Wittgenstein 2e - 2nd Edition by Gordon P Baker & P M S Hacker (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The Second Edition of Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar and Necessity (the second volume of the landmark analytical commentary on Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations) now includes extensively revised and supplemented coverage of the Wittgenstein's complex and controversial remarks on following rules.

• Includes thoroughly rewritten essays and the addition of one new essay on communitarian and individualist conceptions of rule-following
• Includes a greatly expanded essay on Wittgenstein's conception of logical, mathematical and metaphysical necessity
• Features updates to the textual exegesis as the result of taking advantage of the search engine for the Bergen edition of the Nachlass
• Reflects the results of scholarly debates on rule-following that have raged over the past 20 years

From the Back Cover

This is an extensively revised second edition of Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar and Necessity, the second volume of Baker and Hacker's renowned analytical commentary on Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. Comprising both detailed exegesis and interpretative essays, this edition includes comprehensively revised coverage of some of the most important and widely discussed passages in Wittgenstein's entire writings, namely his intricate and controversial remarks on following rules (§§189-242). The new edition draws on the full resources of the search engine of the electronic publication of the Nachlass and takes into account the extensive debates on the themes associated with these sections of Wittgenstein's masterwork over the last quarter of a century.

All the essays have been revised and one new essay on communitarian and individualist conceptions of rule-following has been added to the previous six. These deal with the relationship between the alternative continuations of the early draft of the Investigations; with Wittgenstein's conception of grammar and rules of grammar; with the relation between a rule and what accords with it; with the characterization of rule-following as mastery of a technique manifest in practice; with the notion of a form of life and agreements in definitions and judgements. The major essay 'Grammar and necessity' has been greatly extended. It provides an overview of Wittgenstein's revolutionary and little understood analysis of the propositions of logic, mathematics and metaphysics.

Insightful and thought-provoking, the second edition of Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar and Necessity constitutes a key contribution to the ongoing analysis of one of the most influential philosophical works of the 20th century.

About the Author

G. P. Baker was a Fellow of St John's College, Oxford from 1967 until his death in 2002.

P. M. S. Hacker is an Emeritus Research Fellow at St John's College, Oxford, and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kent at Canterbury.