Incorporating
significant editorial changes from earlier editions, the fourth edition
of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations is the definitive
en face German-English version of the most important work of
20th-century philosophy. The extensively revised English translation
incorporates many hundreds of changes to Anscombe's original
translation. Footnoted remarks in the earlier editions have now been
relocated in the text. What was previously referred to as 'Part 2' is
now republished as Philosophy of Psychology - A Fragment, and all the
remarks in it are numbered for ease of reference. New detailed
editorial endnotes explain decisions of translators and identify
references and allusions in Wittgenstein's original text. Now features
new essays on the history of the Philosophical Investigations, and the
problems of translating Wittgenstein's text.
Philosophische
Untersuchungen is, with the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, one of two
major works by 20th-century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. In it, he
discusses numerous problems & puzzles in fields of semantics,
logic, philosophy of mathematics & the philosophy of mind. He
asserts that conceptual confusions surrounding language use are at the
root of most philosophical problems, contradicting & discarding
much the argument of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The book is
often considered one of the most important works of the 20th century,
continuing to influence contemporary philosophers studying mind &
language. The book wasn't ready for publication when Wittgenstein
died in 1951. G.E.M. Anscombe translated the ms & it was published
in 1953. It's now in a 3rd edition incorporating Anscombe's final
revisions & is repaginated. There are two popular editions of
Philosophical Investigations: Prentice Hall, 1999 (ISBN 0024288101) Blackwell Publishers, 2001 (ISBN 0631231277)--bilingual. The
text is divided into two parts, consisting of what Wittgenstein calls,
in the preface, Bemerkungen, translated by Anscombe as "remarks". In
the 1st part, these remarks are rarely more than a paragraph long &
are numbered sequentially. In the 2nd part, the remarks are longer
& numbered using Roman numerals. In the index, remarks from the 1st
part are referenced by their number rather than page; however,
references from the 2nd part are cited by page number. The
comparatively unusual nature of the 2nd part is due to the fact that it
comprises notes Wittgenstein intended to reincorporate into the 1st.
Due to his death, it was published as a 2nd part. Philosophical
Investigations is unique in its approach to philosophy. A typical
philosophical text presents a philosophical problem, summarizes &
critiques various alternative approaches to solving it, presents its
own approach, then argues in favor of that approach. This book treats
philosophy as an activity, rather along the lines of Sokrates' maieutic
method; he has the reader work thru various problems, participating
actively in the investigation. Rather than presenting a philosophical
problem & its solution, he engages in a dialog, where he provides a
thought experiment (a hypothetical example or situation), describes how
one might be inclined to think about it, then shows why that
inclination suffers from conceptual confusion.
