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), 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). He has also written extensively on philosophy of language and philosophy of mind, most recently The Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (Blackwell, 2003), co-authored with M.R. Bennett.

Acknowledgements.Introduction to Part II - the Exegesis.Abbreviations.The History of the Composition of the Philosophical Investigations.An Overview of the Structure and Argument of the Philosophical Investigations.Exegesis.The Title.The Motto.The Preface.Chapter 1 The Augustinian Concept of Language.Chapter 2 Illusions of Naming: Ostensive Definition, Logically Proper Names, Simples and Samples, and Analysis.Chapter 3 Family Resemblance, Determinacy of Sense, and the Quest for Essence.Chapter 4 Philosophy.Chapter 5 The General Propositional Form.Chapter 6 Understanding and Ability.Index.