Philosophical Investigations
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
Few works in the history of Western philosophy have so radically reoriented an entire discipline as Philosophical Investigations — a landmark text that dismantles centuries of assumption about language, meaning, and the nature of mind. Written in the final years of Ludwig Wittgenstein's life and published posthumously in 1953, the work presents a devastating critique of the picture theory of language he himself had championed in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, arguing instead that meaning is not a fixed, private property of words but arises from their use within the shifting, communal practices he famously termed language-games. Through a series of tightly interwoven aphorisms and thought experiments — among them the celebrated private language argument and the beetle-in-a-box — Wittgenstein systematically uncovers the ways in which philosophical confusion is generated by the misuse and misunderstanding of ordinary language. Translated into English by the distinguished philosopher G. E. M. Anscombe, this Basil Blackwell edition brings Wittgenstein's characteristically oblique, probing style to Anglophone readers with exceptional fidelity, preserving the deliberate open-endedness that has made the text an inexhaustible source of scholarly debate. The work's influence radiates across analytic philosophy, linguistics, cognitive science, and literary theory, reshaping how thinkers approach questions of consciousness, rule-following, and certainty. Wittgenstein does not offer comfortable resolutions; instead, he instructs the reader to look more carefully at what they already know — and in doing so, leaves them wondering whether philosophy itself will ever be the same again.
Author: Ludwig Wittgenstein
Format: Paperback
Genre: Philosophy
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
Few works in the history of Western philosophy have so radically reoriented an entire discipline as Philosophical Investigations — a landmark text that dismantles centuries of assumption about language, meaning, and the nature of mind. Written in the final years of Ludwig Wittgenstein's life and published posthumously in 1953, the work presents a devastating critique of the picture theory of language he himself had championed in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, arguing instead that meaning is not a fixed, private property of words but arises from their use within the shifting, communal practices he famously termed language-games. Through a series of tightly interwoven aphorisms and thought experiments — among them the celebrated private language argument and the beetle-in-a-box — Wittgenstein systematically uncovers the ways in which philosophical confusion is generated by the misuse and misunderstanding of ordinary language. Translated into English by the distinguished philosopher G. E. M. Anscombe, this Basil Blackwell edition brings Wittgenstein's characteristically oblique, probing style to Anglophone readers with exceptional fidelity, preserving the deliberate open-endedness that has made the text an inexhaustible source of scholarly debate. The work's influence radiates across analytic philosophy, linguistics, cognitive science, and literary theory, reshaping how thinkers approach questions of consciousness, rule-following, and certainty. Wittgenstein does not offer comfortable resolutions; instead, he instructs the reader to look more carefully at what they already know — and in doing so, leaves them wondering whether philosophy itself will ever be the same again.