This is an extensively revised second edition of
Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar and Necessity, the second volume of Baker and Hacker's renowned analytical commentary on Wittgenstein's
Philosophical Investigations. Comprising both detailed exegesis and interpretative essays, this edition includes comprehensively revised coverage of some of the most important and widely discussed passages in Wittgenstein's entire writings, namely his intricate and controversial remarks on following rules (§§189-242). The new edition draws on the full resources of the search engine of the electronic publication of the
Nachlass and takes into account the extensive debates on the themes associated with these sections of Wittgenstein's masterwork over the last quarter of a century.
All the essays have been revised and one new essay on communitarian and individualist conceptions of rule-following has been added to the previous six. These deal with the relationship between the alternative continuations of the early draft of the Investigations; with Wittgenstein's conception of grammar and rules of grammar; with the relation between a rule and what accords with it; with the characterization of rule-following as mastery of a technique manifest in practice; with the notion of a form of life and agreements in definitions and judgements. The major essay 'Grammar and necessity' has been greatly extended. It provides an overview of Wittgenstein's revolutionary and little understood analysis of the propositions of logic, mathematics and metaphysics.
Insightful and thought-provoking, the second edition of Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar and Necessity constitutes a key contribution to the ongoing analysis of one of the most influential philosophical works of the 20th century.
