Wittgenstein is one of the most important philosophers of the 20th Century thought, both in Europe and in the Anglo-American tradition. In the 1930’s he announced his break with the tradition of philosophy. At the same time, he announced the emergence, with his new work, of a revolutionary 'kink' in the evolution of philosophy, comparable to a revolutionary shift in the sciences.
The course focuses on his major later work, the Philosophical Investigations, and aims to develop an understanding of the issues and arguments discussed in this work, an awareness of his particular style and method of philosophising and a grasp of the distinctive role of his thought in the history of philosophy. Topics covered include: the nature of language; meaning and understanding; rule following; private language and our ordinary sensation language; sense perception and seeing aspects; the nature of thought; the mental and its relation to behaviour; other minds; the nature of philosophy (issues of method and style).