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In this Beginner's Guide, Peter Hacker introduces the later philosophy of Wittgenstein in a lively and engaging combination of lectures and dialogues that presupposes no philosophical knowledge. He examines such topics as the nature of language and linguistic meaning, the analysis of necessity and its roots in convention, the relation of thought and language, the nature of the mind and its relation to behaviour, self-consciousness, and knowledge of other minds. This unique form of introduction will capture the interest of all readers with an enquiring mind.
List of contents
Preface; 1 Introduction; 2 Augustine's Picture of Language and the Referential Conception of Linguistic Meaning; 3 Names and Their Meaning, Sentences and Descriptions; 4 Meaning and Use, Understanding and Interpreting; 5 Ostensive Definition and Family Resemblance: Undermining the Foundations and Destroying the Essences; 6 Metaphysics, Necessity and Grammar; 7 Thought and Language; 8 The Private Language Arguments; 9 Private Ownership of Experience; 10 Epistemic Privacy of Experience; 11 Private Ostensive Definition; 12 My Mind and Other Minds; 13 The Inner and the Outer - Behaviour and Behaviourism; 14 'Only of a Human Being and What Behaves like a Human Being ...': The Mereological Fallacy and Cognitive Neuroscience; 15 Wittgenstein's Conception of Philosophy - I; 16 Wittgenstein's Conception of Philosophy - II; 17 Wittgenstein's Conception of Philosophy - III; Abbreviations; Further Reading; Index
About the author
P.M.S. Hacker is the leading authority on the philosophy of Wittgenstein. He has specialized in philosophy of cognitive neuroscience. He has written a tetralogy on human nature.
