The book explores the impact of manuscript remarks during the year 1929 on the development of Wittgenstein’s thought. Although its intention is to put the focus specifically on the manuscripts, the book is not purely exegetical. The contributors generate important new insights for understanding Wittgenstein’s philosophy and his place in the history of analytic philosophy. Wittgenstein’s writings from the years 1929-1930 are valuable, not simply because they marked Wittgenstein’s return to academic philosophy after a seven-year absence, but because these works indicate several changes in his philosophical thinking. The chapters in this volume clarify the significance of Wittgenstein’s return to philosophy in 1929. In Part 1, the contributors address different issues in the philosophy of mathematics, e.g. Wittgenstein's understanding of certain aspects of intuitionism and his commitment to verificationism, as well as his idea of "a new system". Part 2 examines Wittgenstein's philosophical development and his understanding of philosophical method. Here the contributors examine particular problems Wittgenstein dealt with in 1929, e.g. the colour-exclusion problem, and the use of thought experiments as well as his relationship to Frank Ramsey and philosophical pragmatism. Part 3 features essays on phenomenological language. These chapters address the role of spatial analogies and the structure of visual space. Finally, Part 4 includes one chapter on Wittgenstein’s few manuscript remarks about ethics and religion and relates it to his Lecture on Ethics. Wittgenstein’s Philosophy in 1929 will be of great interest to scholars and advanced students working on Wittgenstein and the history of analytic philosophy.

In his writings around 1930, Wittgenstein relates his philosophy in different ways to the idea of phenomenology. He indicates that his main philosophical project had earlier been the construction of a purely phenomenological language, and even after having given up this project he believed that "the world we live in is the world of sense-data,,,l that is, of phenomenological objects. However, a problem is posed by the fact that he does not appear ever to have given a full, explicit account of what he means by his 'phenomenology', 'phenomenological language', or 'phenomenological problems'. In this book, I have tried to unravel the nature of Wittgenstein's phenomenology and to examine its importance for his entire work in philosophy. Phenomenology can be characterized as philosophy whose primary concern is what is immediately given in one's experience. This 'immediately given' is not merely impressions inside one's mind, but includes also the part of objective reality that impinges upon one's consciousness. Thus, an aim of phenomenological enterprise is to grasp this objective reality by attending to immediate experience. Husserl's phenomenology is in fact a case in point.

Paradox and Platitude in Wittgenstein's Philosophy is a concise and readable study of five intertwined themes at the heart of Wittgenstein's thought, written by one of his most eminent interpreters. David Pears offers penetrating investigations and lucid explications of some of the most influential and yet puzzling writings of twentieth-century philosophy. He focuses on the idea of language as a picture of the world; the phenomenon of linguistic regularity; the famous 'private language argument'; logical necessity; and ego and the self.

The book explains why and how Wittgenstein adapted the Tractatus in phenomenological and grammatical terms to meet challenges of his 'middle period.' It also shows why and how he invents a new method and develops an anthropological perspective, which gradually frame his philosophy and give birth to the Philosophical Investigations .

This title was first published in 2000: What was Wittgenstein's relation to "theory of meaning" in his post-1937 writings and what was his characterization of "philosophy" ? How does "philosophy" in Wittgenstein's later writings differ from what is usually accepted in modern academic 'analytic' philosophy? This book discusses problems encountered in looking at Wittgenstein's texts after-1937, focusing particularly on whether the problem of philosophy amounts to a systematic or a theoretical activity. Arguing that philosophy can be characterized as a form of conceptual investigation, Gefwert aims to demonstrate that a theoretical view does not correspond to Wittgenstein's conception of philosophy. For example, philosophy is not transcendental as he thought it was before 1929. Neither is philosophical language universal as Wittgenstein 1929-1936 thought it was. Proposing that a philosophical conceptual investigation is analogous to a psychotherapeutical session of Freud, with the common aim to dissolve the conceptual problems in language that haunt us in our everyday life, Gefwert's examination of the post-1937 writings of Wittgenstein concludes that "philosophical investigation" is a very different activity than that assumed by the Logical Positives and others adhering to a theoretical view.

This book explores how Wittgenstein’s personal life provided more of a reference point for his philosophical work than has been previously thought. Focusing on two key phases in Wittgenstein’s life during which he dramatically changed his philosophical orientation and reinvented both his intellectual methods and himself, the author presents and alternative understanding of Wittgenstein and his work. The book firstly addresses the period of his “anthropological turn” (1929-1932), in which Wittgenstein developed one of his central arguments concerning the role of the body in the acquisition of language and the rules of social practice. The second key phase, commencing after the end of the Second World War, was one of introspection, during which Wittgenstein became intensely preoccupied by inner events, sensations, and his own personality. As his work evolved, the anthropological aspects became the primary focus of his work by the end of his life. Providing an accessible and novel insight into Wittgenstein’s work and his interest in ‘continental’ philosophy, this translation will appeal to a wide audience.

Wittgenstein's role was vital in establishing mathematics as one of this century's principal areas of philosophic inquiry. In this book, the three phases of Wittgenstein's reflections on mathematics are viewed as a progressive whole, rather than as separate entities. Frascolla builds up a systematic construction of Wittgenstein's representation of the role of arithmetic in the theory of logical operations. He also presents a new interpretation of Wittgenstein's rule-following considerations - the `community view of internal relations'.

This book engages with the later arguments of this major philosopher to examine his significant impact on our understanding of language.

This book explores the interrelated concepts of representation and grammar in the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Throughout his life, Wittgenstein was obsessed with the problem of the nature of language and the relationship between language and the world. His intellectual journey, one of the most compelling in twentieth century thought, is the detailed adventure told by Gordon Hunnings in The World and Language in Wittgenstein's Philosophy. This book surveys Wittgenstein's elucidation of how the world is represented in language, including the posthumously published material of his middle period. Early in his career, Wittgenstein's answer to the problem explored the representational connection between language and the world through the analogy of propositions as logical pictures of facts. Later, his mature answer elucidated the concept of the world as a construction of logical grammar. Hunnings shows how these shifting images of reality reflected in language also mirror the changes in Wittgenstein's philosophy.

This book presents and discusses the varying and seminal role which colour plays in the development of Wittgenstein’s philosophy. Having once said that “Colours spur us to philosophize”, the theme of colour was one to which Wittgenstein returned constantly throughout his career. Ranging from his Notebooks, 1914-1916 and the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus to the posthumously published Remarks on Colours and On Certainty, this book explores how both his view of philosophical problems generally and his view on colours specifically changed considerably over time. Paying particular attention to his so-called intermediary period, it takes a case-based approach to the presentation of colour in texts from this period, from Some Remarks on Logical Form and Philosophical Remarks to his Big Typescript.