Wittgenstein's thought in transition /

Wittgenstein's transition has been previously examined in Anthony John Patrick Kenny's Wittgenstein (1973), David Pears' The False Prison (CH, Jul'88 and Jul'89), Gordon Baker's Wittgenstein, Frege and the Vienna Circle (CH, Oct'89), and Ray Monk's Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius (CH, Mar'91). Jacquette's useful addition to this inquiry focuses first on atomism, depiction, propositions, the ineffable topics, and philosophical pseudoproblems in the Tractatus, and on the later issues of naming, language games, the critique of atomism, forms of life, rule-following, private language, and the language-as-city metaphor. These sections could easily serve as introductions to Wittgenstein's thought. Less attention is given to the "transition" itself, though Jacquette includes the text of the 1929 paper on logical form and an analysis of the color exclusion problem. The reader must check the endnotes to glimpse the scope of critical contention about interpreting Wittgenstein. Jacquette summarizes Wittgenstein's path as a move from "transcendental idealism" to "empirical realism." He is sympathetic with Wittgenstein's view of philosophy as the therapeutic dissolution of its own concerns. Wittgenstein specialists will find little here that is new; but the book is clear, well organized, and sound. Upper-division undergraduates and up. J. Churchill; Hendrix College