An Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations, Volume 3: Wittgenstein: Meaning and Mind, Part II: Exegesis §§243-427

An Analytic Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations #3.2

by P.M.S. Hacker

This third volume of the monumental commentary on Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations covers sections 243-427, which constitute the heart of the book. Like the previous volumes, it consists of philosophical essays and exegesis. The thirteen essays cover all the major themes of this part of Wittgenstein's the private language arguments, privacy, avowals and descriptions, private ostensive definition, criteria, minds and machines, behavior and behaviorism, the self, the inner and the outer, thinking, consciounesss, and the imagination. The exegesis clarifies and evaluates Wittgenstein's arguments, drawing extensively on all the unpublished papers, examining the evolution of his ideas in manuscript sources and definitively settling many controversies about the interpretation of the published text. This commentary, like its predecessors, is indispensable for the study of Wittgenstein and is essential reading for students of the philosophy of mind. A fourth and final volume, entitled Mind and Will will complete the commentary.

Genres: Philosophy, Linguistics

340 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Peter Hacker was born in London in 1939. He read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at The Queen's College, Oxford from 1960-63, obtaining a Congratulatory First Class degree. He was elected to a graduate studentship at St Antony's College, Oxford, where he remained from 1963-65, writing a doctoral dissertation under the supervision of H.L.A. Hart on the subject of 'Rules and Duties'. In 1965 he was elected to a Junior Research Fellowship at Balliol College. In 1966 he completed his doctorate and was granted the D. Phil.

He became a Tutorial Fellow at St John's College in 1966, a post he held until his retirement in 2006, when he was appointed to an Emeritus Research Fellowship at St John's. He was College Librarian 1986-2006, and Keeper of the College Pictures 1986-1998. In 2010 he was elected to an Honorary Fellowship at The Queen's College, Oxford.

He was a visiting lecturer at Makere College, Uganda (1968), a visiting professor at Swarthmore College, Pa., U.S.A (1973), a visiting professor at University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, U.S.A. (1974), a Milton C. Scott Visiting Professor, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario (1984). He was elected to a British Academy Research Readership in Humanities 1985-7. In 1986 he was again a visiting professor for a semester at Swarthmore College, Pa., U.S.A. He was elected to a Leverhulme Senior Research Fellowship (1991-4). From 1992 to 2010 he served as a member of the Rothschild Fellowships Academic Committee, Yad Hanadiv, Jerusalem. He was a visiting fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation at Bellagio, Italy in 2006. He was a visiting research fellow at the University of Bologna for a semester in 2009. In 2013 he was appointed Professor of philosophy at the University of Kent at Canterbury for three years.

He is an associate editor of Philosophical Investigations, and of Wittgenstein Studies. From 1997 to 2003 he was an associate editor, 20th century philosophers - Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. From 1998 to 2003 he was a Trustee of the Wittgenstein papers and Member of the Committee of Editors; since 2003 he has been a member and Secretary of the Advisory Committee of Wittgenstein Editors.