Wittgenstein: Key Concepts

Key Concepts

by Kelly Dean Jolley

Wittgenstein's complex and demanding work challenges much that is taken for granted in philosophical thinking as well as in the theorizing of art, theology, science and culture. Each essay in this collection explores a key concept involved in Wittgenstein's thinking, relating it to his understanding of philosophy, and outlining the arguments and explaining the implications of each concept. Concepts covered include grammar, meaning and meaning-blindness language-games and private language, family resemblances, psychologism, rule-following, teaching and learning, avowals, Moore's Paradox, aspect seeing, the meter-stick, and criteria. Students new to Wittgenstein and readers interested in developing their understanding of specific aspects of his philosophical work will find this book very welcome.

Genres: Philosophy

256 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Kelly Dean Jolley is Professor of Philosophy at Auburn University. He is author of The Concept 'Horse' Paradox and Wittgensteinian Conceptual Investigations and the editor of (and contributor to) Ludwig Wittgenstein: Key Concepts. He has also published on Plato, Aristotle, Montaigne, Frege, Emerson, Thoreau, and Mzerleau-Ponty, and on problems in philosophical theology and aesthetics.

Reviews

[Kamakana · Rating 3 out of 5]

i have been reading this concurrently with Martin Heidegger: Key Concepts . i understand that w is a big name in anglo-american analytic philosophy, to the extent that is a school of thought, so i wanted to cross-pollinate with hd, who is a big name in continental. i have yet to finish hd, probably tomorrow, but the ways of thinking seem radically different. convergent evolution insures arising of parallel thoughts, but i still approach and understand arguments through continental. i read w from what little i know of merleau-ponty, in particular, and so w’s tendency to logic-chopping seems often perverse. i understand logic, science, therapeutic, and clarifying intentions, are all directed to alleviate confusion engendered by metaphysics and other faults of thinking, expression, assertion, but this project takes all the fun out of phil for me- it resembles then the mode of mathematics. and, as my interests in phil have always been towards fun, towards literary thought jotting, w’s sort of ideas, at least as investigated here in this collection of essays on his thought, does not particularly inspire me...