Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Wittgenstein and the Philosophical Investigations

by Marie McGinn

Wittgenstein is the most influential twentieth century philosopher in the English-speaking world. In the Philosophical Investigations , his most important work, he introduces the famous 'private language argument' which changed the whole philosophical view of language. Wittgenstein and the Philosophical Investigations introduces and
* Wittgenstein's life, and its connection with his thought
* the text of the Philosophical Investigations
* the importance of Wittgenstein's work to contemporary philosophy.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

216 pages, Paperback

First published March 6, 1997

About the author

Emeritus Professor at York University

Research interests:
Philosophy of Wittgenstein, Scepticism, Philosophy of John McDowell, Philosophy of Mind

Reviews

[Amy Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are doing a philosophy exam on any subject, get the Routledge guide for it. They are all utterly superb, and this guide to The Philosophical Investigations by Marie McGinn is no exception.

Wittgenstein is known for being notoriously difficult to unpick, but this book lays out his main themes simply and easily. McGinn gives her own interpretation of Wittgenstein (but it'd be hard to NOT do that in a Wittgenstein guide — he's so difficult to unpick, all you really can do is give an interpretation) but also highlights what others have thought and all in a clear, precise way. You end up with a clear, well rounded view of Wittgenstein's most famous arguments and the reasoning behind them.

A godsend for any students struggling with a Wittgenstein module (as I am). If I pass my Wittgenstein exam, it's thanks to this book.

[Mohammed]

عينة من الكتاب
https://www.braheen.com/download/WPI-...
رابط الكتاب بالإنجليزية
https://libgen.li/get.php?md5=8224149...

[Alastair · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the most comprehensive guidebook to the philosophical investigations I know of, and it is extremely helpful and really brings out the key themes of this difficult book. In particular it helped me appreciate the subtle moves Wittgenstein makes with regard his pushback against our tendency to imagine things like pain are “really” internal and cannot be expressed - and how in fact they are very much publicly shared concepts that play a well know role in a nexus of language games we are all well trained in.

The book lost stars for three reasons. Firstly it is too long. It is longer than the book itself and I don’t think it needs to be. Wittgenstein is difficult but he isn’t Hegel: the ideas could be explained a bit more succinctly. Secondly (and related to the first point): the quite gritty engagement with other viewpoints is, at times, exhausting. As a “guidebook” to the work, it seems excessive and would be more at home in a Cambridge Reader style book. Lastly, there doesn’t seem to be any particularly good reason the book doesn’t follow the order of the Philosophical Investigations itself, but rather jumps around - forcing the reader to jump around and then reread sections. It’s time wasting and not obvious what it helped achieve.

Despite all this, if I were to read the Philosophical Investigations again, I would still pick up this guidebook as it certainly helped me get more out of Wittgenstein than I otherwise would.

[Larbi Gouzal · Rating 2 out of 5]

ككل مراجعاتي السابقة لفتغنشتين، كلما قرأت له أكثر .. اكتشفت أنني لم أفهم بالكاد أي شيء، وما اعتقدت اني فهمته في السابق يحتاج من جديد لاعادة النظر !
كتاباته معقدة و الأسلوب قريب من نيتشه، وحتى الاستعانة بشروحات الفلاسفة والمفسرين الآخرين لا تسعف كثيرا. كيف لا؟ وفتغنشتين نفسه اتهم معاصريه أنهم لم يفهموا رسالته المنطقية الفلسفية بما فيهم أستاذه راسل.
لكن على أي تظل بعض فقرات وشروحات البحوث الفلسفية من ناحية ما أسهل على الفهم من كتابه الرسالة التي كانت قصيرة وضوغمائية وجافة إلى أبعد حد.
ورغم هذا أستطيع أن أقول بدون أدى شك، أن عدة أفكار من فلسفته الأولى ومن فكر "الوضعانية المنطقية" قد أثرا على تفكيري بشكل لارجعة فيه في كيفية رؤيتي للحياة والعلم والميتافيزقا.
تاريخ المراجعة:
17/06/2021

[Charles Ambler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reasons for 5 stars
1. Whether or not you agree with Wittgenstein, the insights provided in his work, if even somewhat understood, have allowed me to think about shit differently—directing my attention towards the context of words rather than relying on the “definitions of words” to interpret the meaning of sentences. The way I thought about things before reading this is drastically different from the way I think about things now, which is super cool.
2. Wittgenstein is famously difficult to understand, and the fact that this guide was readable is incredible. Sure, it definitely missed out on some important nuance because of simplifying things, but if it hadn’t, and I had tried to tackle the original text alone, I would’ve surely not understood a word.

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent guide of the later Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations - long and detailed, but, well worth the effort to understand more of the paradox of language and meaning in his philosophy.

[Abdullah Başaran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tis' a nice reading to help Wittg.'s piece in order to be grasped better. In particular, Augustine part and rule-following section were really helpful.

[Karen Carlson]

rec by David Auerbach at Slate, one of the best very-basic Wit/Lang articles I've read
https://slate.com/human-interest/2015...
This is a second-step book, see How to REad Wit for the first step

[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 3 out of 5]

Competent but not very enlightening.

[Elaine]

chapter 5 criteria/expression/behavior re: concepts of mental phenomena

[Alan Chan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every philosophical question is a question of language.

[Mostafa Ahmed · Rating 5 out of 5]

ترجمة ممتازة تدل على فهم قوي من المترجم لأفكار المؤلف (فتغنشتاين).

[Koopa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good explanations of Wittgenstein's thought. The only drawback was that the entirety of the Philosophical Investigations wasn't covered.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

How many grammatical errors is this old woman going to make? Here is yet another victim of the concept of ‘rigour’ confusing how ordinary people do not write with rigour when ordinary people do not write in such a silly manner because they do not want to embarrass themselves for writing ungrammatically.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent, readable, pretty thorough guide to Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations.

[Mikael · Rating 2 out of 5]

i read ray monks biography that was way better guide to witt