Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations

Abstract

In this chapter I want to suggest an approach to Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations that I believe will make this profound book more accessible to readers not already familiar with it. The Investigations is considered Wittgenstein's second masterpiece; it was published posthumously in 1953 many years after the appearance of his first masterpiece, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Whereas the Tractatus was the force behind the development of logical analysis and logical positivism, the Investigations gave rise to new forms of conceptual analysis and ordinary language philosophy. Arguably, both works were misinterpreted by many of their readers and disciples. Together, the two books are responsible for Wittgenstein's being considered the foremost linguistic, analytic philosopher of the twentieth century. Ludwig Wittgenstein was born in Vienna, Austria in 1889. He was the son of a domineering and immensely wealthy Viennese steel magnate, and he possessed the highly cultivated, and psychologically tortured, personality one would expect from his family background. After studying engineering and aeronautics in England, he moved on to study logic and philosophy with Bertrand Russell at the University of Cambridge. He was associated with Cambridge for much of his professional career as a philosopher. Wittgenstein was a complex and difficult person, and stories about his life are a staple of intellectual legends of the twentieth century. Despite its conversational tone and its relative lack of technical terms, Philosophical Investigations (PI) is a work that most new readers find immensely puzzling.

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