Philosophical Investigations

Incorporating significant editorial changes from earlier editions, the fourth edition of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations is the definitive en face German-English version of the most important work of 20th-century philosophy. The extensively revised English translation incorporates many hundreds of changes to Anscombe's original translation. Footnoted remarks in the earlier editions have now been relocated in the text. What was previously referred to as 'Part 2' is now republished as Philosophy of Psychology - A Fragment, and all the remarks in it are numbered for ease of reference. New detailed editorial endnotes explain decisions of translators and identify references and allusions in Wittgenstein's original text. Now features new essays on the history of the Philosophical Investigations, and the problems of translating Wittgenstein's text.

Philosophische Untersuchungen is, with the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, one of two major works by 20th-century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. In it, he discusses numerous problems & puzzles in fields of semantics, logic, philosophy of mathematics & the philosophy of mind. He asserts that conceptual confusions surrounding language use are at the root of most philosophical problems, contradicting & discarding much the argument of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The book is often considered one of the most important works of the 20th century, continuing to influence contemporary philosophers studying mind & language.

The book wasn't ready for publication when Wittgenstein died in 1951. G.E.M. Anscombe translated the ms & it was published in 1953. It's now in a 3rd edition incorporating Anscombe's final revisions & is repaginated. There are two popular editions of Philosophical Investigations:

Prentice Hall, 1999 (ISBN 0024288101)

Blackwell Publishers, 2001 (ISBN 0631231277)--bilingual.

The text is divided into two parts, consisting of what Wittgenstein calls, in the preface, Bemerkungen, translated by Anscombe as "remarks". In the 1st part, these remarks are rarely more than a paragraph long & are numbered sequentially. In the 2nd part, the remarks are longer & numbered using Roman numerals. In the index, remarks from the 1st part are referenced by their number rather than page; however, references from the 2nd part are cited by page number. The comparatively unusual nature of the 2nd part is due to the fact that it comprises notes Wittgenstein intended to reincorporate into the 1st. Due to his death, it was published as a 2nd part.

Philosophical Investigations is unique in its approach to philosophy. A typical philosophical text presents a philosophical problem, summarizes & critiques various alternative approaches to solving it, presents its own approach, then argues in favor of that approach. This book treats philosophy as an activity, rather along the lines of Sokrates' maieutic method; he has the reader work thru various problems, participating actively in the investigation. Rather than presenting a philosophical problem & its solution, he engages in a dialog, where he provides a thought experiment (a hypothetical example or situation), describes how one might be inclined to think about it, then shows why that inclination suffers from conceptual confusion.