What's the Wittgenstein starter pack? Which works do I need to read and in which order to get an understanding of him?
Start with the Blue and Brown Books.
Move onto some of his essays: On Certainty, Remarks on Color, Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, etc.
Then finish Philosophical Investigations.
>>7987838
No Tractatus?
>>7987841
Different anon here. The Tractatus is very important. Understanding what he was trying to do there and some of the basic facts about how he went about it are a must to understanding what he was doing in later work, which was largely a reaction against the earlier stuff. But the Tractatus is not something you're gonna get much out of if you read it without a decent amount of background.
You should probably start by learning some basic logic (propositional logic and predicate calculus), then by reading Russell's Lectures on the Philosophy of Logical Atomism. Maybe worth reading some Frege and some more Russell, but this is probably enough to make reading the Tractatus not a total waste of time. Russell's views were not the same as Wittgenstein's (many even think Russell misunderstood Wittgenstein), but they're closely related, and his presentation is easier to follow on a first reading. Having knowledge of Russell as a backdrop helps a lot, I think, in understanding Wittgenstein.
Failing this, at least read some sort of guide or companion to the Tractatus or to Wittgenstein more generally, or some of the relevant Stanford Encyclopedia pages. I really do think the basic logic is required, though.
Also, I disagree with >>7987838 that you should read On Certainty, Remarks on Color, and Philosophy of Psych, etc., before reading the Investigations. The Blue and Brown Books would probably be helpful to read beforehand, but I think not absolutely necessary. But in any case, the main thing to read after the Tractatus is the Philosophical Investigations. I recommend the Hacker and Schulte translation.
It's probably also worthwhile to read some commentary on the PI too. If you're ambitious, check out Baker and Hacker's four part commentary. Perhaps more philosophically interesting, but less concerned with getting the exisgesis right (though some think he did get it right anyway, including Anscombe apparently, who was W's student), is Kripke's book Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. Highly recommended.
Finally, there's a good biography about Wittgenstein by Ray Monk. Not absolutely necessary to understanding his thought, but nevertheless illuminating. Also entertaining and lighter than the rest of the stuff above, so good for taking breaks as you mull things over.
>>7988368
Thanks for the elaborate reply, anon. I'll start looking into those things. I'm somewhat familiar with Frege but not so much with Russell.
>an understanding of him
>>7988368
A thorough, well-thought out reply? I haven't seen one of those on /lit/ in a while.
Cheers!
>>7987800
To understand the Tractatus, read it together with Max Black's 'Companion':
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2197127.A_Companion_to_Wittgenstein_s_Tractatus_
>>7988368
>many even think Russell misunderstood Wittgenstein
I remember that supposedly Wittgenstein thought Russell didn't understand it, even after going through the whole book line by line. He wanted Russell's introduction for the book tossed out.
>>7988368
This response is much more sensible than the other. I took a course on Wittgenstein at university and this is pretty close to how we approached it. We talked about Russell and Frege a bit before and then during our slow read-through of the Tractatus. Then we moved right to the Investigations. His other works are more based on your own interests and aren't nearly as important. The Blue and Brown books contain a lot of the same stuff as the Investigations.
learn an asian language first
>>7989445
Is this just a bad joke or do you have a reason?
