-opener. In his earlier Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, Wittgenstein had sought to build a picture of the world by exploring how language mirrors reality in order to capture it. In Philosophical Investigations, a book which became the bible for a whole new way of philosophical thinking (but which he never published in his lifetime), Wittgenstein scrapped all that for the view that language ultimately WAS the world because it contained it. A subtle but powerful difference in the way one sees things. He achieved this not through a traditional and long-drawn out philosophical argument but rather by a series of pithy, note-like questions and answers to himself. The argument does not so much build as unfold, as the reader sees more and more (from a multiplicity of angles) the nature of language as Wittgenstein came to conceive it in his later years. What it did for me back then was to wean me away from a narrow and rigorous positivism, which had previously colored everything I did and said, allowing me to see the value of many of the "non-concrete" forms of life in which we find ourselves. It doesn't answer the ethical or metaphysical questions of traditional philosophy so much as it builds a "world" in which they seem intelligible if one approaches them in the non-traditional, Wittgensteinian way which is so crisply demonstrated here. In this book, no less than in his later teachings, Wittgenstein radically altered (dare one say revolutionized?) the way we think about language and knowledge and even thinking itself. And how we view the philosophical project. If, in the end, we have not given up the struggle to solve philosophical problems in favor of "dissolving" them, which he generally recommends here, it is not because he did not offer us new insight into the matter but rather because his strategy leads to a more open and broader view of the world in which we find ourselves. Because of this book I found greater comfort in the company of the great metaphsyicians and existentialists, for all the fuzziness of their language (which Wittgenstein implicitly criticizes), and learned to feel at ease with phenomenologists and even religionists (is that a fair formulation for those who embrace the concept of deity in any of its many variants?). And that, it seems to me, is what philosophy must be about in the end, about the big questions, Ludwig Wittgenstein's technical queries and explorations notwithstanding. But he gets you there if you will give him the time and attention necessary to crack the world open, like the opaque and rather hard-boiled egg it often seems to be.
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Summary: This man had too much acid somewhere along the line
Review: In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein "solves" the problems of philosophy and shows that philosophy is nonsense. In Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein goes even further. He rejects the method of the Tractatus and his conclusion is slightly different: philosophy is *utter* nonsense. The whole point of PI is that "language-games" are "forms of life" (i.e., we have conversations, chats, teach, demand, etc) and that each way we use our mouths to do something has its own inner grammar or logic (compare with the Tractatus, where W says that the essence of all language is to picture reality and, as such, cannot say anything sensible about the really important things in human life). Really, it is a rambling text with flashes of brilliance but a lot of incoherent babble. Part way into it one realizes that W is having a conversation with himself that takes many twists and turns until the whole is unrecognizable as a work of philosophy and is intead a disjointed and unfinished collection of pseudo-analyses and speculations. It is heartening that some philosophers take the so-called "Private language argument" and related aphorisms to refute the notion we can be skeptical about the idea that there is a world independent of our own minds. This is an over-rated classic (I liked the tightness of the Tractatus, which is a breathtaking text, despite its unjustified assumptions and mistakes) that is sure to guarentee W's irrelevance. Ultimately, it is anti-philosophy.
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Summary: Wittgenstein's Positivist Inclinations Damaged His Work
Review: In this collection of thoughts and insights Wittgenstein addresses the muddled thinking of his -Tractatus Logico Philosophicus.- The essential error in the previous work is due to the philosopher's failure to realize that language is intrinsically nebulous. Wittgenstein's flirtation with Logical Positivism blinded him to the reality that the hard mathematical sciences can only take us so far. Words constantly change in meaning. Each and every human being on this planet creates new words and reinterprets the old. There is no such thing as a literal language; relativism is the inescapable norm. The interpretation of a word is always in constant flux from one moment to the next. Words mean different things to different people. Context is everything. No word can escape a possible complete reversal in meaning. All words have majority and minority interpretations. A computer software spell checker, for instance, is at best a modest guide. The user must still be a relatively good speller to obtain any value from a so-called spell checker. People, regardless of intelligence and education, will forevermore interact with each other by a never ending process of inventing new expressions of meaning. We experiment until we reach a reasonable certitude, not certainty, of understanding. The use of body language, voice inflection, irony, hyperbole, or sarcasm can change the entire meaning of an uttered word. The subjectivity of the interpretation of words is a major reason why we sometimes fail to communicate effectively. A workable consensus is the best we can strive for. This is also why artificial intelligence will unlikely evolve to the point where we will ever engage in a give and take conversation with a machine. Language is essentially a Liberal Arts Discipline. The virtue of prudential judgment solely enables us interpret words. Frustration and madness threatens those who wish to believe otherwise. Wittgenstein desired the security blanket universe subtly promised by the Logical Positivists. Within this school of thought, the existential mysteries of life and death are deemed unworthy of even an acknowledgment. The hard sciences are perceived as more comforting and absolute. A person with such a mind set hesitates to learn how to walk the proverbial tight wire without a net. It is doubtful whether Wittgenstein ever came to grips to the realization that while human language leaves much to be desired, we still might with some effort be able to form viable relationships with other individuals and their accompanying social groups. Regretfully, the wrong headed nihilistic speculations of the philosophical deconstructionists seemed to hold sway over Wittgenstein throughout his intellectual life. Bertrand Russell, a friend of this controversial figure, thought that Wittgenstein was vastly overrated. I also agree with this assessment. The fame of Wittgenstein is due more to the courage of his convictions, a willingness to risk his life, and iconoclastic life choices than the pure brilliance of his thinking. Investing time and energy in Wittgenstein's aphorisms and essays will at least give one a glimpse into one of the dominant minds of our modern world. I would also recommend the reader obtain a copy of Ray Monk's biographical study--Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius.--
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Summary: Change the way you see philosophy
Review: No other Philosophical work has had a greater influence upon me than PI. It is a work of pure reflection, guided by an attitude which is attuned to the significance of philosophical problems (even granted that this is something that the author denied). A must for anyone interested in philosophy. It can, given half a chance, open you up to what it means to be a human being and how it is that anything is meaningful (philosophy itself).
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Summary: [lack of words]
Review: one of the greatest books by one of the greatest minds to have ever lived. this blows any mind away. philosophy, metaphysics, psychology, epistomology, EVERYTHING, is explored in the pages of this text. I cannot find the words. READ IT. learn that you know nothing.
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Summary: Philosophical Investigations is a seminal work in philosophy
Review: Perhaps something the other reviewers fail to see is the significance of this work. Wittgenstein is one of the most important philosophers of this century and this work is key to understanding his philosophy as it developed in his later years. All to often the lay philosophy-reader is drawn to existentialism and other such soft and questionable philosophies, but to the true student, this work cannot be underestimated. As a purely literary work, however, it is not such a good read; thus the lack of the fifth star.
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Summary: Wittgenstein's great work
Review: Philosophical Investigations is a classical work in the history of philosophy. It is a book which holds a position similar to that of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Plato's Meno and Heidegger's Sein und Zeit. Let's take a look at Wittgenstein's investigations. I have presented Wittgenstein's life in my review of Ray Monk's Wittgenstein biography, let me here focus more on his philosophy. Wittgenstein starts with a quote from St Augustine. Augustine belived that the principal function of language is to refer to external reality, he believed that all words function similar to names and according to Wittgenstein he seems to have held the view language is learned through ostensive defintions. Wittgenstein, however, rejects this referentialist view of language, believing that language is far more complex than what Augustine thought. Language is an activity, or connected to a number of activitites, which Wittgenstein called language-games. Language-games have different puprposes, not all of them are centered around refering. There are many contexts for using words and many kinds of speach acts. While the logical positivists believed that the meaning of a statement was its method of verification, and Frege believed in two different entities (Sinn and Bedeutung), Wittgenstein rejects these views. According to this thinker from Vienna, meaning is use, and to understand a linguistic expression is to master how to use it and the accompanying techniques, not mereley to understand the verification principle, grasping some Platonic/Fregian entity or have some sense impression in one's head (Locke). Language is behaviour, practive give the words their sense according to Wittgenstein. This also relates to the private language argument, presented in paragraphs 199ff. Wittgenstein argues that the rules of language must be public and behavioral. It is not, as some like Peter Winch or Kripke have thought, an argument for the principle social nature of language, but for the behavioral aspect of rule-following. Mental terms, according to LW, cannot enter into the language without intimately being connected to overt behavioral patterns. Thus the mentalism of Hume and Locke is rejected, and Wittgenstein shows how knowledge must be more than just access to private sense data. There goes Russell, the British aristocratic sensualists and the Cartesian idea of priveleged access. Sometimes Wittgenstein may seem like a Marxist: it is the practical part of human life that provides that basis for our thoughts and rationality. Being a rational creature, according to Wittgenstein, is not what the rationalist Descartes thought or the empiricists thought; you cannot isolate the intellect or private sensations, because human rationality is based on practical and concrete, physical behavioral patterns. Througout the investigations Wittgenstein tries to challenge many of the positions held by previous philosophers. He once said that he didn't write for philosophers, but I do think that knowledge of the history of philosophy sheds light over his investigations. he said that WHAT he said would be simple, but understanding WHY he said it, would be difficult. But even though you are not a professional philosopher, you may receive vital inputs from Wittgenstein. If you can grasp the essence of his ideas of language-games, rule-following, form of life, anti-mentalism and conceptual therapy, you will have knowledge of some of his key ideas ideas. If you supply your reading of Philosophical Investigations with Ray Monk's marvellous "Ludwig Wittgenstein. The Duty of Genius" you can understand the horizon of this great thinker. Also important, are Baker and Hacker's books on Wittgenstein. Finally, a word on interpretation. Burton Dreben once had a seminar at the University of Oslo, where he said that if you don't know Frege and Russell, you won't understand Wittgenstein. I completely agree with Dreben that Wittgenstein was much inspired by the philosophers and logicians Frege and Russell. However, one should understand that Wittgenstein was deeply fascinated by poetry, religion and existential questions. Among his favourite writers were Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and Kierkegaard. When this is taken into account, one can understand Wittgenstein in depth. Wittgenstein was a thinker with great analytical abilities, but never forget that he had a poetic soul. "I am not a religious man, but I cannot help seeing everything from a religious point of view" he once said to one of his friends. The ideas he had on language-games, forms of life and rule-following should be seen in light of some of the profound and important questions a religious man or an existentialist may ask himself.
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Summary: The motto here is always: Take a wider look around
Review: The Investigations cannot be approached as "another work of western philosophy", the way we might approach Aristotle's Metaphysics for example. There all that is required of us is a careful reading of the text and a subsequent piecing together of arguments. It is akin to purchasing a piece of furniture disassembled, a desk for instance, and slowly by way of instructions piecing together the parts until we have a recognizable product. Such exercises don't demand originality. In fact, originality directly conflicts with our purpose. If I were to become inventive in my piecing together of the desk what I end up with will most likely not look like what the parts were meant to resemble. The same goes with Aristotle. Yet, Wittgensetin demands such inventiveness. Lest we forget, these are investigations. We are gathering evidence and weighing alternatives e.g. this picture of language is at home here but what about here? Such questions do not presuppose firm conclusions only fruitful lines of enquiry. Here we are not interested in piecing together structures but seeing what lies around the structures already built. Whether there isn't something more which has been excluded from our picture of things. Such an investigation requires a genuine interest in overcoming our philosophical ailments but the rewards are...
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Summary: Best introduction to the later Wittgenstein
Review: The two greatest works of philosophy of the 20th century are, I believe, Wittgenstein's PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS and Heidegger's BEING AND TIME. The famous distinction between Analytical or Anglo-American Philosophy on the one hand, and European or Continental Philosophy is symbolized by these two books. I have to confess that I found the Wittgenstein absolutely fascinating, and has become one of the most important books in my life and library. I have studied the Heidegger, but perhaps because of the extraordinary moral failings in his life (he was a member of the Nazi party from 1933 to 1945, though he apparently was more of a fan of Nazism than Hitler, his great break with Hitler being that he saw the Jewish problem as being an intellectual problem, and not a biological one, i.e., he felt like traditional anti-Semites that Jews need only change their beliefs to be reintegrated into society, while Hitler felt the problem was in their blood, and the only solution was isolation of the Jews or their destruction), or perhaps because of the tortured and obscure mode of writing that he felt he had to use to express his thought, I found the Heidegger to be remote, uninteresting, and inaccessible. Ultimately, not worth the effort. But BEING AND TIMES's status as a classic is incontestable. As a grad student in philosophy at Yale and the University of Chicago, I was subject to a growing conviction that most university professors teaching Wittgenstein should, perhaps, not. The problem is that most American professors teaching Wittgenstein teach him as an extension of Russell, Tarski, and Carnap. Their background is logic, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of science, and their philosophy of language is rooted in logical and scientific issues. Although Wittgenstein was interested in these issues, there is a definitive amount of information that indicates that while he possessed a knowledge of mathematics, logic, and philosophy of language, his own philosophical background was much, much broader. His own cultural concerns ran much more broadly than most of these professors. It is not merely that they have not read Kierkegaard, Tolstoy, Lichtenberg, Karl Kraus, Goethe, or the prayers of Samuel Johnson: they have no interest in doing so, and little sympathy for these writers, whom Wittgenstein himself found congenial. One is, therefore, in a dilemma with Wittgenstein. Unless you have taken several courses in philosophy, taking up the PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS can be an almost overwhelming challenge. Most of the books on Wittgenstein are either weak or very misleading because of a lack of sympathy with his wider interests. For an ordinary individual, perhaps well read, but not especially knowledgeable of the work of philosophers like Russell and Frege and against whom he developed much of his thought, my first recommendation would be not to read the PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS, but to read instead Ray Monk's biography of Wittgenstein. This is a excellent biography, and does a very good job of acquainting the casual reader with the highlights of both Wittgenstein's thought and life (and his life was a very interesting one indeed, in contrast to Heidegger, whose life, apart from his involvement with Nazism, was pretty uneventful). I would then recommend that one try reading one of Wittgenstein's other books first. I believe that either ON CERTAINTY or ZETTEL or CULTURE AND VALUE would be a much easier way into Wittgenstein's work than reading the INVESTIGATIONS.
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