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ILLC

Master of Logic / ILLC

Projects

2nd Semester 2024/25: Wittgenstein Project

Instructors
Martin Stokhof
ECTS
6
Description

Aim & requirements

This is a 6 ECT project in the Master of Logic programme. The main aim of the project is to acquaint the students with key views and arguments of Wittgenstein, both in his early (Tractatus, Notebooks) and his later work (Philosophical Investigation, On Certainty). This will be done primarily via close reading of selected texts of Wittgenstein, supported with the study of secondary materials.

Organisation

Contents

  1. Logic, language, ethics

Primary material:

  • Selections from Tractatus-Logico Philosophicus

Selections from Notebooks 1914-1916

  • ‘A lecture on ethics’

Secondary material:

  • Anscombe, An Introduction to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. Hutchinson, London, 2nd rev. edition, 1963.
  • Chapters 1,2 and 4 from M. Stokhof, World and Life as One. Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2002.
  1. Meaning and use, rules, private language, aspect seeing

Primary material:

  • Selections from Philosophical Investigations

Secondary material:

  • McGinn, Wittgenstein and the ‘Philosophical Investigations’. Routledge, London, 1997.
  • Selections from G. Baker & P. Hacker’s 4 volumes of Analytical Commentary on Philosophical Investigations. Blackwell, Oxford, 1980, 1985.

 

  1. Certainty and knowledge

Primary material:

  • Selections from On Certainty
  • ‘Cause and effect, intuitive awareness’

Secondary material:

  • Moyal-Sharrock, Understanding Wittgenstein’s ‘On Certainty’. Palgrave, London, 2004
  • Stokhof, Wittgensteins Meaning. Ms. 2025, chapter 3.

 

Planning

The project will run for four weeks: three weeks with two three-hour meetings every week, followed by one week for writing a short paper. The project will start on May 26 and end on June 20.

Week 1:

  1. Ontology, picture theory, language
  2. Logic, solipsism, ethics

Week 2:

  1. Meaning and use, language games, family resemblance, logic and philosophy
  2. Rule following and private language

Week 3:

  1. Moore-arguments and scepticism, knowledge and certainty
  2. Properties of certainties

Week 4:

Writing of term paper

Prerequisites

None

Assessment

Requirements:

  • Preparation of questions for each meeting
  • Short (max. 10 pages) paper on a mutually agreed topic

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