Description: "A very important contribution to the effort to achieve a command of his ideas and what led to them."--London Review of Books"Graduate and professional readers...will find Pears's careful analysis highly informative and provocative. By emphasizing the development of Wittgenstein's philosophy from the early work to the later, Pears succeeds in giving a more accurate interpretation of Wittgenstein's methods, arguments, and goals."--Choice"Pears handles Wittgenstein's examination of the constancy of word-meaning with the same consummate ease displayed in the treatment of sensation-language. He has an unerring sense for what is central in Wittgenstein's investigations and an enviable gift for reconstructing Wittgenstein's thought by projecting himself into a problem as it presented itself to Wittgenstein, but without sacrificing his independence. The depth and density of his interpretation contrast sharply with most other efforts. His book is elegantly and imaginatively written, with an unrivalled sympathy for and rare mastery of its subject."--Times Literary Supplement"A detailed and perceptive account of both the continuities and discontinuities in the development of Wittgenstein's later treatment of the ego, sensation and rule-following....An original and highly sophisticated interpretation of some of the main themes of Wittgenstein's philosophy."--CPRPraise for Volume I: "A profound, scholarly and illuminating study....The idea of a definitive study of the work of any great philosopher is, no doubt, illusory....But it is reasonable to think that, when the second volume of Pears's work is added to the first, we shall have something that comes, for its time, as near as possible to that unattainable ideal."--P.F. Strawson

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