Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) is one of the most important and influential philosophers in modern times, but he is also one of the least accessible. In this volume, leading experts chart the development of his work and clarify the connections between its different stages. The essays, which are both expository and original, address central themes in Wittgenstein's writing on a wide range of topics, particularly his thinking about the mind, language, logic, and mathematics. The contributor...

Rethinking politics in a new vocabulary, Hans Sluga challenges the firmly held assumption that there exists a single common good which politics is meant to realize. He argues that politics is not a natural but a historical phenomenon, and not a single thing but a multiplicity of political forms and values only loosely related. He contrasts two traditions in political philosophy: a 'normative theorizing' that extends from Plato to John Rawls and a newer 'diagnostic practice' that emerged wi...

wittgenstein“Sluga draws a fascinating picture of Wittgenstein as a situated thinker: brilliant insights into the cultural background mesh with an often original and always profound understanding of Wittgenstein’s work, yielding an accessible and illuminating account of his thought.”Joachim Schulte, University of Zurich“Concise, clear, and accessible, this sophisticated introduction covers an unusually wide range of central topics, including...

The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger's 'Being and Time' contains seventeen chapters by leading scholars of Heidegger. It is a useful reference work for beginning students, but also explores the central themes of Being and Time with a depth that will be of interest to scholars. The Companion begins with a section-by-section overview of Being and Time and a chapter reviewing the genesis of this seminal work. The final chapter situates Being and Time in the context of Heidegger's later work. ...

Published in 1953, Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations had a deeply unsettling effect upon our most basic philosophical ideas concerning thought, sensation and language. Its claim that philosophical questions of meaning necessitate a close analysis of the way we use language continues to influence Anglo-American philosophy today. However, its compressed and dialogic prose is not always easy to follow. This collection of essays deepens but also challenges our understanding of the wo...

During the course of the twentieth century, analytic philosophy developed into the dominant philosophical tradition in the English-speaking world. In the last two decades, it has become increasingly influential in the rest of the world, from continental Europe to Latin America and Asia. At the same time there has been deepening interest in the origins and history of analytic philosophy, as analytic philosophers examine the foundations of their tradition and question many of the assumptions...

A Brief History of Analytic Philosophy: From Russell to Rawls presents a comprehensive overview of the historical development of all major aspects of analytic philosophy, the dominant Anglo-American philosophical tradition in the twentieth century.Features coverage of all the major subject areas and figures in analytic philosophy - including Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russell, G.E. Moore, Gottlob Frege, Carnap, Quine, Davidson, Kripke, Putnam, and many othersCo...

In this illuminating collection, Charles Parsons surveys the contributions of philosophers and mathematicians who shaped the philosophy of mathematics over the course of the past century.Parsons begins with a discussion of the Kantian legacy in the work of L. E. J. Brouwer, David Hilbert, and Paul Bernays, shedding light on how Bernays revised his philosophy after his collaboration with Hilbert. He considers Hermann Weyl’s idea of a “vicious circle” in the foundations of mathematic...

W. V. Quine (1908–2000) was quite simply the most distinguished analytic philosopher of the later half of the twentieth century. His celebrated attack on the analytic/synthetic tradition heralded a major shift away from the views of language descended from logical positivism. His most important book, Word and Object, introduced the concept of indeterminacy of radical translation, a bleak view of the nature of the language with which we ascribe thoughts and beliefs to ourselves and others. ...

WITTGENSTEINS CONCEPTION OF PHILOSOPHY was first published in 1969 by Basil Blackwell Publishers, the official publisher of Wittgensteins works. It was intended to be a clear and concise introduction to Wittgensteins whole philosophy that corrects many basic misunderstandings of Wittgenstein at the time. After all these years, many scholars still regard it as the best introduction to Wittgenstein. We are reprinting this book and making it available electronically. In addition, we are appen...

Since the 1930s, philosophy has been divided into two camps: the analytic tradition which prevails in the Anglophone world and the continental tradition which holds sway over the European continent.A Parting of the Ways looks at the origins of this split through the lens of one defining episode: the disputation in Davos, Switzerland, in 1929, between the two most eminent German philosophers, Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger. This watershed debate was attended by Rudlf C...

Analytic philosophy is difficult to define since it is not so much a specific doctrine as a loose concatenation of approaches to problems. As well as having strong ties to scientism -the notion that only the methods of the natural sciences give rise to knowledge -it also has humanistic ties to the great thinkers and philosophical problems of the past. Moreover, no single feature characterizes the activities of analytic philosophers. Undaunted by these difficulties, Avrum Stroll investigate...