Wittgenstein Part I Essays

This fourth and final volume of the monumental commentary on Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations covers pp 428-693 of the book. Like the previous volumes, it consists of philosophical essays and exegesis.

This first of two volumes brings together invited papers of the 32nd International Wittgenstein Symposium (Kirchberg/W. (Austria), 2009). The relation between language and the world was undoubtedly one if not the central issue in Wittgenstein’s whole philosophical oeuvre. His one hundred and twentieth birthday provided an occasion for foregrounding this aspect of his work. A special workshop was dedicated to new aspects of Wittgenstein’s Nachlass. In this volume Frank Cioffi, Peter Hacker, Ian Hacking, Roy Harris, Lars Hertzberg, Jaakko Hintikka, Marie McGinn, Danièle Moyal-Sharrock, Hans Sluga among others provide substantial contributions on various aspects of Wittgenstein’s writings such as the philosophy of mathematics, the problem of rule following or the relation between meaning and use.

This is a new edition of the first volume of G.P.Baker and P.M.S. Hacker’s definitive reference work on Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. New edition of the first volume of the monumental four-volume Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations. Takes into account much material that was unavailable when the first edition was written. Following Baker’s death in 2002, P.M.S. Hacker has thoroughly revised the first volume, rewriting many essays and sections of exegesis completely. Part One - the Essays - now includes two completely new essays: 'Meaning and Use' and 'The Recantation of a Metaphysician'. Part Two - Exegesis §§1-184 - has been thoroughly revised in the light of the electronic publication of Wittgenstein’s Nachlass, and includes many new interpretations of the remarks, a history of the composition of the book, and an overview of its structure. The revisions will ensure that this remains the definitive reference work on Wittgenstein’s masterpiece for the foreseeable future.

Wittgenstein: Meaning and Mind, Part 2 – Exegesis §§243-427 explores and clarifies the patterns, developments, and conclusions of Wittgenstein’s arguments in §§243-427 of Philosophical Investigations. Each numbered remark in Wittgenstein’s text is systematically analysed. Problematic expressions, phrases and sentences are clarified, source remarks in Wittgenstein’s Nachlass that shed light on the text are elaborated. The bearing of the remarks on deep philosophical problems is made clear. This volume of exegesis of §§243-427 has been extensively revised, incorporating numerous references to original and secondary texts of Wittgenstein that were not known to exist in 1990. New comprehensive tables of correlation between the remarks of the Investigations and the source of the remarks in the Nachlass have been added. A variety of controversies of the last quarter of a century concerning the private language arguments, the nature of thought and imagination, consciousness and the self are addressed and settled explicitly or implicitly in the new exegesis. All references to Wittgenstein’s text have been adjusted to the fourth edition, although page references to the first and second editions have been retained in parenthesis. These revisions bring the book up to the high standard of the extensively revised editions of Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning (2005) and Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar and Necessity (2009). They ensure that this survey of Investigations §§243-427 will remain the essential reference work on Wittgenstein’s masterpiece for the foreseeable future.

Wittgenstein: Meaning and Mind is the third volume of a four-volume analytical commentary on Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, consisting of two parts. Part 1 is a sequence of fifteen essays that examine in detail all the major topics discussed in Philosophical Investigations §§243-427. These include the private language arguments, privacy, private ostensive definition, the nature of the mind, the inner and the outer, behaviour and behaviourism, thought, imagination, the self, consciousness, and criteria. Published in 1990 to widespread acclaim as a scholarly tour de force, the first edition of this volume of essays provides a comprehensive survey of these themes, the history of their treatment in early modern and modern philosophy, the development of Wittgenstein's ideas on these subjects from 1929 onwards, and an elaborate analysis of his definitive arguments in the Investigations. The new second edition has been thoroughly revised by the author and features four new essays. These include a survey of the evolution of the private language arguments in Wittgenstein's oeuvre and their role within the developing argument of the Investigations, a comprehensive essay on private ownership of experience and its pitfalls, a detailed examination and defence of Wittgenstein's repudiation of subjective knowledge of one's experience, and an overview of the achievement and importance of the private language arguments. Revised essays examine new objections to Wittgenstein's arguments – which are found wanting– and incorporate new materials from the Nachlass that were not known to exist in 1990. All references have been adjusted to the revised fourth edition of the Investigations, but previous pagination in the first and second editions has been retained in parentheses. These revisions bring the book up to the high standard of the extensively revised editions of Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning (Blackwell, 2005) and Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar and Necessity (Wiley Blackwell, 2009). They ensure that this survey of Wittgenstein's private language arguments and of his accounts of thought, imagination, consciousness, the self, and criteria will remain the essential reference work on the Investigations for the foreseeable future.

Thirteen leading contributors offer new essays in honour of the eminent philosopher and Wittgenstein scholar Peter Hacker. They discuss issues in the interpretation of Wittgenstein, investigate central topics in the history of analytic philosophy, and explore and assess Wittgensteinian ideas about language, mind, action, ethics, and religion.

Wittgenstein: Meaning and Mind is the third volume of a four-volume analytical commentary on Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, consisting of two parts. Part 1 is a sequence of fifteen essays that examine in detail all the major topics discussed in Philosophical Investigations §§243-427. These include the private language arguments, privacy, private ostensive definition, the nature of the mind, the inner and the outer, behaviour and behaviourism, thought, imagination, the self, consciousness, and criteria. Published in 1990 to widespread acclaim as a scholarly tour de force, the first edition of this volume of essays provides a comprehensive survey of these themes, the history of their treatment in early modern and modern philosophy, the development of Wittgenstein's ideas on these subjects from 1929 onwards, and an elaborate analysis of his definitive arguments in the Investigations. The new second edition has been thoroughly revised by the author and features four new essays. These include a survey of the evolution of the private language arguments in Wittgenstein's oeuvre and their role within the developing argument of the Investigations, a comprehensive essay on private ownership of experience and its pitfalls, a detailed examination and defence of Wittgenstein's repudiation of subjective knowledge of one's experience, and an overview of the achievement and importance of the private language arguments. Revised essays examine new objections to Wittgenstein's arguments – which are found wanting– and incorporate new materials from the Nachlass that were not known to exist in 1990. All references have been adjusted to the revised fourth edition of the Investigations, but previous pagination in the first and second editions has been retained in parentheses. These revisions bring the book up to the high standard of the extensively revised editions of Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning (Blackwell, 2005) and Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar and Necessity (Wiley Blackwell, 2009). They ensure that this survey of Wittgenstein's private language arguments and of his accounts of thought, imagination, consciousness, the self, and criteria will remain the essential reference work on the Investigations for the foreseeable future.