Customer Reviews

A Wittgenstein Dictionary (Blackwell Philosopher Dictionaries)

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Hans-Johann Glock har written a useful dictionary. For everyone writing about Wittgenstein, this volume is helpful. If one wonder whether one's interpretation of LW is reasonable or not and want to check with a progressive scholar, the book is brilliant. Also, the dictionary is so thorough that it might teach you a lot about Wittgenstein. If you have questions concerning Wittgenstein's views on the autonomy of language, grammar, religion, rule-following, private language etc, you should get this book.

Excellent work. Along with D.F. Pears's "The False Mirror", this "dictionary" is as in-depth and wide-ranging as we could hope. I tested it by looking up "logical objects", a rather minor topic from the Tractatus but one on which Wittgenstein made definitive criticisms of Frege and Russell. The entry was thorough and clear, and I used it countless times while studying the Tractatus and PI. An excellent work for those already familiar with Wittgenstein, and for those wrestling with his ideas for the first time alike.

I haven't picked this volume up since I studied with David Pears over a decade ago. But, I did yesterday, when I needed it, and bingo! To my mind anyway, the best quick reference on Wittgenstein, whose thought, never easy to access, and less so to penetrate, is made both accessible and comprehensible to the non-technically trained general reader. Not to say that the book, which strives to be an exhaustive reference, is easy going, which is why students may want to supplement it which some sort of narrative. For a short comprehensive narrative overview, I recommend P.M.S. Hacker's awesome entry on Wittgenstein in the Blackwell Companion to Analytic Philosophy, a very handy volume in itself. For the longer view I recommend Hacker's Wittgenstein's Place in Twentieth Century Philosophy, his earlier, fantastic Illusion & Insight - the allusion here is to Wittgenstein's loadstar, rather categorical, admonition about how not deceiving oneself ought to be the purpose of philosophy. And anything by Pears, sort of the Pindar of Analytic Philosophy.