This book is a subtle and scholarly work. Any student of Wittgenstein can expect to profit from a careful study of it.

Arif Ahmed MIND

[a] masterly account

Quassim Cassam, Times Literary Supplement

This is David Pears' revisiting of Wittgenstein's philosophy in five interrelated themes - the pictorial character of language, the phenomenon of linguistic regularity, the 'private language argument', logical necessity, and ego. The book therefore covers, as Pears writes, the same ground as his Wittgensteing (1971), but in greater depth and detail; and, I would add, with the familiarity and expertise of someone who has travelled long and deep with Wittgenstein...the positive direction of Wittgenstein's philosophy shines through. Perhaps because David Pears has taken us through some of the most tenacious problems in that philosophy, and has shown us the Wittgensteinian imagination at work - and we saw that it was good.

Daniele Moyal-Sharrock, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews