Wittgenstein on Other Minds: Strangers in a Strange Land

The book brings together Constantine Sandis’s essays on Wittgenstein’s approach to understanding others. Sandis sketches a picture of how his anti-scepticism with regard to the philosophical problem of ‘other minds’ is not only compatible with but also supported by his scepticism concerning the real-life difficulty of understanding others (and being understood by them). While each individual essay focuses on particular issues in Wittgenstein (including philosophical anthropology, interpersonal psychology, and animal concepts), they collectively paint a picture of what he takes the real problem of other minds to be, how to overcome it, and the limitations of our understanding. Sandis not only offers a fresh exegesis of Wittgenstein’s public and private writings on these matters, but proceeds to show the relevance of Wittgenstein beyond the academy.