This book offers a lucid and highly readable account of Wittgenstein′s philosophy, framed against the background of his extraordinary life and character. Woven together with a biographical narrative, the chapters explain the key ideas of Wittgenstein′s work, from his first book, the Tractatus Logico–Philosophicus, to his mature masterpiece, the Philosophical Investigations. Severin Schroeder shows that at the core of Wittgenstein′s later work lies a startlingly original and subversive conception of the nature of philosophy. In accordance with this conception, Wittgenstein offers (...) no new philosophical doctrines to replace his earlier ones, but seeks to demonstrate how all philosophical theorizing is the result of conceptual misunderstanding. He first diagnoses such misunderstanding at the core of his own earlier philosophy of language and then subjects philosophical views and problems about various mental phenomena understanding, sensations, the will to a similar therapeutic analysis. Schroeder provides a clear and careful account of the main arguments offered by Wittgenstein. He concludes by considering some critical responses to Wittgenstein′s work, assessing its legacy for contemporary philosophy. Wittgenstein is ideal for students seeking a clear and concise introduction to the work of this seminal twentieth–century philosopher. (shrink)

The equation of the world with 'life' and 'life' with consciousness ramified into the baffling account Wittgenstein gave of the 'philosophical self '. The physical world, as Descartes argued, is made of material substance, and the mental world 'is liable to be imagined as gaseous, or rather, aethereal'. Conceiving of consciousness as a private realm populated by private experiences, one is bound to be puzzled at its evolutionary emergence. Consciousness is attributable to an organism as a whole, not to its (...) parts, no matter how complex. And it is attributable to the organism on the grounds of the behaviour of the organism, its exercise of its perceptual faculties, its susceptibility to sensation, and its voluntary action. A venerable tradition going back at least as far as Descartes conceived of consciousness as the immovable rock against which the waves of scepticism break. (shrink)