Wittgenstein on Phenomenology and Experience: An Investigation of Wittgenstein's 'Middle' Period

Abstract

One of the most significant areas within Wittgenstein research involves the question of (dis)continuity. It has long been a point of bitter contention, whether or not a particular line of thought or even general idea runs through all of Wittgenstein’s works. However, the publication of the Nachlass materials within the last decade has opened up new avenues of investigation as well as allowed for a more comprehensive and critical treatment of this issue. This book approaches the (dis)continuity question by examining Wittgenstein’s concept of experience from the Tractatus through until the Philosophical Investigations. One of the fundamental claims of the book is that by tracing his conception of experience as it relates to language, one is able to account for the so-called “shifts” in his thought – the most extraordinary of which is Wittgenstein’s development of a phenomenology upon his return to Cambridge in 1929. English. 150 pages.