Wittgensteins Method - by Gordon P Baker (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This is a collection of the key articles written by renowned Wittgenstein scholar, G.P. Baker, on Wittgenstein's later philosophy, published posthumously.

• Following Baker's death in 2002, the volume has been edited by collaborator and partner, Katherine Morris.
• Contains articles previously only available in other languages, and one previously unpublished paper.
• Completely distinct from the widely-known work Baker did with P.M.S. Hacker in the Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations (Blackwell Publishing, 1980-1996).

From the Back Cover

For the last 15 years of his distinguished career, Gordon Baker was developing an original and radical vision of Wittgenstein's philosophical method in the later philosophy, one which constitutes a significant departure from his celebrated period of collaboration with P.M.S. Hacker and which shares affinities with the 'New Wittgensteinians' but is developed in much greater depth. Following his death in 2002, Baker's collaborator and partner Katherine Morris has collected together and edited the key articles he wrote on Wittgenstein's method during this period, and they are published here for the first time in one volume. Of the thirteen articles contained in this book, three were previously only available in French, one was published in a Brazilian journal and one was previously unpublished.

This volume covers a range of topics central to Wittgenstein's later work, from the private language argument, 'grammar' and 'use', to the conception of philosophy itself and its relation to psychoanalysis. Characteristically rooted in a fidelity to the text, these essays combine to provide a powerful revaluation of Wittgenstein's aims and methods in his mature work, from one his foremost interpreters.

Review Quotes

Gordon Baker, together with P. M . S. Hacker, was instrumental in the elaboration of what has become the standard interpretation of Wittgenstein's later work. In a dramatic turnabout, in his later years, Baker came to the conclusion that that interpretation, which he had done so much to help consolidate, was fundamentally flawed, exegetically and philosophically. He embarked on the task of putting forward a radically new interpretation of Wittgenstein's later philosophy -- an interpretation which has seemed to some to be a perverse dismantling of his life's work, while seeming to others, myself included, to open up exciting new possibilities and to help put us in a position to better understand what Wittgenstein was really up to. Baker was in the midst of developing this new interpretation in a series of articles, when his tragic early death brought the project to an abrupt halt. This volume collects those articles. Any serious student of Wittgenstein's philosophy will want to own this book. James Conant, University of Chicago

`The essays in this volume are replete with a wealth of historical and linguistic detail. They contain the combination of careful textual exegesis and rigorous analysis which was characteristic of Baker's work generally.' Dr Mark Addis, International Journal of Philosophical Studies (2005)

About the Author

G.P. Baker was a Fellow of St John's College, Oxford from 1967 until his death in 2002. He is the co-author with P.M.S. Hacker of a number of books on Wittgenstein, including the first two volumes of the four-volume Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations (Blackwell Publishing 1980-1996), and with Katherine Morris of Descartes' Dualism (1996). He also wrote numerous articles on Wittgenstein, Frege, Russell, Waismann and Descartes.

Katherine Morris is a Lecturer and Fellow at Mansfield College, Oxford University. She and G.P. Baker co-authored Descartes' Dualism (1996). She has published a number of articles on Wittgenstein, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and Descartes, and is the author of 'Sartre' (forthcoming from Blackwell Publishing).