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Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning

Volume 1 of an Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations, Part I: Essays

P M S Hacker author Gordon P Baker author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:John Wiley and Sons Ltd

Published:17th Dec '04

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning cover

This is a new edition of the first volume of G.P.Baker and P.M.S. Hacker’s definitive reference work on Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations.


  • New edition of the first volume of the monumental four-volume Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations.
  • Takes into account much material that was unavailable when the first edition was written.
  • Following Baker’s death in 2002, P.M.S. Hacker has thoroughly revised the first volume, rewriting many essays and sections of exegesis completely.
  • Part One - the Essays - now includes two completely new essays: 'Meaning and Use' and 'The Recantation of a Metaphysician'.
  • Part Two - Exegesis §§1-184 - has been thoroughly revised in the light of the electronic publication of Wittgenstein’s Nachlass, and includes many new interpretations of the remarks, a history of the composition of the book, and an overview of its structure.
  • The revisions will ensure that this remains the definitive reference work on Wittgenstein’s masterpiece for the foreseeable future.

"The essays...are scholarly, and profound, and also acute, confident, and full of good sense and judgment" (Colin Radford, Mind)

"This book is a landmark in Wittgenstein studies, raising to a new level the criteria for an adequate understanding of Wittgenstein." (Philosophical Studies)

"For someone who wants to understand, point for point and in detail, how Wittgenstein's later philosophy upsets the philosophies of Russell, Frege and the Tractatus, this is the book to read." (Philosophical Books)

"[The authors'] interpretive essays develop with care, subtlety, and in considerable detail...they have performed a great service in presenting the programmatic views clearly, carefully and dispassionately."
--James Bogen

"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

ISBN: 9781405101769

Dimensions: 238mm x 156mm x 36mm

Weight: 739g

424 pages

2nd edition