A review by vikingvisuals
Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein

5.0

Philosophical Investigations is for me one of the most important philosophical texts of all time, written by one of the most interesting to read philosophers. Perhaps I am biased in that I share a lot of the same ideas as Wittgenstein and have a love for the idea of language and just how extremely important (and misleading) language can be in the world that we essentially create out of it, but it definitely was an influential text even outside of my own personal bias and gave birth to some of the greatest ideas in the field of logic.

I will not discuss the content of the book too much, as it is seemingly well known by anyone who may be studying philosophy or logic (although for a good summary, look no further than section 109: "Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language."). What I will say is that the writing, whether or not one may agree with the ideas expressed, is absolutely mesmerizing. One can clearly see the strong understanding and care Wittgenstein had for language just in the way he used it: "Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination." Or his perfect summation of philosophy: "So in the end when one is doing philosophy one gets to the point where one would like just to emit an inarticulate sound." If for just those sentences alone, this book was worth the read, but of course it contains much more and with a much more profound and well argumented framework.

The unfortunate thing about this book and the other major work(s) of Wittgenstein is that, if you are anything like me, it may start to destroy your appreciation for a lot of philosophy, most noticeably what philosophy has become. Wittgenstein managed to disassemble countless philosophical problems simply by showing, with the understanding of logic and language, that there simply were no problems to begin with (such ideas were of course advanced further by Russell and logicians following him). In that vein one begins to see a pattern where philosophy continues to find problems where no problems are justified or provide justifications for solutions to real problems where no solutions are currently justifiable. It is not my task to talk down about philosophy here, as it is always a subject that I love and has always been a large part of who I am: however when one takes into consideration the many points that Wittgenstein, either directly or indirectly, was making one starts to learn just how shaky some of the foundations of our longest held philosophies always were. It is in this sense that I admire this book the most, for the vast amount of ground it was able to cover (and destroy) simply with ideas of language and the ways in which we use and understand our language.


Speaking of language, the translation from G.E.M. Anscombe is one of the more superbly done tasks in the realm of translation of philosophical texts. Anscombe, being an analytic philosopher herself, clearly had a wonderful understanding of both the language and its intended content. Wittgenstein is certainly not one of the easiest philosophers to read, in German or in English, and although no translation is ever perfect one would be hard pressed to hand pick any mistakes made in this one. If you are looking for the best translation available: look no further than Anscombe!

Now I have reached the limits of what I can currently say about this book, and in that sense I will heed the words of Wittgenstein from his earlier work of the Tractatus: "What can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence."