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Philosophical Investigations

Ludwig Wittgenstein,

G.E.M. Anscombe (Translator)

4.24 · Rating details · 12,550 ratings · 314 reviews

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Hardcover, 50th Anniversary Commemorative Edition, 464 pages

Published January 15th 2001 by Blackwell Publishing, Inc. (first published 1953)

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Jul 01, 2013 Roy Lotz rated it it was amazing

Shelves: highly-recommended-favorites, prose-style, language-logic-and-linguistics, footnotes-to-plato, germanophilia

If you read first Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, and then follow it with his Philosophical Investigations, you will treat yourself to perhaps the most fascinating intellectual development in the history of philosophy. Wittgenstein has the distinct merit of producing, not one, but two enormously influential systems of philosophy—systems, moreover, that are at loggerheads with one another.

In fact, I wouldn’t recommend attempting to tackle this work without first reading the Tractatus, as the Investi ...more

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Aug 26, 2013 Manny rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: linguistics-and-philosophy

An offline discussion with Simon Evnine prompted me to reread the first few sections of this book, which I hadn't looked at in ages. They inspired the following short story:

Wang's First Day on the Job

Wang is a Chinese construction worker who's just arrived in the US. He doesn't know a word of English, but he figures he'll get by. The important thing is that he knows construction work. His English-speaking cousin takes him to a building site and manages to get him hired by Wittgenstein Constructi An offline discussion with Simon Evnine prompted me to reread the first few sections of this book, which I hadn't looked at in ages. They inspired the following short story:

Wang's First Day on the Job

Wang is a Chinese construction worker who's just arrived in the US. He doesn't know a word of English, but he figures he'll get by. The important thing is that he knows construction work. His English-speaking cousin takes him to a building site and manages to get him hired by Wittgenstein Construction Inc.

The foreman is laying slabs. He points to Wang. "Slab!" he says. Wang has no idea what he's talking about. The foreman points to the slabs he's already laid, to the small pile of slabs nearby, and to the large pile of slabs in the corner of the site. "Slab!" he says again. Wang understands the problem. He takes a wheelbarrow and fetches some slabs.

The foreman is visibly pleased! Evidently Wang's cousin was telling him the truth. This guy is hard-working and learns fast. He points to Wang again. "Cement!" he says. Wang looks at him. The foreman points to the bags of cement in the corner with the slabs. Wang gets his wheelbarrow and comes back with a bag of cement. The foreman is again pleased. He's almost finished laying the slabs Wang brought the first time.

"Slab!" he says again. Wang understands! (Such a smart guy, the foreman thinks). He goes off for another load. "Cement!" says the foreman. Wang gets that too.

"Slab!" says the foreman, when Wang's unloaded the new cement. Wang's just about to go off with his wheelbarrow, when the foreman stops him. He points to one slab, then another. "White slab - red slab", he says. "White - red". Wang nods. The foreman points to Wang. "Red slab!" he says. Wang looks at the pile of slabs in the corner. He had noticed that those on one side of the pile were red. He goes and fetches a load of red slabs.

He comes back and unloads them. "Cement?" he asks. "Cement," agrees the foreman. He's already decided he owes Wang's cousin a beer. This unknown Chinese dude is worth his weight in gold! Wang's back with the cement. "Slab," says the foreman. "Red slab?" asks Wang. "White slab," corrects the foreman.

Wang goes off to get the white slabs. He's even more pleased than the foreman. He can already see how to structure the next chapter of his dissertation on linguistic philosophy.

...more

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May 17, 2017 Trevor rated it it was amazing

Shelves: language, philosophy

This is the first work by Wittgenstein I’ve ever read. I’ve been terrified of him for years, truth be told. I’ve read a biography by W.W. Bartley III (wouldn’t you love to be ‘the third’? I would stick the three I’s on the end of my name too, if I was, but unfortunately I’m only Trevor the Second…). The main memory I have of that book is of Wittgenstein waiting to be captured in WWI and him humming the second movement of Beethoven’s Seventh. That has always been one of my all-time favourite piec ...more

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Dec 14, 2008 Manny rated it really liked it

Shelves: linguistics-and-philosophy, transcendent-experiences

I couldn't possibly do Philosophical Investigations justice in a review. Even though I've read it several times, I don't understand more than a fraction of it. The unworthy thought does sometimes cross my mind that its author didn't understand it either, but you understand I'm just jealous because I'm not a Great Philosopher. I would so like to be one.

Assuming you aren't an aspiring Great Philosopher, my advice is not to take this book too seriously... it is very frustrating. Skim it quickly, th ...more

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Aug 07, 2011 Andrew added it

Shelves: philosophy, analytic-philosophy

As a philosopher, Wittgenstein isn't terribly systematic-- rather shocking for an "analytic" thinker. I would argue that he's an original, using analytic (thought experiments), continental (literary examples), pragmatic (everyday life as a litmus test), and Nietzschean (aphoristic style, attitude problem) elements. Hell, I'm almost loathe to call it philosophy at all. It's more like a gorgeous, dense, glittering puzzle box. I guarantee that when I read it again somewhere down the line, I'll get ...more

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Aug 08, 2007 Rob rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction-for-egghead-spacealiens

o my crap, what a tortured soul Ludwig Wittgenstein was. this guy stared into the impenetrable pitch blackness that was the tangled midnight jungle of his own inner existence, sharpened his machete, and plunged in, hacking and flailing and lunging wildly. he wrestles chiefly with the concepts of language, meaning, understanding, and states of consciousness.

part I consists of 693 short numbered sections (about 4 to a page). this was sent to the publisher but pulled back at the last second five y ...more

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Aug 23, 2010 Jon Stout rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: idealists and realists

Shelves: philosophy

This book is too complex to summarize, but here is a nutshell: If you want to know the meaning of a word, consider how the word is used. Words are used in a variety of “language games,” interactions among people, which display “family resemblances.” That is, there is no single model which shows the essence of how words are used, but rather there are many overlapping and differing language games, each of which is a different model.

Enough summarizing. Now to what I am interested in, what I called, This book is too complex to summarize, but here is a nutshell: If you want to know the meaning of a word, consider how the word is used. Words are used in a variety of “language games,” interactions among people, which display “family resemblances.” That is, there is no single model which shows the essence of how words are used, but rather there are many overlapping and differing language games, each of which is a different model.

Enough summarizing. Now to what I am interested in, what I called, once before, “Wittgenstein’s behaviorism,” which I didn’t like. After reading the Philosophical Investigations, I have come to the conclusion that Wittgenstein is not nearly as behavioristic as I had thought. In fact, he is the most introspective behaviorist that I could imagine, but he still ends up being more of a behaviorist than I like.

What do I mean by “behaviorism”? Wittgenstein is a skeptic with regard to meaning, in the sense that he does not think that meaning is something we can look inside of ourselves (introspect) to discover. As I summarized above, Wittgenstein believes that meaning is revealed by the use of a word in social interactions, in other words through language games, the behavior of the people using the word.

Consider words for what we usually think of as mental phenomena: thinking, believing, remembering, knowing, and the like. How can you tell if someone “knows” that Paris is in France? If you ask him, he gives you the right answer. If he looks inside of his mind, must there be the “knowledge” that Paris is in France? Not necessarily, He might not even be thinking of that, and even if he were subvocalizing “Paris is in France,” is there a mental quality that distinguishes that as knowing? Thus Wittgenstein gives a formidable argument that knowing consists not in any mental phenomenon, but in the behavior of giving the right answer.

In making this argument, Wittgenstein has not avoided introspection as a technique. On the contrary he has used it extensively. Even when he asks us to imagine a certain language game, we are imagining a behavior, but we are using introspection to do it. Wittgenstein is a master of asking the rhetorical question which reveals how we use a particular word in social interactions, but each rhetorical question requires a looking into ourselves and our experiences.

Wittgenstein is not ultimately hostile to our looking into ourselves, in fact I think he would regard it as a fruitful part of life. But his basic point is that only when our introspected observations can be validated by being part of our interactions with other people (our language games), only then can the words have consistent and usable meanings.

My quibble with this is that introspection sometimes yields more results than Wittgenstein is prepared to recognize. As just one example, Wittgenstein asks, how do we judge time? He says that we might sit for a while, and say “About five minutes have passed.” and we may be right. He says that there is no introspectable experience of time passing or of measuring time. But I am not sure if that is right.

Paul Churchland talks about a pulsing of neuronic signals from the center of the brain to the perimeter and back again. This means that our sensory processing echoes and reverberates with these pulses and gives us a sense of time passing. If we attend to the experience of this, we may be able to discriminate what makes us sensitive to the passage of time, and we may be able to do this in a way which can be validated by other people. If we are able to make these discriminations through introspection before the science is available to explain it, is it still meaningless? That is my rhetorical question.
...more

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Mar 05, 2009 Erik Graff rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Wittgenstein fans

Recommended to Erik by: Bill Ellos

Shelves: philosophy

This book was assembled posthumously, Wittgenstein having published very little in his lifetime. Although usually coupled with the Tractatus, it is actually more representative of his thought and method.

The virtue of Wittgenstein may be that with him there is no hint of metaphysical conceit or self-deception, but rather a consistent treatment of reality as, in fact, various "language games" ("language" being understood broadly to include everything from the semiotic to the symbolic, the denotati ...more

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Apr 17, 2013 Alexander rated it really liked it

Shelves: mind-games

Exasperating, but worth it.

The syntax of the Investigations has a jaggedly Asperger’s feel to it. Too often Wittgenstein sounds like a malfunctioning android jabbering its core protocols to itself, pacing in frantic circles, waving its arms in a vexed “Philosophy is the sickness and I’m the cure” manner. The loathsome blend of pedantry and vagueness throughout Part 1 -- hectoring in tone, nebulous in definition -- can be maddening. (As a communicator, Wittgenstein often ranks with Kant or Heideg ...more

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Sep 27, 2018 Morgan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

First off, this book is only 197 pages long. The reason Goodreads says it's 464 pages is because this edition is dual language. One side is in German (the original text) and the other side is in English.

Compared to other philosophical readings I've read in the past, I found this one a little easier to follow. I wouldn't call this an easy read though. It's quick, but after you read the book you're still think about Wittgenstein's philosophy. I think I had an easier time with this compared to than ...more

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Jul 21, 2018 Bob Nichols rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I’ve read some excellent reviews of what Wittgenstein intended with book. The role that the social context plays in our language – the use and interpretation of words and propositions can be understood as a social game that is conducted according to certain rules - is good stuff, but it’s not an area of inquiry that interests me.

I was struck by Wittgenstein’s equation of language analysis with his repeated (and seemingly categorical) references to “doing philosophy.” With that term and this boo I’ve read some excellent reviews of what Wittgenstein intended with book. The role that the social context plays in our language – the use and interpretation of words and propositions can be understood as a social game that is conducted according to certain rules - is good stuff, but it’s not an area of inquiry that interests me.

I was struck by Wittgenstein’s equation of language analysis with his repeated (and seemingly categorical) references to “doing philosophy.” With that term and this book, it seems as though Wittgenstein has appropriated the subject matter of philosophy and restricted it to an overly narrow focus – one that lends itself to tangible data with precisely understood terminology, all nicely aligned with scientific inquiry. This then means that the affective life and essential human concerns are cast outside the philosophical realm, and termed (non-pejoratively) “nonsense.”

Right off, I don’t see how his approach inherently conflicts with what others might regard as the soul and heart of philosophical investigation: what values matter, what are their grounds, what ought we to do, etc. Interior data can be brought forth and expressed in the exterior world and subjected to precise uses. For example, “pain” is private, but at some general, common-sense level, we know that this describes a negative interior reality. Through stipulation, we can further describe “pain” as an object much as some exterior object might be described, though admittedly verification is a challenge. Here, Wittgenstein’s rich appreciation for language can be used as a tool to deal with hidden meanings, to sort through the problem of conflation, and to guide us through the traps of using words, concepts and propositions in misleading ways. But if Wittgenstein’s way of doing philosophy is incompatible with our affective life, then it could be argued that he is doing something like, say, linguistics and not philosophy. Or, alternatively, it could be said that Wittgenstein’s approach is one form of philosophy, but not philosophy per se. Then philosophy could focus on looking at the “ought” as well as the “is” world,” and attempt to build bridges between the two (i.e., to construct a philosophy grounded in, or not inconsistent with, science).
...more

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Jun 07, 2007 Scott rated it did not like it

Recommends it for: Serendipitous Charlatans

To date the most overrated work of 20th century analytic thought (if one wishes to truly count the later Wittgenstein as an analytic). Written in a fragmentary styled not seen in the traditional philosophical corpus since Spinoza, Wittgenstein often leaves the reader guessing at what he could possibly be referencing. The work starts out quite strong as a critique of Russell and Moore, concerning their conceptions of language and its logic. But as the work progresses, many philosophers mistakenly ...more

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Jun 14, 2010 Rowland Pasaribu rated it really liked it · review of another edition

After the publication of the Tractatus, Wittgenstein felt he had nothing more to contribute to philosophy. He spent the 1920s in a variety of jobs. He was a schoolteacher in a small Austrian village, a gardener, and an amateur architect. During this time, he still had some connection with the philosophical world, notably in his conversations with Frank Ramsey on the Tractatus that gradually led him to recognize that this work was flawed in a number of respects. In the late twenties, he also came ...more

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Oct 28, 2012 Randal Samstag rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy

Wittgenstein: Apostle, soldier, school teacher, hermit, mathematician, architect, inheritor of the Chair of the Moral Sciences Club from Moore at Cambridge, cousin of F. von Hayek, scion of the wealthiest (Jewish according to the Nuremberg laws) industrialist family in Austria who renounced his fortune. W was one of the most intimidating characters in the English philosophy scene. Take a look at Wittgenstein's Poker to get just how impossible a character he was.

W has influenced every significant ...more

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Dec 22, 2015 Jimmy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: philosophy-wittgenstei

Here are some lines:

19. . . . And to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life.

40. Let us first discuss this point of the argument: that a word has no meaning if nothing corresponds to it. . . .

47. But what are the simple constituent parts of which reality is composed?--What are the simple constituent parts of a chair?--The bits of wood of which it is made? Or the molecules, or the atoms?--"Simple" means: not composite. And here the point is: in what sense 'composite'? It makes no se ...more

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Dec 29, 2009 Steven Peterson rated it really liked it

One aspect of this book that makes it important for simply that contribution is the notion of "language games." If language produces reality, different languages produce different realities. In this book, German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein developed the related notion of "language games," islands of language, unique each to itself, not wholly translatable one into another. Each of us inhabits a particular language game, he claims, which channels how we see things and understand the world and One aspect of this book that makes it important for simply that contribution is the notion of "language games." If language produces reality, different languages produce different realities. In this book, German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein developed the related notion of "language games," islands of language, unique each to itself, not wholly translatable one into another. Each of us inhabits a particular language game, he claims, which channels how we see things and understand the world and our places within it. Again, language shapes meaning and understanding and interpretation. The world is disclosed to us through our specific language game. If we live in different language games, we see different worlds. This concept entails, as philosopher Chantal Mouffe says, ". . . a critique of the rationalist conception of the subject [i.e., the knowing, reasoning human mind:] that indicates that the latter cannot be the source of linguistic meanings since it is through participation in different language games that the world is disclosed to us."

This is a serious attack on the Modern conception of the human as a reasoning being who can affect change in desired directions through the exercise of that reason. Thus, reason does NOT allow us to see the world as it is and to change it as we wish in a manner leading to progress. The concept of language games is key for many postmodern thinkers.

If we think through language and the use of language is thought itself, what is perceived is indistinct from language use. The two cannot be separated, since language governs interpretation and perception and thought. To revisit the phrase from Wittgenstein, different people play and live in different "language games," that is, their languages lead them to see the world differently, to conceptualize things differently from those in different language games. So what for the person interested in politics?

In the final analysis, this means that whenever we try to understand the world, it is through language, through interpretation, since we cannot directly perceive reality outside of our language. This begins to suggest the likelihood that one's own culture or society or polity does not have universally "true" answers to key questions of human existence; our culture develops answers within its language game that make sense at that particular time for that culture. All is interpretation of uncertain texts within different language games.

Certainly, this is a strong argument. Many disagree that language per se shapes our views of reality. And that argument needs to be taken seriously. Nonetheless, the argument about "language games," although only a small part of this book, is a provocative concept, well worth thinking about.
...more

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Mar 31, 2009 Anthony Buckley rated it it was amazing

Shelves: philosophy

This is, of course, one of the great books of the 20th century, and it blew my head away when I first read it. However, I have since come to mistrust its conclusions. The central task of language is communication. The central question in linguistics is "How is it possible for one person to understand another?" It is actually possible for people from quite different societies to come to understand each other. How is this possible? I do not think Wittgenstein gives a satisfactory answer to this qu ...more

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Jul 26, 2011 Tim McIntosh rated it it was amazing

Perhaps the most influential book of philosophy written in the 20th century. (It's only rival is likely Heidegger's Being and Time.) This is my third time reading this very technical book. Each time I read it two things happen: 1) The focus of the book seems more narrow. 2) The ramifications of the book seem more broad.

Wittgenstein asks: How does language operate? His answer: Not according to a logical superstructure but according to discrete "games", rules, and patterns. What does a word mean? ...more

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Dec 27, 2008 Mari rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: Wittgenstein students and fans

Recommended to Mari by: Martinich and Mel

Shelves: philosophy, wittgenstein

When I read this years ago, I struggled with it. Tractatus had been so beautifully efficient and lucid (wrong, but beautiful nonetheless.) Then I dove into PI and floundered. On second reading I've had a lot more peripheral material to help me grasp the ideas. What I really wish I'd had was this:

Commentary on Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations by Lois Shawver

This site not only lists the complete text, but also side-by-side commentary from Shawver. I don't generally like to read books li ...more

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Jun 22, 2012 Christopher Mcmaster rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The only truly great work of philosophy. This is not a mere book, it is an instruction manual for how to make sense. If one's philosophical reasoning is not guided by the ideas contained within this book, one is simply poking around in the dark. Wittgenstein's ideas are at the core of any philosophy that's worth its salt, and thus this book is perhaps the most important piece of intellectual work in human history.

Addendum: I will addend this review many years later simply to say that, whilst thi ...more

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Feb 20, 2009 Nick Black rated it really liked it

Shelves: likely-reread, important

Well, definitely awesome exposition, but I figured most of this out playing in the backyard when I was 12. Surely philosophy has something more to say than these largely self-evident truths? Anyone with half a brain will recognize and cherish Wittgenstein's exposition, but seriously, basic context-sensitive linguistics is something we've all considered intuitively.
---
Amazon 2009-02-20.

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Aug 04, 2020 Dakota added it

Shelves: books-to-read-before-i-die

Challenging read. Need to revisit it again and complete it in the future.

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Feb 06, 2019 Jordan and Juno rated it really liked it

I love Wittgenstein. And he lived in Manchester too. Great guy.

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Jun 02, 2014 Connor Brown rated it it was amazing

I won't here enumerate the book's content; brief summaries of its main points are everywhere. What makes it so excellent is in the smaller details here and there, and their implications going forwards. I read and reviewed this some time ago, but having sat on it for a while, and read some other books tangent to it, I felt compelled to come back and rewrite this.
Many people like to say that the book is poorly structured, dense and elusive. Maybe, but all to a purpose. Wittgenstein understood the ...more

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Oct 09, 2013 Tom rated it liked it

So here it is, what is considered one of the most important philosophical works of the 20th century. That's what everyone seems to say, anyway. There are flashes of brilliance here and there, but I couldn't help but coming away feeling disappointed. I think Wittgenstein's conception of meaning-as-use is powerful, if off the mark, as I'm still partial to the now unfashionable stance of descriptivism. He also makes some questionable insinuations, like that language is required for thinking, or tha ...more

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Sep 30, 2012 Luisacs added it

Philosophical Investigations - if you want to understand Wittgenstein, begin with the Blue and Brown Books. They prepared Philosophical Investigations. You may think that Wittgenstein is always repeating himself. As a matter of fact, Wittgenstein himself, confessed that he needed to repeat, to copy his own wrintings again. But this shows his way of thinking, turning arround a problem, a concept or any philosophical idea. He wanted to see through the language, the deep grammar. This is where he u ...more

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Feb 04, 2011 kaelan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy

This is a hard book to evaluate. At times, I felt that Wiggentstein was the sole beacon of lucidity in a haze of philosophical muddlement. But at others, I couldn't help but think that the Philosophical Tribulations of a certain "Louis Witteringswine" was rather way too good of a parody.

All things considered, I found the first 100 or so paragraphs to be the most informative (not incidentally, they constitute what is probably the most accessible section of the text). Elsewhere, Wittgenstein's ...more

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May 07, 2008 JB rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Exceeding the gold standard he set in the Tractatus, Wittgenstein outreaches every expectation in Philosophical Investigations to produce what amounts to the second worst poem ever written. The first was the original manuscript of the same , which, I am told, contained two additional aphorisms.

If we were so fortunate that Wittgenstein was, in fact not real but a figment of Douglas Adams' imagination, he would have been the hero of the Vogon art scene.

This book is crap. It is NOT philosophy. It' ...more

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Aug 25, 2017 Joseph Carrabis rated it it was amazing

I originally read this book as part of a college survey course, picked it up years later and reread, then reread again. Amusingly (perhaps), I took Wittgenstein's "Tell me how you are searching, and I will tell you what you are searching for." as a basis for determining search engine results (years ago. Early 2000s, I think) with "Tell me how you are searching, and I will tell you what you will find."
The material applies to many investigations in many disciplines. Philosophical Investigations w ...more

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Jul 14, 2014 Jesi rated it it was ok

I rated this three stars at first because I wanted to look smart, but now, a few days later, I have to be honest: this was boring even when read in the context of a reading group, with plenty of secondary material; if I had attempted it on my own, it would have been completely impenetrable. I'm sure it's really brilliant and I'm just missing the point, but Wittgenstein's idea of what philosophy should look like holds no real appeal for me. Of course, I have no intention of letting this interfere ...more

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About Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ludwig Wittgenstein

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Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language.

Described by Bertrand Russell as "the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, and dominating", he helped inspire t ...more