WITTGENSTEIN, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, translated by G.E.M. Anscombe, edited by R. Rheesand G.E.M. Anscombe (Basil Blackwell, Oxford), 1953 [first edition]

156 x 227mm; pp. x, 232 [but paginated once only for each facing page]

Wittgenstein’s magnum opus. Here, in the first of Wittgenstein’s posthumously published works, the world learnt what only a select few were aware of: the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus was no more, and an entirely new philosophical world existed, in which the task of the philosopher (and also as we will see the writer, artist, layman, theologian, filmmaker) was to investigate the ‘language games’ that we use to create our (shared) world.

If the idea of ‘language games’ is the book’s most famous contribution, many of the other ideas presented are no less influential: for example Wittgenstein’s celebrated argument against the possibility of private language, the discussion of family resemblances, of rules and rule-following, and of ‘seeing as’. Reviled by some on its release (notably Russell), it is now widely considered the single most important work in 20th-century philosophy.

Good condition: dust-jacket spotted and faded to the spine as usual; bleed to gilt spine titles but otherwise the cloth binding and text block are very good indeed; very sparce pencil marginalia and a small ownership inscription.