Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning

G.P.Baker was a Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford from 1967 until his death in 2002. He is the co-author with P.M.S. Hacker of the first two volumes of the four-volume Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations (Blackwell, 1980–96), author of Wittgenstein, Frege and the Vienna Circle (Blackwell, 1988) and with Katherine Morris of Descartes’ Dualism (1996). He also wrote numerous articles on Wittgenstein, Frege, Russell, Waismann and Descartes. P.M.S. Hacker is the leading authority on the philosophy of Wittgenstein. He is author of the four-volume Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations, the first two volumes co-authored with G.P. Baker (Blackwell, 1980–96) and of Wittgenstein’s Place in Twentieth-century Analytic Philosophy (Blackwell, 1996). His other previous works include The Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (Blackwell, 2003) and History of Cognitive Neuroscience (Wiley-Blackwell, 2008), both co-authored with M.R. Bennett. Most recently he has published Human Nature: The Categorical Framework (Blackwell, 2007), the first volume of a trilogy on human nature.Together with Joachim Schulte, he has produced the 4th edition and extensively revised translation of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations (Wiley-Blackwell, forthcoming 2009).

• Acknowledgements. Introduction to Part I: Essays.Note to the paperback edition 2009.Abbreviations.I The Augustinian conception of language (§1).II Explanation (§6). III The language-game method (§7).IV Descriptions and the uses of sentences (§18).V Ostensive definition and its ramifications (§28).VI Indexicals (§39).VII Logically proper names (§39).VIII Meaning and use (§43).IX Contextual dicta and contextual principles (§50).X The standard metre (§50).XI Family resemblance (§65).XII Proper names (§79).XIII Turning the inquiry round: the recantation of a metaphysician (§89).XIV Philosophy (§109).XV Surveyability and surveyable representations (§122). XVI Truth and the general propositional form (§134).XVII Understanding and ability (§143).1. The place of the elucidation of understanding in the Investigations.2. Meaning and understanding as the soul of signs.3. Categorial misconceptions of understanding.4. Categorial clarification.(a) Understanding is not an experience.(b) Understanding is not a process.(c) Understanding is not a mental state.(d) Understanding is neither a dispositional state of the brain nor a disposition.5. Powers and abilities.6. Understanding and ability.Index.