Research Catalog

Title

Wittgenstein, empiricism, and language / John W. Cook.

Author

Cook, John W. (John Webber), 1930-

Publication

New York : Oxford University Press, 2000.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xv, 224 pages; 24 cm

Summary

"In this study, author John W. Cook exposes the ways in which Wittgenstein's philosophical views have been misunderstood. An important source of misunderstanding is the failure to appreciate the nature of reductionism, which has allowed the reductionist character of Wittgenstein's work to go unnoticed. Another source is the fact that many philosophers share Wittgenstein's assumption that empiricism, far from being a weird view of things, reflects the ways in which we commonly think and talk about ourselves and the world. Because Wittgenstein's chief expositors tend to share this false assumption, they are prevented from recognizing that Wittgenstein, who claimed to be bringing words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use, did nothing of the sort." "Cook provides well-documented proof that Wittgenstein did not hold views commonly attributed to him, arguing that Wittgenstein's later work was mistakenly seen as a development of G.E. Moore's philosophy - which Wittgenstein in fact vigorously attacked. Wittgenstein, Empiricism, and Language will be of interest to philosophers of language and to epistemologists, and is an excellent text for courses on Wittgenstein, analytic philosophy, and philosophical method."--Jacket.

Subject

• Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1889-1951
• Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1889-1951
• Wittgenstein, Ludwig 1889-1951
• Wittgenstein, Ludwig
• Reductionism
• Language and languages > Philosophy
• Sprachphilosophie
• Empirismus
• Taalfilosofie
• Empirisme
• Reductionisme

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 181-217) and indexes.

Contents

I. The Way Out of the Flytrap. 1. The Subject Matter of Philosophy. 2. Empiricism and the Flight from Solipsism. 3. Theories and Descriptions. 4. Speakers and Noise Makers. 5. Reductionism and Inflationism -- II. Reductionism and Criteria. 6. The Ontological and Linguistic Aims of Reductionism. 7. A Russellian Argument and Wittgensteinian Criteria. 8. Wittgenstein's Concept of Criteria. 9. What Criteria Cannot Be -- III. Philosophy and Language. 10. Standard Ordinary Language Philosophy. 11. Moore's Method. 12. Wittgenstein and the Metaphysical Use of Words. 13. Metaphysical Ordinary Language Philosophy. 14. Investigative Ordinary Language Philosophy. 15. Investigating Appearances. App. Russell's Our Knowledge of the External World and Its Relation to Wittgenstein's Philosophy.

ISBN

• 019513298X
• 9780195132984

LCCN

99010740

OCLC

• ocm40654724
• 40654724
• SCSB-9510330

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library