Book · 1953
Philosophical Investigations
by Ludwig Wittgenstein
Wittgenstein spends his last two decades dismantling the Tractatus, the book that made him famous.
What does Reddit think of Philosophical Investigations?
The framing r/askphilosophy repeats most is a split: early Wittgenstein wrote the Tractatus, late Wittgenstein wrote this, and the two don't agree with each other. One thread (↑71) puts it as diagnosis. "You're in the thrall of the early Wittgenstein. The cure is the later Wittgenstein." That's close to a house position here: this book functions as an antidote to a different book by the same author. r/philosophy's video thread (↑149) calls the later method "the opposite of Socrates," a comparison that shows up nowhere else in the excerpts but fits the diagnosis framing. Multiple askphilosophy answers explain why the split happened: the Tractatus tried to picture reality with logic, and this book abandons that project. One excerpt (↑106) argues there's no context-free way to tell what a sentence is even doing, which is the argument in practice. r/philosophy is the minor subreddit here, eight references against askphilosophy's hundred, but its excerpts track the same story.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · early Wittgenstein versus late Wittgenstein
- · meaning as use instead of picture
- · language games and context-dependent speech
- · a philosopher renouncing his own earlier system
Common praise
- + The 'cure for early Wittgenstein' framing gives you an actual reason to read this after the Tractatus, not as a substitute for it.
- + One excerpt (↑106) uses its argument to explain why no sentence's function can be judged out of context, and askphilosophy cites that as the clearest version of the point.
- + It gets credited with reshaping how people think about definitions themselves, not just adding one more theory of language.
Common criticism
- − Recommendations for it mostly explain what it's fixing in the Tractatus. Few excerpts describe what it argues on its own terms.
- − The 'early vs. late Wittgenstein' framing does a lot of work in these threads, and it assumes you already know the Tractatus well enough to see the break.
- − Nobody in the displayed excerpts walks through the numbered remarks directly; they talk about the book's reputation and its target instead.
Who it's for
Read the Tractatus first, or at least know its central claims, because half of what gets said about this book only makes sense as a rebuttal to it. If you like watching a philosopher demolish his own earlier certainty in public, this delivers exactly that. Coming to it cold, with no Wittgenstein background, expect the numbered remarks to read as cryptic rather than illuminating. Compare it to reading Kuhn after already knowing what "paradigm shift" means: the payoff is in tracing where the idea came from, not discovering it fresh.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for Philosophical Investigations?
The most relevant excerpts across the subreddits where this book is mentioned — opinionated, argued takes first, then top-upvoted mentions. Click through to read the full thread.
“> It’s hard to define anything in the end tbh. If you pretend that we have to offer one univocal definition for all times and people, then, yes, it is difficult to nail down one specific definition. Luckily, we do not need to do that. See Wittgenstein, [Philosophical Investigations](
“This video looks at one of Ludwig Wittgenstein's ideas from his most important work Philosophical Investigations, and contrasts it to the philosophical method of Socrates, in reaction to which Wittgenstein described his philosophy as "the opposite of Socrates'". It does so through an examination of …
“Wittgenstein basically changed the face of Analytic philosophy for fifty years with the publishing of the *Tractatus*, which was a massive and substantial inspiration for the Logical Positivists. Wittgenstein later came to reject the doctrines of the *Tractatus* when he returned to philosophy at Cam…
“Wittgenstein's philosophy is generally discussed in terms of 'early Wittgenstein' or 'late Wittgenstein' to distinguish between his views in the *Tractatus Logic-Philosophicus* and *Philosophical Investigations*, respectively. Wittgenstein abandons some significant aspects of his view from the *Trac…
“Probably not! There is no foolproof abstract way, out of context, to determine whether a given speech act is an assertion; if it is an assertion, what it asserts; etc. A significant amount of speech depends on the context in which speech is uttered, the presumed intentions of the speaker, the pres…
“The most notable in my mind is Wittgenstein who thought he was completely done with philosophy after the Tractatus and years later came back essentially denouncing his previous work and writing "Philosophical Investigations"
“You're in the thrall the early Wittegenstein. The cure is the later Wittgenstein. Read the Philosophical Investigations; it's the standard critique of the theory of language and reference that you're trapped by.
“Philosophers seldom change their mind about anything as much as Wittgenstein did about language. The shift from his early masterpiece, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, to his later work, Philosophical Investigations, is as radical as the move from modern to post-modern philosophy, argues Lee Brav…
“Most active philosophers are atheists. Though they mostly do not devote themselves to arguing for atheism, if that's what you mean. People like Dawkins and Hitchens are doing apologetics, which is often thought of as an activity that is significantly different from what philosophers do. So if you'r…
“This post spells out the most cited works in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (circa 2020), as well as their date of publication: That yields a decent rule of thumb guide to the most important work in th…
“Apart from what has already been said here, there is some more evidence which shows, I think, that Wittgenstein himself was against philosophy in some sense. There is, however, a methodological problem, since we can distinguish two very different stages in Wittgenstein's writing. For that, his work …
“For what it's worth, Wittgenstein was covered in my intro philosophy of language course — we went over major ideas from the *Philosophical Investigations.* A professor I knew disagreed with me on this, but I actually think that book is a good introduction to philosophy in general. I read it as an un…
“The main thing to note here is that Wittgenstein's contemporary acclaim is mostly due to *Philosophical Investigations* and various other things he wrote around the same time, like *Certainty* and *The Blue and Brown Books*. That's where his lasting influence has come from and why there are so many …
“A few other commentators have recommended reading Philosophical Investigations by Wittgenstein. In addition to this I would recommend reading Russel's introduction to the Tractatus. There he points out that in the Tractatus, Wittgenstein concludes that what cannot be said should be passed over in si…
“Wittgenstein always had an intense aversion to "philosophy", moreso in the latter half of his life, during which he wrote *Philosophical Investigations*, a manuscript every bit as influential as his early *Tractatus*. But this aversion was because he considered that philosophical problems were in so…
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Philosophical Investigations — frequently asked
Do I need to read Wittgenstein's Tractatus before Philosophical Investigations?+
Functionally, yes. Every top-voted r/askphilosophy answer recommending Philosophical Investigations frames it as a correction to the Tractatus, including one thread (↑71) that calls it 'the cure' for readers 'in the thrall' of the earlier book. Skip the Tractatus and you miss what this book is actually arguing against.
Is Philosophical Investigations just Wittgenstein disagreeing with himself?+
Largely, according to the excerpts. Multiple r/askphilosophy threads describe it as Wittgenstein abandoning the doctrines of the Tractatus after he returned to Cambridge philosophy. An r/philosophy thread (↑69) calls that shift 'as radical as the move from modern to post-modern philosophy.'
What does r/philosophy think of Philosophical Investigations compared to r/askphilosophy?+
Both read positive where scored, but r/philosophy barely shows up: eight references against askphilosophy's hundred. Its top thread (↑149) frames the book through a comparison to Socrates. That's a different angle than askphilosophy's more historical, Tractatus-versus-Investigations framing.
Should I read Philosophical Investigations if I only care about philosophy of language?+
Yes, it's treated as required reading for exactly that. One askphilosophy excerpt (↑106) uses its argument to explain why there's no context-free way to identify what a given speech act is doing, cited directly in a thread about assertions.