The discovery, in various quarters, of hitherto unknown letters exchanged between Wittgenstein and the chief of his Cambridge friends provides the basis for this new and profoundly revealing collection. Wittgenstein appears in turn shy and affectionate, fierce and censorious, happy to collaborate and sure of his own judgement. Four quarrels and four reconciliations are documented. Wittgenstein's struggles to publish his Tractatus may be followed, as well as his retreat from the world, his being wooed back to philosophy by Keynes and (...) Ramsey, and his plans to leave philosophy. The accompanying editorial notes are based on archival material not previously explored. Taken together, the correspondence provides an intriguing insight into Wittgenstein's life and thought, and will be essential reading for students and scholars. (shrink)

Approaches to Wittgenstein brings together for the first time the many varied aspects of Wittgenstein's life, philosophy and aesthetic attitudes. It draws from many of his unpublished manuscripts to illuminate his work.

This book contains seminal discussions of central issues in the philosophy of language, mathematics, mind, religion and time. Is common language conceptually prior to idiolectics? What is a theory of meaning? Does constructivism provide a satisfactory account of mathematics? What are indefinitely extensible concepts? Can we change the past? These are only some of the very important questions addressed here. Both the papers written by the contributors and Dummett's replies provide a great wealth of stimulating ideas for those who currently (...) do research in the respective areas touched upon without making the reading exceedingly tedious. This feature, common to most of the papers in this book, makes it possible to use the material presented in undergraduate courses at university level. (shrink)

This volume collects the most substantial correspondence and documents relating to Wittgenstein's long association with Cambridge between the years 1911 and his death in 1951, including the letters he exchanged with his most illustrious Cambridge contemporaries Russell, Keynes, Moore, and Ramsey. Now expanded to include 200 previously unpublished letters and documents, including correspondence between Wittgenstein and the economist Piero Sraffa, and between Wittgenstein and his pupils Includes extensive editorial annotations Provides a fascinating and intimate insight into Wittgenstein's life and thought.

This essay examines the role allocated to ostensive definition in the logical empiricist philosophy of the vienna circle. it explains how this characteristic array of doctrines grew out of reflections on the "tractatus". the various theses are distinguished into general principles, logical aspects, normative aspects and psychological theses. a detailed survey of wittgenstein's later analysis of ostensive definition is undertaken. this is then brought to bear on the doctrines of logical empiricism to show that they are incoherent. the essay concludes (...) by sketching out how much of those fallacious doctrines survive explicitly in contemporary philosophy of language. (shrink)

This volume collects the most substantial correspondence and documents relating to Wittgenstein's long association with Cambridge between the years 1911 and his death in 1951, including the letters he exchanged with his most illustrious Cambridge contemporaries Russell, Keynes, Moore, and Ramsey. Now expanded to include 200 previously unpublished letters and documents, including correspondence between Wittgenstein and the economist Piero Sraffa, and between Wittgenstein and his pupils Includes extensive editorial annotations Provides a fascinating and intimate insight into Wittgenstein's life and thought.

I take as my text propostion 4.0312 of the Tractatus : The possibility of propositions is based on the principle that objects have signs as their representatives. My fundamental idea is that the ‘logical constants’ are not representatives; that there can be no representatives of the logic of facts. Practically the same words occur in Wittgenstein's Notebook for 25 December 1914, where Miss Anscombe translates them: The possibility of the proposition is, of course, founded on the principle of signs as (...) going proxy for objects. Thus in the proposition something has something else as its proxy. But there is also the common cement. My fundamental thought is that the logical constants are not proxies. That the logic of the fact cannot have anything as its proxy. (shrink)

Traces the early years of the philosopher, detailing the roles that his troubled family, his imposing and wealthy father, turn-of-the-century Viennese intellectuals, and his World War I experiences played in the formation of his philosophy.

This volume collects the most substantial correspondence and documents relating to Wittgenstein's long association with Cambridge between the years 1911 and his death in 1951, including the letters he exchanged with his most illustrious Cambridge contemporaries Russell, Keynes, Moore, and Ramsey. Now expanded to include 200 previously unpublished letters and documents, including correspondence between Wittgenstein and the economist Piero Sraffa, and between Wittgenstein and his pupils Includes extensive editorial annotations Provides a fascinating and intimate insight into Wittgenstein's life and thought.

Stuart Hampshire’s excellent memoir of Waismann in the Proceedings of the British Academy and Anthony Quinton’s introduction to Philosophical Papers give an affectionate portrait of an unworldly scholar alternately seeking to conform to British ways and then shunning them. The idioms and the pronunciation both slightly wrong his English itself witnessed to a profounder alienation. But it was an alienation much more seated in his character and life than that of most of the refugees that so illuminated British university life (...) in the 30’s and 40’s, of whom some indeed became remarkably assimilated. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein is universally recognized as one of the most original and influential philosophers of his age and as a personality of great magnetism and power. Not all who recognize his importance admire him or approve of it; his life and work are both surrounded by controversy. In this welcome reissue of his classic biographical study, complete with a brand-new Preface, Brian McGuinness traces the early years of this fascinating figure and examines the formative influences which shaped his (...) extraordinary life. (shrink)

Wittgenstein was not only an inspirational figure for Schlick but also contributed to scientific philosophy as Neurath demanded. His verificationism is one instance of this, but it is also shown in his treatment of probability (where his ideas were developed further by Waismann). Wittgenstein revived Bolzano's logical interpretation of probability, anticipating Carnap and many moderns. He construed laws of nature as hypotheses that we had to assume. It is the general form of these hypotheses (what he later called a worldview) (...) and not (pace von Wright) relative frequency that provides the basis for judgements of probability. (shrink)

Friedrich Waismann (1896–1959) was one of the most gifted students and collaborators of Moritz Schlick. Accepted as a discussion partner by Wittgenstein from 1927 on, he functioned as spokesman for the latter’s ideas in the Schlick Circle, until Wittgenstein’s contact with this most faithful interpreter was broken off in 1935 and not renewed when exile took Waismann to Cambridge. Nonetheless, at Oxford, where he went in 1939, and eventually became Reader in Philosophy of Mathematics (changing later to Philosophy of Science), (...) Waismann made important and independent contributions to analytic philosophy and philosophy of science (for example in relation to probability, causality and linguistic analysis). The full extent of these only became evident later when the larger (unpublished) part of his writings could be studied. His first posthumous work The Principles of Linguistic Philosophy (1965, 2nd edn.1997; German 1976) and his earlier Einführung in das mathematische Denken (1936) have recently proved of fresh interest to the scientific community. This late flowering and new understanding of Waismann’s position is connected with the fact that he somewhat unfairly fell under the shadow of Wittgenstein, his mentor and predecessor. Central to this book about a life and work familiar to few is unpublished and unknown works on causality and probability. These are commented on in this volume, which will also include a publication of new or previously scattered material and an overview of Waismann’s life. (shrink)

The Institute Vienna Circle held a conference in Vienna in 2003, Cambridge and Vienna – Frank P. Ramsey and the Vienna Circle, to commemorate the philosophical and scientific work of Frank Plumpton Ramsey (1903–1930). This Ramsey conference provided not only historical and biographical perspectives on one of the most gifted thinkers of the Twentieth Century, but also new impulses for further research on at least some of the topics pioneered by Ramsey, whose interest and potential are greater than ever. Ramsey (...) did pioneering work in several fields, practitioners of which rarely know of his important work in other fields: philosophy of logic and theory of language, foundations of mathematics, mathematics, probability theory, methodology of science, philosophy of psychology, and economics. There was a focus on the one topic which was of strongest mutual concern to Ramsey and the Vienna Circle, namely the question of foundations of mathematics, in particular the status of logicism. Although the major scientific connection linking Ramsey with Austria is his work on logic, to which the Vienna Circle dedicated several meetings, certainly the connection which is of greater general interest concerns Ramsey's visits and discussions with Wittgenstein. Ramsey was the only important thinker to actually visit Wittgenstein during his school-teaching career in Puchberg and Ottertal in the 1920s, in Lower Austria; and later, Ramsey was instrumental in getting Wittgenstein positions at Cambridge. (shrink)

Susan Edwards-McKie interviews Professor Dr B. F. McGuinness on the occasion of his 90th birthday.

This article consists of extracts from a young Oxford philosopher’s diaries recounting his visit to Cambridge in his first postgraduate years and some subsequent revivals of contact. These extracts shed fascinating light on the social and academic situation in Cambridge shortly after Wittgenstein’s return there in the Lent Term 1929 and permit readers to see him from a fresh perspective. An introduction helps to view these extracts in their proper context.

This article consists of extracts from a young Oxford philosopher’s diaries recounting his visit to Cambridge in his first postgraduate years and some subsequent revivals of contact. These extracts shed fascinating light on the social and academic situation in Cambridge shortly after Wittgenstein’s return there in the Lent Term 1929 and permit readers to see him from a fresh perspective. An introduction helps to view these extracts in their proper context.

Ludwig Wittgenstein is universally recognized as one of the most original and influential philosophers of his age and as a personality of great magnetism and power. Not all who recognize his importance admire him or approve of it; his life and work are both surrounded by controversy. In this welcome reissue of his classic biographical study, complete with a brand-new Preface, Brian McGuinness traces the early years of this fascinating figure and examines the formative influences which shaped his (...) extraordinary life. (shrink)

This collection contains hitherto unknown letters exchanged between Wittgenstein and the most important of his Cambridge friends and includes editorial notes based on archival material not previously explored. Incorporates many previously undiscovered unique and significant letters. A powerful record and intimate insight into Wittgenstein's life and thought. Extensive editorial annotations.

Wittgenstein was not only an inspirational figure for Schlick but also contributed to scientific philosophy as Neurath demanded. His verificationism is one instance of this, but it is also shown in his treatment of probability (where his ideas were developed further by Waismann). Wittgenstein revived Bolzano's logical interpretation of probability, anticipating Carnap and many moderns. He construed laws of nature as hypotheses that we had to assume. It is the general form of these hypotheses (what he later called a worldview) (...) and not (pace von Wright) relative frequency that provides the basis for judgements of probability. (shrink)

Wittgenstein was not only an inspirational figure for Schlick but also contributed to scientific philosophy as Neurath demanded. His verificationism is one instance of this, but it is also shown in his treatment of probability (where his ideas were developed further by Waismann). Wittgenstein revived Bolzano's logical interpretation of probability, anticipating Carnap and many moderns. He construed laws of nature as hypotheses that we had to assume. It is the general form of these hypotheses (what he later called a worldview) (...) and not (pace von Wright) relative frequency that provides the basis for judgements of probability. (shrink)

Les lettres reproduites ici furent échangées au début de 1935 entre Ludwig et son frère Paul, le pianiste qui avait perdu un bras à la guerre, et dédicataire des concerti pour la main gauche de Ravel et Prokofiev entre autres... La relation entre les deux frères était toute de spontanéité, dénuée de contrainte et de formalisme. Nous verrons en quoi...