The problem of colour exclusion is not fatal to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s early philosophy, nor was it the catalyst for his later philosophy. The remarks in the Tractatus about the impossibility of the simultaneous occurrence of two colours at a point in the visual field sit comfortably with the remarks in the rest of the book, the discussion of mathematical physics above all. Furthermore Wittgenstein’s second thoughts about the impossibility were a consequence, not the cause, of the subsequent (...) turn in his philosophy. (shrink)

From his return to Cambridge in 1929 to his death in 1951, Wittgenstein influenced philosophy almost exclusively through teaching and discussion. These lecture notes indicate what he considered to be salient features of his thinking in this period of his life.

Between 1937 and 1951 Wittgenstein had numerous philosophical conversations with his student and close friend, Rush Rhees. This article is composed of Rhees’s notes of twenty such conversations — namely, all those which have not yet been published — as well as some supplements from Rhees’s correspondence and miscellaneous notes. The principal value of the notes collected here is that they fill some interesting and important gaps in Wittgenstein ’s corpus. Thus, firstly, the notes touch on a wide range of (...) subjects, a number of which are only briefly addressed by Wittgenstein elsewhere, if at all. The subjects discussed include: explanation, ethics, anarchism, contradiction, psychoanalysis, colour, religion, concepts, classification, seeing-as, evolution, the relation between science and philosophy, and free will, amongst others. Secondly, the notes contain references to, and brief remarks about, philosophers of whom Wittgenstein otherwise says very little, if anything — such as Brentano, Heidegger, Aquinas, and Marx, amongst others. And thirdly, the notes provide us with valuable examples of Wittgenstein ’s use of some key ‘Wittgensteinian’ terms of art which are surprisingly rare in his written works, such as ‘surface-’ and ‘depth-grammar’, and ‘centres of variation’. (shrink)

System Requirements System requirements Minimum 80486, 66MHz IBM PC or full compatible ; Minimum 16MB RAM 177MB hard disk space to store and run the Nachlass, an extra 12MB in addition to this should be available during installation. SVGA monitor set to 800x600 pixels, 16-bit colour, or higher setting recommended to use and display the transcription text and facsimiles; Quad-speed CD-ROM drive or higher; Windows 3.1, 3.11; Windows 95/98; Windows NT 4.0; Windows 2000. Microsoft mouse or compatible Network versions (...) Windows NT 4, and Novell networks. Customers with Wide Area Networks should ring Customer Services to discuss specific requirements. Customer Service Contact: Customer Services, Electronic Publishing Tel: +44 1865 267979 Fax: +44 1865 267990 Email: [email protected]. (shrink)

This book comprises material on colour which was written by Wittgenstein in the last eighteen months of his life. It is one of the few documents which shows him concentratedly at work on a single philosophical issue. The principal theme is the features of different colours, of different kinds of colour (metallic colour, the colours of flames, etc.) and of luminosity—a theme which Wittgenstein treats in such a way as to destroy the traditional idea that colour (...) is a simple and logically uniform kind of thing. This edition consists of Wittgenstein's basic German text, together with an English translation. (shrink)

From his return to Cambridge in 1929 to his death in 1951, Ludwig Wittgenstein, who published only one work in his lifetime, influenced philosophy almost exclusively through teaching and discussion. These lecture notes, therefore, are an important record of the development of Wittgenstein's thought; they indicate the interests he maintained in his later years and signal what he considered the salient features of his thinking. Further, the notes from an enlightening addition to his posthumously published writings. P. T. Geach, (...) A. C. Jackson, and K. J. Shah kept meticulous notes from the last formal course that Wittgenstein taught at Cambridge. In order to reconstruct as accurately as possible the words of Wittgenstein, this volume compiles all three sets of notes with no attempt to conflate or edit them beyond rendering them into lucid English. Topics covered by the notes in this volume include the private language argument, the grammar of sensation statements, certainty and experimentation in psychology, and, in general, the same set of concerns as are to be found in his Last Writings and Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology . The source material provided in these lecture notes is vital to Wittgenstein scholarship. (shrink)

System Requirements System requirements Minimum 80486, 66MHz IBM PC or full compatible ; Minimum 16MB RAM 177MB hard disk space to store and run the Nachlass, an extra 12MB in addition to this should be available during installation. SVGA monitor set to 800x600 pixels, 16-bit colour, or higher setting recommended to use and display the transcription text and facsimiles; Quad-speed CD-ROM drive or higher; Windows 3.1, 3.11; Windows 95/98; Windows NT 4.0; Windows 2000. Microsoft mouse or compatible Network versions (...) Windows NT 4, and Novell networks. Customers with Wide Area Networks should ring Customer Services to discuss specific requirements. Customer Service Contact: Customer Services, Electronic Publishing Tel: +44 1865 267979 Fax: +44 1865 267990 Email: [email protected]. (shrink)

The “Lecture on Ethics” is a unique work in Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophical output. It is the sole work Wittgenstein prepared exclusively about ethics. This chapter discusses the difference between what Wittgenstein said in his lecture on ethics and the claptrap spoken by others. Explaining the difference requires introducing Wittgenstein's view of ethics, beginning with his main point in the Lecture. The main point of this paper is that the experiences that give rise to thoughts of the ethical are paradoxical (...) in form. The chapter shows that Wittgenstein's view of ethics in the lecture is serious and severe, but is contrary neither to common sense nor to the common idea of the character of ethics. Talking about the essence of ethics – the absolute good – is strictly nonsense but it indicates something in each of us to which Wittgenstein relates with, possibly silent, respect. (shrink)

In the last years of his life, from 1949 to 1951, Wittgenstein's writings focused upon knowledge and certainty, upon colour concepts and upon the relation between the "inner" and "outer", that is, between so-called mental states and bodily behavior. His writings on this third theme, now available in paperback, are gathered here for the first time. Wittgenstein's last weeks were a period of high creativity during which his thoughts were on a level with the best he ever produced. His (...) variation on the classic philosophical theme of the relation between mind and body is no exception. (shrink)

Wittgenstein finished part 1 of the Philosophical Investigations in the spring of 1945. From 1946 to 1949 he worked on the philosophy of psychology almost without interruption. The present two-volume work comprises many of his writings over this period. Some of the remarks contained here were culled for part 2 of the Investigations ; others were set aside and appear in the collection known as Zettel . The great majority, however, although of excellent quality, have hitherto remained unpublished. This bilingual (...) edition of the Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology presents the first English translation of an essential body of Wittegenstein's work. It elaborates Wittgenstein's views on psychological concepts such as expectation, sensation, knowing how to follow a rule, and knowledge of the sensations of other persons. It also shows strong emphasis on the "anthropological" aspect of Wittgenstein's thought. Philosophers, as well as anthropologists, psychologists, and sociologists will welcome this important publication. (shrink)

Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein had an enormous influence on twentieth-century philosophy even though only one of his works, the famous Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, was published in his lifetime. Beyond this publication the impact of his thought was mainly conveyed to a small circle of students through his lectures at Cambridge University. Fortunately, many of his ideas have survived in both the dictations that were subsequently published, and the notes taken by his students, among them Alice Ambrose and the late Margaret Macdonald, (...) from 1932 to 1935. These notes, now edited by Professor Ambrose, are here published, and they shed much light on Wittgenstein's philosophical development. Among the topics considered are the meaning of a word and its relation to common usage, rules of grammar and their relation to fact, the grammar of first person statements, language games, and the nature of philosophy. This volume is indispensable to any serious discussion of Wittgenstein's work. (shrink)

Written in code under constant threat of battle, Wittgenstein's searing and illuminating diaries finally emerge in this first-ever English translation. During the pandemic, Marjorie Perloff, one of our foremost scholars of global literature, found her mind ineluctably drawn to the profound commentary on life and death in the wartime diaries of eminent philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951). Upon learning that these notebooks, which richly contextualize the early stages of his magnum opus, the Tractatus-Logico-Philosophicus, had never before been published in English, (...) the Viennese-born Perloff determinedly set about translating them. Beginning with the anxious summer of 1914, this historic, en-face edition presents the first-person recollections of a foot soldier in the Austrian Army, fresh from his days as a philosophy student at Cambridge, who must grapple with the hazing of his fellow soldiers, the stirrings of a forbidden sexuality, and the formation of an explosive analytical philosophy that seemed to draw meaning from his endless brushes with death. Much like Tolstoy's The Gospel in Brief, Private Notebooks takes us on a personal journey to discovery as it augments our knowledge of Wittgenstein himself. (shrink)

Bazzocchi disposes the text of the Tractatus in a user-friendly manner, exactly as Wittgenstein's decimals advise. This discloses the logical form of the book by distinct reading units, linked into a fashioned hierarchical tree. The text becomes much clearer and every reader can enjoy, finally, its formal and literary qualities.

[1] Biographie, Philosophie, Praxis -- [2] Het spel van het naamloze / naar een concept van Joseph Kosuth.

These works, as the sub-title makes clear, are unfinished sketches for Philosophical Investigations, possibly the most important and influential philosophical work of modern times. The 'Blue Book' is a set of notes dictated to Witgenstein's Cambridge students in 1933-1934: the 'Brown Book' was a draft for what eventually became the growth of the first part of Philosophical Investigations. This book reveals the germination and growth of the ideas which found their final expression in Witgenstein's later work. It is indispensable therefore (...) to students of Witgenstein's thought and to all those who wish to study at first-hand the mental processes of a thinker who fundamentally changed the course of modern philosophy. (shrink)

Vorwort -- Vortrag über Ethik -- Bemerkungen über logische Form -- Bemerkungen über Frazers Golden Bough -- Aufzeichnungen für Vorlesungen über "privates Erlebnis" und "Sinnesdaten" -- Ursache und Wirkung ; Intuitives Erfassen -- Textnachweise.

Bazzocchi disposes the text of the Tractatus in a user-friendly manner, exactly as Wittgenstein's decimals advise. This discloses the logical form of the book by distinct reading units, linked into a fashioned hierarchical tree. The text becomes much clearer and every reader can enjoy, finally, its formal and literary qualities.

This bilingual volume—English and German on facing pages—brings together the writings Wittgenstein composed during his stay in Dublin between October 1948 and March 1949, one of his most fruitful periods. He later drew more than half of his remarks for Part II of Philosophical Investigations from this Dublin manuscript. A direct continuation of the writing that makes up the two volumes of Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, this collection offers scholars a glimpse of Wittgenstein's preliminary thinking on one of (...) his most important works. G. H. von Wright and Heikki Nyman both teach at the University of Helsinki. (shrink)

The paper aims at comparing Wittgenstein’s discussion of color exclusion in his to Johnson’s doctrine of determinable and determinate expounded in his. I first summarize Wittgenstein’s developments about the incompatibility of elementary propositions and about the logic of color statements. In the second part, I present and discuss Johnson’s doctrine in relation to Wittgenstein’s development. In a third conclusive moment, drawing on a early work of Prior, I argue that the distinction made by Wittgenstein and Johnson between predication and (...) determination should be looked at from a long term historical perspective. (shrink)

This popular selection of Wittgenstein’s key writings has now been updated to include new material relevant to recent debates about the philosopher. Follows the evolution of Wittgenstein’s philosophical thought from the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus through to the Philosophical Investigations. Excerpts are arranged by topic and introduce readers to all the central concerns of Wittgenstein’s philosophy. Now includes a new chapter on ‘Sense, Nonsense and Philosophy’ incorporating material relevant to recent debates about Wittgenstein.

i How can one talk about 'understanding' and 'not understanding' a proposition? Surely it is not a proposition until it's understood ? ...

Wittgenstein's work remains, undeniably, now, that off one of those few philosophers who will be read by all future generations.

Editorial preface to the fourth edition and modified translation -- The text of the Philosophische Untersuchungen -- Philosophische untersuchungen = Philosophical investigations -- Philosophie der psychologie, ein fragment = Philosophy of psychology, a fragment.

Within the rather large Wittgenstein-collection at the Austrian National Library are 14 letters to Ludwig Wittgenstein from his uncle Paul (1848-1928), written between 1914 and 1923. The last of these letters, written on 1st March 1923, contains a little surprise. On the backside of this letter, the logical remarks and draft graphics which are recorded are obviously penned by the hand of Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Intellectual diary of a thinker of the school of Logical Positivism showing the day-by-day development of his philosophical ideas.

Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein had an enormous influence on twentieth-century philosophy even though only one of his works, the famous Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, was published in his lifetime. Beyond this publication the impact of his thought was mainly conveyed to a small circle of students through his lectures at Cambridge University. Fortunately, many of his ideas have survived in both the dictations that were subsequently published, and the notes taken by his students, among them Alice Ambrose and the late Margaret Macdonald, (...) from 1932 to 1935. These notes, now edited by Professor Ambrose, are here published, and they shed much light on Wittgenstein's philosophical development. Among the topics considered are the meaning of a word and its relation to common usage, rules of grammar and their relation to fact, the grammar of first person statements, language games, and the nature of philosophy. This volume is indispensable to any serious discussion of Wittgenstein's work. (shrink)

Der zweisprachige Band führt in die "Wiener Ausgabe" der Werke Ludwig Wittgensteins (1889-1951) ein, in der erstmals dessen Manuskripte vollständig und in getreuer Wiedergabe erscheinen werden. In jahrzehntelanger Arbeit wurde der Nachlaß mithilfe einer Editionsmethode ediert, die für dieses ungewöhnliche Werk speziell entwickelt wurde. Der Einführungsband erklärt diese Methode wie die editorische Situation des Nachlasses und stellt darüber hinaus Arbeitsunterlagen für das Studium von Wittgensteins Texten zur Verfügung: Eine biographische Skizze zeigt die Verbindung von Leben und Werk, eine schematische (...) Chronologie erleichert die Zuordnung der jeweiligen Manuskriptseiten und Typoskripte. Die Gegenüberstellung von Faksimileabdrucken einzelner Manuskriptseiten und der edierten Seiten läßt die einzelnen Schritte der Textedition transparent werden. (shrink)