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Loading... Philosophical Investigations/Philosophische Untersuchungenby Ludwig Wittgenstein
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. I found this book powerful when I first read it because I had just read the Tractatus and the contrast was challenged my mind. As I read the Investigations I questioned Wittgenstein's method, to the extent I understood it. This is worth returning to and thinking about over a long period of time. (  ) jwhenderson | Oct 5, 2009 |  Try to read the first hundred paragraphs. muir | Dec 10, 2007 | In one ear and out the other. Each individual paragraph is quite lucid, but I can never keep enough of them in my head at once to follow the thread of the argument. Still, unlike a lot of elusive philosophical writers, Wittgenstein leaves me believing that there is something there. I will probably never have the time to excavate it, but from me he gets the benefit of the doubt. billmcn | Aug 6, 2007 | This is one of the books I read again and again. I never grow tired of the brilliant analysis of the potentials and the limitations of any language. His arguments seem to apply equally well to human languages, to animal languages and to robot languages. I like his way of debunking most of the traditional philosophic lingo while discussing the central issues of philosophy. He demonstrates the superiority of the simple words over the convoluted crap most academics seem to love. Seeing the force of the simple words is totally exhilirating. Another great thing about the treatise is the insight that language is something evolution has given us as a bunch of tools crafted to help us out in different situations. That means language is not a consistent logical system. It is fragmented, and its various bits and pieces are governed by different logics. Even if this insight seems rather obvious it is a surprisingly efficient tool to eliminate a whole lot of paradoxes and dilemmas that are simply the effect of us using the logic of one compartment of language in another compartment where it does not apply. Refreshing as an early morning in March. (  )1  agricolaoval | May 9, 2007 | Even bonafide experts in the philosophy of language (who, believe me, are all really smart) have a tough time making out exactly what the arguments are here. Therefore, it is perhaps appropriate that the later Wittgenstein is frequently cited in the burblings of continental philosophers, postmodern literary theorists and other unsavory types. ( ) oakesspalding | Feb 1, 2006 |  no reviews | add a review
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The short (and sometimes aphoristic) observations in Philosophical Investigations allow the reader to ponder basic questions on what describes a category, how language works in everyday situations, and how symbols function to represent our world.
Originally a series of notes to himself as he lectured on philosophy, the book is a brilliant grab bag of thought and example. Often framed as a question ("How do I recognize that this is red?"), the philosopher provides short answers in a sentence or two, never more than a paragraph. (The second part of the book uses longer answers of several pages to develop its arguments.) An index lets the reader browse on topics of interest--such as language, concept, games, or naming.
Any artificial intelligence researcher looking to understand human language will be intrigued by Wittgenstein's ideas on how symbols and language operate. And for anyone who designs software with objects, this book's careful attention to thinking about what makes a good category demonstrates rigorous thinking about everyday objects and things. Philosophical Investigations is at times a strange and often wonderful book that reveals the thought processes of one of history's finest minds. It exposes the fundamental problems of using language as a means of teaching machines to think using words. --Richard Dragan
Topics covered: Theory of language and language games, meaning and symbols, concepts and categories, behavior, games (including chess), color, images and perception, grammar and language, sensations, theory of mind and thinking.
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:03 -0400)
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