Wittgenstein, L. (1958). Philosophical Investigations, Third Edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall. [buy book]
sdeluca@midway.uchicaho.edu, 07/09/97, rating=10:
this book will make your eyes bleed (if you understand it). This book is the literary equivalent to those red buttons we were told not to press. Reading this book will make your life a living nightmare. And you thought Descartes or Sartre creeped you out! This made my apron run amock!
Kmcm30c@prodigy.com, 07/23/96, rating=9:
A book on language not argued, but spoken.
After immersing myself into the often tedious world of philosophy for quite sometime now, I have to say that I am none to impressed. Of course a glimmer here, a flash there, but often enough philosophers are so caught up in chasing down truth that they have forgoten the tools that will get them there. But then there is this little jewel, a piece which is not so much a linear argument as a chorus of voices, a play of the mind's inclinations both profound and ridiculous. In Philosophical Investigations, you will not find anything resembling the traditional forms of argumentation, and it is often difficult to discern who is saying what and with what tone (which is fascinating because, unlike the Socratic dialogues, there is only one 'person' speaking). But one thing begins to crystalize as you dig into the work: Wittgenstein has an acute attunement to language and its fine meshing of both system and abberation, of logic and eccentricity. If you are sometimes amazed at the fact that we speak, and most often without a second thought, and if you as well sometimes wonder why anyone would wish to make our language 'better' or somehow more 'perfect', then you should find this work of small, separated paragraphs stimulating.