Wittgenstein's Whewell's Court Lectures

These notes, taken by one of Wittgenstein's most faithful pupils between 1938 and 1941, succeed in providing readers with a rich and vivid picture of Wittgenstein as a lecturer, and in supplementing our knowledge of his thought. Munz and Ritter have done an excellent job by presenting these notes in a very legible format and supplying a vast quantity of pertinent information in an admirably economic fashion. This outstanding volume is an extremely welcome addition to the field of Wittgenstein studies.Joachim Schulte, Universität ZürichAll Wittgenstein scholars, and many others too, will be indebted to Volker Munz and Bernhard Ritter for their first rate editorial work on Smythies extensive notes of Wittgenstein's Whewell Court lectures. The editorial decisions are judicious and the scholarly apparatus is impeccable. The detailed lecture notes vividly convey the style of Wittgenstein's delivery, the intensity of his thinking, the spontaneity of his responses to questions, and the occasional flashes of wit. These shed invaluable light on the interpretation of Wittgenstein's own writingsP.M.S. Hacker, St John's College, University of OxfordWittgenstein's Whewell's Court Lectures contains previously unpublished notes from lectures given by Ludwig Wittgenstein in Cambridge between 1938 and 1941. These notes by Yorick Smythies (1917-1980), a pupil and close friend of the philosopher's, include some of the finest examples of Wittgenstein's lectures, offering new insight into the development of Wittgenstein's thought and shedding light on the man behind the philosophy.Though the notes elaborate upon many topics familiar from Wittgenstein's work, such as necessary propositions, knowledge, belief, voluntariness, and freedom of the will, they often break new ground by recounting Wittgenstein's thoughts on authors about whom there is little to be found in his other work. In addition to the work of Russell, Moore, and James, Smythies records Wittgenstein's discussion of Gödel's theorems, W. E. Johnson, and Hume's account of belief. The lectures also underline the importance of imagery and pictures in Wittgenstein's approach to philosophy, with new passages examining the famous metaphor of the fly in the fly-bottle and seventy blackboard drawings copied by Smythies.