Wittgenstein, empiricism, and language

About this book

"In this study, author John W. Cook exposes the ways in which Wittgenstein's philosophical views have been misunderstood. An important source of misunderstanding is the failure to appreciate the nature of reductionism, which has allowed the reductionist character of Wittgenstein's work to go unnoticed. Another source is the fact that many philosophers share Wittgenstein's assumption that empiricism, far from being a weird view of things, reflects the ways in which we commonly think and talk about ourselves and the world. Because Wittgenstein's chief expositors tend to share this false assumption, they are prevented from recognizing that Wittgenstein, who claimed to be bringing words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use, did nothing of the sort."--BOOK JACKET. "Cook provides well-documented proof that Wittgenstein did not hold views commonly attributed to him, arguing that Wittgenstein's later work was mistakenly seen as a development of G. E. Moore's philosophy - which Wittgenstein in fact vigorously attacked. Wittgenstein, Empiricism, and Language will be of interest to philosophers of language and to epistemologists, and is an excellent text for courses on Wittgenstein, analytic philosophy, and philosophical method."--BOOK JACKET.