Is this a good place to start with Wittgenstein? Or should I start with another book or another author?

I understand what you're getting at but I think you're cultivating a bad habit there. I don't see any reason why you couldn't change your opinion about Wittgenstein and his views after reading secondary literature. This sort of implies that you won't be able to register the point/place where you're disagreeing with something you've read about Wittgenstein earlier which could only mean that you're not taking nearly enough notes, are a poor student, or have some sort of memory disorder. The thing is, it is very unlikely that you're going to reach and form a unique interpretation of Wittgenstein that no one else before you has thought of. So if you want to be efficient about it, read as much secondary literature as you can stomach, jot down the differing interpretations of him, read the original work and see if you disagree with any interpretation known to you. You can also read something like PI and a secondary literature on PI side by side.

nah, blue brown is the way to start.

Yea, maybe I just had bad luck with secondary literature and because maybe it is different when talking about psychoanalysis, it is just a feeling that at some point you realize you are reading the reading of someone and to me after reading someone else's reading there will always be an "invitation" to find what they found in the text, or to fall in the traps that they fell. I just think it really disrupts the reading after, by having read the explanation first and then reading the text which generates the questions, after you have the answers the questions you create are always towards the answers you have, at least in my own experience and people I talk to.

Language Truth and Logic is not Wittgenstein secondary literature, and you could not get a less accurate picture of Wittgensteins thought than if you read that book and thought he agreed with it

Actually there was an essay by Ayer on his relationship with Wittgenstein where he remarks just how enraged Wittgenstein was with his summary of Wittgenstein's thought (Ayer once opined on it for some British newspaper or radio-programme at the time). So I don't think what you're telling us here is accurate.

Frege's "On Sense and Reference" and Russell's "On Denoting" would be nice previous reads. ALso the Tractatus (search for a commented edition).

Yes it is

what about this?

This graphic was not written by someone who knows much about philosophy or Wittgenstein, but it's not awful

not really, its necessary if you want the full historical picture but it can be read on its own. However you absolutely need some secondary sources with PI. otherwise you dont even know what point hes trying to make. I guess reading the sep page on frege's language theory would be a good primer on the historical background.

>(yes, PI was a theory of language despite what some might say; if you talk about something and state that that something is such-and-such then you're basically introducing a theory

someone doesn't know his wittgenstein :(

Wittgenstein is overrated wankery. Skip to the good stuff like Carnap's 'Meaning and Necessity'.

meaning and necessity is a classic, but not sure why you would need to read only one of them

You won't truly understand him until you beat the shit out of some kids.

You should also make a point of reading the best readers of Wittgenstein, who I would say are:

Stanley Cavell
John McDowell
Cora Diamond
James Conant
Elizabeth Anscombe

Plus interesting readings of wittgenstein, or philosophers importantly shaped by their reading of wittgenstein:

Charles Taylor
Barry Stroud
Saul Kripke
Wilfrid Sellars
Peter Strawson
Michael Dummett
Crispin Wright
Richard Rorty
Robert Brandom

It might help to look at the Syllabi for two graduate seminars on Wittgenstein:

On the investigations/late wittgenstein:

philosophy.uchicago.edu/faculty/files/conant/Late Wittgenstein Seminar 2015 .pdf

And on the Tractatus:

philosophy.uchicago.edu/faculty/files/conant/syllTractatus.pdf

Is this the only useful, informed, and informative reply in the history of Veeky Forums?

thanks

Joachim Schulte and Jacques Bouveresse top all those by far.

They didnt just read W's texts academically and then made their personal philosophy out of what they understood, but actually followed W in every aspect of his life to see how his philosophy took shape, not as a simple idea system but as part of a life.

Fucking lol

>Or should I start with another book
Yes. How to read Wittgenstein by Ray Monks.
Then Blue & Brown books.