Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning: Volume 1 of an Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations, Part II: Exegesis §§1–184

Published to widespread acclaim between 1980 and 1996, the monumental four– volume Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations has become the definitive reference work on Wittgenstein’s masterpiece. This revised edition of Volume I, Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning , which itself comprises two parts (‘Essays’ and ‘Exegesis §§1–184’), takes into account much material that was unavailable when the first edition was written. Following G.P. Baker’s death in 2002, P.M.S. Hacker has thoroughly revised both parts, rewriting many sections completely and often proposing fresh interpretations. Part I: Essays now includes two new essays: ‘Meaning and Use’ and ‘The Recantation of a Metaphysician’, while Part II: Exegesis §§1 – 184 has been exhaustively reworked in the light of the electronic publication of Wittgenstein’s Nachlass . These revisions will ensure that this remains the essential reference work on the Philosophical Investigations for the foreseeable future.

Acknowledgements. Introduction to Part II – the Exegesis. Abbreviations. The History of the Composition of the Philosophical Investigations. An Overview of the Structure and Argument of the Philosophical Investigations. Exegesis. The Title. The Motto. The Preface. Chapter 1 The Augustinian Concept of Language. Chapter 2 Illusions of Naming: Ostensive Definition, Logically Proper Names, Simples and Samples, and Analysis. Chapter 3 Family Resemblance, Determinacy of Sense, and the Quest for Essence. Chapter 4 Philosophy. Chapter 5 The General Propositional Form. Chapter 6 Understanding and Ability. Index.

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 the first two volumes of the four–volume Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations (Blackwell, 1980–96), and with Katherine Morris of Descartes’ Dualism (1996). He also wrote numerous articles on Wittgenstein, Frege, Russell, Waismann and Descartes. P.M.S. Hacker is the leading authority on the philosophy of Wittgenstein. He is author of the four–volume Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations, the first two volumes co–authored with G.P. Baker (Blackwell, 1980–96) and of Wittgenstein’s Place in Twentieth–century Analytic Philosophy (Blackwell, 1996). He has also written extensively on philosophy of language and philosophy of mind, most recently The Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (Blackwell, 2003), co–authored with M.R. Bennett.

"A commentary on the Investigations is a colossal undertaking. Baker and Hacker skillfully conduct the reader through the tangles of controversy that surround the topics of sense and meaning. They have an admirable grasp of the whole corpus of Wittgenstein′s writings, and they constantly display the sharp contrasts between Wittgenstein′s thought and the currently influential ′scientific′ semantics." Norman Malcolm, Times Literary Supplement "[Baker and Hacker] exhibit persuasively and lucidly the order, not to say structure, underlying the apparently haphazard assemblage of paragraphs constituting the printed text of the Investigations . Their detailed knowledge of the corpus of Wittgenstein′s writings, published and unpublished, allows them to cast light on otherwise obscure remarks in the Investigations from a variety of additional perspectives. This procedure frequently explains the purpose of the remarks in question, the identity of the thinker or thesis against which they are directed, and so on." Review of Metaphysics "[The authors′] detailed textual comments are placed within a carefully thought out view of the structure of the whole. It thus provides a model for understanding Wittgenstein." Philosophical Studies “Wittgenstein: Meaning and Understanding is a sort of compendium which I wouldn′t want to do without. As a matter of fact, I cannot do without it, both in the sense that I need it to get all kinds of historical or philological information, as well as philosophical stimulation, and in the sense that I have become addicted to the book′s magisterial way of bringing out and dealing with the difficulties of Wittgenstein′s masterpiece.” Joachim Schulte, University of Bielefeld