Wittgenstein, Human Beings and Conversation

This book brings together David Cockburn’s best work on Wittgensteinian themes relating to ‘mind’ and ‘language’. While none of these papers is well described as ‘exegetical’, most are discussions of Wittgenstein, and all are discussions of themes central to his later work and strongly influenced by it. The papers can be roughly divided between ‘the philosophy of mind’ and ‘the philosophy of language’. They are, however, united by the idea that this standard classification of topics stands in the way of clear thinking about core issues, and, closely connected with that, united by the idea that the notion of a human being must be central to any philosophical treatment of them. Cockburn’s approach is marked by the detailed attention given to the human bodily form, and his approach to language by the central place given to the idea of conversation. The discussions are enriched by incorporating some consideration of our relation to non-human creatures. The papers are linked by an insistence on the inescapably ethical dimension of any adequate discussion of these issues. While the debt to Wittgenstein is enormous, a number of the papers involve what may be significant criticisms of him.