Wittgenstein on Freud and Frazer [Paperback]

These essays examine Wittgenstein's reflections on the comparative claims of clarification and empirical enquiry.What is it that troubles and preoccupies us about the anxieties and anguishes of social and private life? Have advances in the disciplines o f psychoanalysis, psychology or the social sciences in general ministered to our needs in these areas? Frank Cioffi's elegantly argued essays range over Wittgenstein's treatment of Frazer's anthropological accounts of human sacrifice and other ritual practices, and Freud's dealings with dreams, jokes and mental life in general. This volume will be of wide interest to readers in philosophy, psychology and aesthetics.What is it that troubles and preoccupies us about the anxieties and anguishes of social and private life? Have advances in the disciplines o f psychoanalysis, psychology or the social sciences in general ministered to our needs in these areas? Frank Cioffi's elegantly argued essays range over Wittgenstein's treatment of Frazer's anthropological accounts of human sacrifice and other ritual practices, and Freud's dealings with dreams, jokes and mental life in general. This volume will be of wide interest to readers in philosophy, psychology and aesthetics.What is it that troubles and preoccupies us about the anxieties and anguishes of social and private life? Have advances in the disciplines of psychoanalysis, psychology or the social sciences in general ministered to our needs in these areas? Frank Cioffi's elegantly argued essays range over Wittgenstein's treatment of Frazer's anthropological accounts of human sacrifice and other ritual practices, and Freud's dealings with dreams, jokes and mental life in general. This volume will be of wide interest to readers in philosophy, psychology and aesthetics.Introduction; 1. Information, contemplation and social life; 2. Aesthetic explanation and aesthetic perplexity; 3. Wittgenstein and the fire festivals; 4. When do empirical methods by-pass the problems which l£U