Wittgenstein's Conception of Philosophy

About the Book

“WITTGENSTEIN’S CONCEPTION OF PHILOSOPHY” was first published in 1969 by Basil Blackwell Publishers, the official publisher of Wittgenstein’s works. It was intended to be a clear and concise introduction to Wittgenstein’s whole philosophy that corrects many basic misunderstandings of Wittgenstein at the time. After all these years, many scholars still regard it as the best introduction to Wittgenstein. We are reprinting this book and making it available electronically. In addition, we are appending here the author’s “last words” on Wittgenstein: “BEYOND MARX AND WITTGENSTEIN: A Confession of a Wittgensteinian Marxist Turned Taoist”, a talk given in an international symposium on “Marx and Wittgenstein” held at Trinity College, Cambridge, UK, in 1999 and later published as the concluding chapter of the book: “MARX AND WITTGENSTEIN: KNOWLEDGE, MORALITY AND POLITICS’’, edited by Gavin Kitchen and Nigel Pleasants, published by Routledge, 2002.

About the Author

K. T. (a.k.a. Kuni) Fann, now retired, was formally Professor and Chair of Philosophy Department, Atkinson College, York University, Canada. He is the author of “PEIRCE’S THEORY OF ABDUCTION” (Martinus Nijhoff, 1970) and editor of “LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN: THE MAN AND HIS PHILOSOPHY’’ (Dell Publishers, 1967) and “SYMPOSIUM ON J. L. AUSTIN” (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969), and translator of Laozi’s TAO TEH CHING. In 1995 he retired to his ancestral village in Taiwan and turned a one hectre abandoned farm into a self-sufficient paradise where he lives a life of simplicity in harmony with nature, and manages a B&B called Thumb-up Taoist Retreat.