The False Prison: A Study of the Development of Wittgenstein's PhilosophyVolume 2 - Softcover

Pears, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 019824486X ISBN 13: 9780198244868

Publisher: Clarendon Press, 1988

Synopsis

This is the second volume of David Pears's acclaimed study of Wittgenstein's philosophy from the Notebooks and the Tractatus to Philosophical Investigations and other later writings. Dealing with writings from 1929 onward, Volume II provides close discussions of those doctrines and ideas that reveal the general overall structure of Wittgenstein's thought. Designed to fill the gap in the secondary literature between brief introductions and long commentaries, The False Prison relates the general to the particular within a clearly delineated framework, making Wittgenstein's difficult thought more accessible to philosophy students and nonspecialists.

About this title

About the Author

David Pears is at University of Oxford.

Review

"A very important contribution to the effort to achieve a command of his ideas and what led to them."--London Review of Books

"Graduate and professional readers...will find Pears's careful analysis highly informative and provocative. By emphasizing the development of Wittgenstein's philosophy from the early work to the later, Pears succeeds in giving a more accurate interpretation of Wittgenstein's methods, arguments, and goals."--Choice

"Pears handles Wittgenstein's examination of the constancy of word-meaning with the same consummate ease displayed in the treatment of sensation-language. He has an unerring sense for what is central in Wittgenstein's investigations and an enviable gift for reconstructing Wittgenstein's thought by projecting himself into a problem as it presented itself to Wittgenstein, but without sacrificing his independence. The depth and density of his interpretation contrast sharply with most other efforts. His book is elegantly and imaginatively written, with an unrivalled sympathy for and rare mastery of its subject."--Times Literary Supplement

"A detailed and perceptive account of both the continuities and discontinuities in the development of Wittgenstein's later treatment of the ego, sensation and rule-following....An original and highly sophisticated interpretation of some of the main themes of Wittgenstein's philosophy."--CPR

Praise for Volume I: "A profound, scholarly and illuminating study....The idea of a definitive study of the work of any great philosopher is, no doubt, illusory....But it is reasonable to think that, when the second volume of Pears's work is added to the first, we shall have something that comes, for its time, as near as possible to that unattainable ideal."--P.F. Strawson

About this edition

• Publisher: Clarendon Press
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 019824486X
• ISBN 13: 9780198244868
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 340