Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations Week 1

How do we come to learn the meaning of words in a language? Is language up to the task of asking and answering philosophical questions? How do we communicate about our personal experiences to someone who has completely different experiences than our own? If you are curious about how language and meaning are related then join us in exploring one of the most influential works of 20th-century philosophy: Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. In this day and age where we seem to have such a hard time agreeing about facts, a careful study of language should help us to understand our miscommunications and perhaps even suggest a solution.

We will read this text in roughly 30 page increments, allowing for a close read and in depth discussion. The book is written as a series of numbered paragraphs which more or less follow each other in theme. You should take note of particular paragraphs of interest to focus our discussion together since we will not be able to discuss each paragraph individually. I will be reading from this version of the text and you can find a free copy here. For the first week we will read the preface and sections 1-53 (p. 1-30).

Participants should read the entire reading before attending this in person meeting. We follow a mindful conversation approach, details on this along with a general FAQ on how we run the meetup can be found here.

For questions please send me a message or post to meetup.

Best,

Brian