Major Works: Selected Philosophical Writings
by Ludwig Wittgenstein
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"Major Works is the finest single-volume anthology of influential philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein's important writings. Featuring the complete texts of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, The Blue and Brown Books: Studies for 'Philosophical 'Investigations,' and-On Certainty, this new collection selects from the early, middle, and later career of this revolutionary thinker, widely recognized as one of the most profound minds of all time."--BOOK JACKET.Tags
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(before my review, I will say that I was slightly disappointed in the typos throughout the HarperPerennial x ModernThought publications. Be that as it may, I will not count it against my rating.)
This truly is a masterpiece of modern thought. It is little that Wittgenstein has been picked up as a predecessor to both right wing (analytic) and left wing (continental) philosophers. He leaves so much room for thought and there are so many facets that one can explore that, as I just mentioned, can be taken in many directions; much as what happened with Hegel and the schisms that bled into Fascist and Communist ideologies alike.
Whether or not you consider yourself a person interested in philosophy, I highly encourage you to read this. It is show more not some supercilious attempt at telling the reader how things "really are." Rather, Wittgenstein lays out some valuable insights in plain language the basic tenents of formal logic and how important it is to keep these in mind when considering just how it is we communicate with each other.
The Tractatus may be difficult for those who have never studied formal or symbolic logic, but don't let that deter you. If you are really interested in that piece I am sure there are resources online that can break down the general rules. The blue and brown book though are basically a walk through of the Tractatus and how such understanding can clear up the muddled concepts of age-old philosophical problems - which is interesting enough as it is.
Even as someone who has studied philosophy for some time though I would say the most interesting of all is in his "on certainty." I will warn you though, it is important to read the preceding material to get a solid understanding of what he is getting at here. This section has great insight into everyday/inductive/empirical "knowledge" that I think all people should take into consideration (given that probably 90 percent of all knowledge people commonly talk about is just of this type). We far too often take language for granted and base the premisses of our convictions and ideals that, though not necessarily wrong per se, are muddled and lead to faulty conclusions. At the very least this section offers valuable tools to the average person (without taking an epistemology class) to take a look at what it means to "know" something and how to better scrutinize those who try to tell us that they do.
Wonderful book! show less
This truly is a masterpiece of modern thought. It is little that Wittgenstein has been picked up as a predecessor to both right wing (analytic) and left wing (continental) philosophers. He leaves so much room for thought and there are so many facets that one can explore that, as I just mentioned, can be taken in many directions; much as what happened with Hegel and the schisms that bled into Fascist and Communist ideologies alike.
Whether or not you consider yourself a person interested in philosophy, I highly encourage you to read this. It is show more not some supercilious attempt at telling the reader how things "really are." Rather, Wittgenstein lays out some valuable insights in plain language the basic tenents of formal logic and how important it is to keep these in mind when considering just how it is we communicate with each other.
The Tractatus may be difficult for those who have never studied formal or symbolic logic, but don't let that deter you. If you are really interested in that piece I am sure there are resources online that can break down the general rules. The blue and brown book though are basically a walk through of the Tractatus and how such understanding can clear up the muddled concepts of age-old philosophical problems - which is interesting enough as it is.
Even as someone who has studied philosophy for some time though I would say the most interesting of all is in his "on certainty." I will warn you though, it is important to read the preceding material to get a solid understanding of what he is getting at here. This section has great insight into everyday/inductive/empirical "knowledge" that I think all people should take into consideration (given that probably 90 percent of all knowledge people commonly talk about is just of this type). We far too often take language for granted and base the premisses of our convictions and ideals that, though not necessarily wrong per se, are muddled and lead to faulty conclusions. At the very least this section offers valuable tools to the average person (without taking an epistemology class) to take a look at what it means to "know" something and how to better scrutinize those who try to tell us that they do.
Wonderful book! show less
Ludwig Wittgenstein was a hugely important philosopher of the 20th Century. I have only heard of him before, so I didn’t really know what to expect when reading this book of his Major Works. The book includes Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, The Blue and Brown Books: Studies for ‘Philosophical Investigations,’ and On Certainty. I don’t know what they cut out or included or anything, but the book states that it is a selection of his works. I’m going to describe the books by TLP and TBBB and OC if that is alright with everyone.
Anyway, TLP starts out by establishing simple ideas and then building on them step by step. In that sense it is similar to Ethics by Spinoza. The first page of the TLP talks about how the statements are show more organized. This is really important to me since I tend to lose track of what the man is saying. Thinking about thoughts is a sort of thing I don’t usually consider in a formal sense with logic. However, that is what Wittgenstein has done in this book. Once again, we start out with a statement, and then the following statements are numbered to elaborate on the main statement. There are only seven main statements in the TLP, but most of the book is made up of the supporting statements. It discusses Symbolic Logic and how to avoid Russell’s Paradox among other things.
TBBB is made up of paragraphs and is somewhat different from TLP. It begins with the idea of what we mean by meaning. What is the meaning of a word? Wittgenstein goes on to discuss the limitations in our thoughts by what we can describe in our language. Really good stuff. The same basic idea applies to both of the books in that set.
Finally, OC discusses our limitations of language in reference to what we can be certain of.
I really liked this one, so perhaps I can find other things similar to it. show less
Anyway, TLP starts out by establishing simple ideas and then building on them step by step. In that sense it is similar to Ethics by Spinoza. The first page of the TLP talks about how the statements are show more organized. This is really important to me since I tend to lose track of what the man is saying. Thinking about thoughts is a sort of thing I don’t usually consider in a formal sense with logic. However, that is what Wittgenstein has done in this book. Once again, we start out with a statement, and then the following statements are numbered to elaborate on the main statement. There are only seven main statements in the TLP, but most of the book is made up of the supporting statements. It discusses Symbolic Logic and how to avoid Russell’s Paradox among other things.
TBBB is made up of paragraphs and is somewhat different from TLP. It begins with the idea of what we mean by meaning. What is the meaning of a word? Wittgenstein goes on to discuss the limitations in our thoughts by what we can describe in our language. Really good stuff. The same basic idea applies to both of the books in that set.
Finally, OC discusses our limitations of language in reference to what we can be certain of.
I really liked this one, so perhaps I can find other things similar to it. show less
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Born in Vienna, Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was educated at Linz and Berlin University. In 1908 he went to England, registering as a research student in engineering at the University of Manchester. There he studied Bertrand Russell's (see also Vol. 5) Principles of Mathematics by chance and decided to study with Russell at Cambridge show more University. From 1912 to 1913, he studied under Russell's supervision and began to develop the ideas that crystallized in his Tractatus. With the outbreak of World War I, he returned home and volunteered for the Austrian Army. During his military service, he prepared the book published in 1921 as the Tractatus, first translated into English in 1922 by C. K. Ogden. Wittgenstein emerged as a philosopher whose influence spread from Austria to the English-speaking world. Perhaps the most eminent philosopher during the second half of the twentieth century, Wittgenstein had an early impact on the members of the Vienna Circle, with which he was associated. The logical atomism of the Tractatus, with its claims that propositions of logic and mathematics are tautologous and that the cognitive meaning of other sorts of scientific statements is empirical, became the fundamental source of logical positivism, or logical empiricism. Bertrand Russell adopted it as his position, and A. J. Ayer was to accept and profess it 15 years later. From the end of World War I until 1926, Wittgenstein was a schoolteacher in Austria. In 1929 his interest in philosophy renewed, and he returned to Cambridge, where even G. E. Moore came under his spell. At Cambridge Wittgenstein began a new wave in philosophical analysis distinct from the Tractatus, which had inspired the rise of logical positivism. Whereas the earlier Wittgenstein had concentrated on the formal structures of logic and mathematics, the later Wittgenstein attended to the fluidities of ordinary language. His lectures, remarks, conversations, and letters made lasting imprints on the minds of his most brilliant students, who have long since initiated the unending process of publishing them. During his lifetime Wittgenstein himself never published another book after the Tractatus. However, he was explicit that the work disclosing the methods and topics of his later years be published. This work, Philosophical Investigations (1953), is esteemed to be his most mature expression of his philosophical method and thought. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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