Investigating Wittgenstein

By: Giles Fraser

Narrated by: Philip Rose

Length: 34 mins

Publisher's summary

Curious, confounding and brilliant, Wittgenstein is a philosopher whom people find it easy to get obsessed with. In Investigating Wittgenstein, Giles Fraser explores the secrets of his attraction.

The How to Believe series explores the teachings, philosophies and beliefs of major thinkers and religious texts. In a short, easy-to-access format, leading writers present new understandings of these perennially important ideas.

©2013 Giles Fraser (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Interesting and concise.

I appreciated the good narration and that it goes straight to the point. Short but deep.

Kind of brief

Makes you want to learn something about what he taught. His writing style is sweeten, simple, but he doesn’t tell you much.

What seest thou, else?

Nietzsche stared into the philosophical abyss and saw God did not exist, and everything was permitted, and nothing is true.

Organized in seven roughly five-minute chapters, Giles Fraser uses a few ideas from Wittgenstein to point out instability in the otherwise robust Western ideology running from Medieval Catholicism to Modern Secularism.

Western Culture sees much but also presumes much, ignoring the light of Nature it cannot see. Wittgenstein, inspired by Goethe, seems to rejects philosophy as narrow in its knowledge. Reality goes beyond the limits of language, and language is woefully limited. Our problem is not that of making an argument but that of sense and perception.

It seems that Wittgenstein portends a certain decay and death arising from our pretentious belief in partial and universal values that claim immortality for their finite existence. We must expand our consciousness. If this takes the form of seeing God in the abyss, so be it.

Religious apologetics not philosophy. :/

Basically, its a litte bit of Wittgenstein painfully obviously selected to justify the authors belief in Christianity.

It wasn't all that convincing an argument for theism. It was less informative than my 15 minutes searching Google.

I was far from impressed.

Good

It’s a good audiobook. I think, personally, that it’s bit hard to understand but quite compelling!

I'm Unconvinced

In this book Giles Fraser, a Franciscan, presents a defence of his Faith through Wittgenstein's analysis of mind, language and thought and its implications on the Western philosophical project.

I remain unconvinced by Fraser's stand against Dawkins' scepticism and scepticism generally. Faith remains a belief in facts beyond the limits of what's known or knowable. I doubt Wittgenstein, from his world of facts, would agree such belief is necessary.Yet, I'm both confident and glad Monsieur Fraser had these thoughts and took time to put them to paper.

Regardless of belief, or non, when considering the fact of our "interiority" scepticism is like the pinch of salt in porridge. It lifts the flavour from the starchy blandness of solipsism. There we may agree.

Language games indeed.

Interesting But Author's Christian Focus Seems TMI

At little more than half an hour this is a very short introduction to Wittgenstein. It might be ideal for the student who wanted to know just enough to get by in a class discussion or a spouse wanting to prepare for a philosophy faculty cocktail party, if such things even exist anymore. I found some of what Giles Fraser had to say about the limits of language interesting. But too much time was spent on his personal conversion to Christianity. His experience may be life changing for him but it is frankly not that interesting. And it was not really what I was looking for in something titled Investigating Wittgenstein.

best. EXTREMELY. short. survey. of. Wittgenstein.

Ever.

(evidently "a review requires at least 15 words")
((ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, aaaaad...))

Not sure what this book is.

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

As other reviewers have noted, this is an odd book, perhaps expanded from a paper or a memoir by someone who had been obsessed with Wittgenstein earlier in life and then, at some later time, had to resolve that with a conversion to strong Christianity. If you are looking for a relatively brief overview of Wittgenstein's life and work, consider Bartley's "Wittgenstein". This book is an unusual hybrid of memoir, Christian theology, and selected portions of Wittgenstein's work, sewn together into a short book that doesn't have a clear purpose or audience.

Has Investigating Wittgenstein turned you off from other books in this genre?

Nope.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Investigating Wittgenstein?

Nothing against the author, who seems very smart, but I don't think I'd have published this book at all. I don't understand the theme of it. If some of the personal stuff had been taken out, it might be part of a long textbook at a Christian university on resolving Western philosophy to Christian theology.

Any additional comments?

Sorry, I do not recommend this book.