Wittgenstein, Human Beings and Conversation

“These are deeply thoughtful papers. David Cockburn turns our attention to features of our lives that we too frequently lose sight of in philosophy. Readers will especially profit from the wide-ranging and realistic examples and from the many ways Cockburn brings out the ethical significance of our philosophical questions about mind and language.” — Cora Diamond, Corcoran Department of Philosophy, University of Virginia

“David Cockburn manages to throw new and unexpected light on some of the traditional problems of mind and language. His work is exceptional in its ability to combine depth of reflection with accessibility of presentation. This volume raises the question of what it means to be human, as this is brought out in our mutual relations, in expressive behaviour and conversation. Cockburn’s thought is characterized by attention to the ethical dimension which is crucial to an understanding of our shared life. The nature of humanity is further illuminated by an emphasis on the continuities between human and animal life. Ideas formulated by Wittgenstein are here carried forward in fruitful ways.” — Lars Hertzberg, Department of Philosophy, Åbo Akademi University

“The intelligence at work in these essays is at once humane, subtle and penetrating. While David Cockburn has learnt deeply from Wittgenstein, the voice heard here is very distinctly Cockburn’s own. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully to it. Cockburn’s approach to the many themes of his essays is refreshingly free of ‘baggage’. It reflects an appreciation that you have to let whatever you write about show you how to write about it. The result is a freshness and an openness of philosophical thinking that is both very unusual, and urgently needed, in the contemporary philosophical scene. This is a terrific collection.” — Christopher Cordner, University of Melbourne, Victoria

“This is a beautiful and rewarding collection. It brings together David Cockburn’s distinctively sensitive, careful, and original philosophical thinking around questions of what it means to be a human being and what Wittgenstein’s philosophy can teach us about it. — Maria Balaska, Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Hertfordshire, UK

The volume is a collection of 12 essays, all of which, except for the introduction and the seventh chapter ‘Not Empiricism and Yet Realism’, have been published previously in some form. The essays span from the early ‘The Mind, the Brain and the Face’ from 1985, to ‘Deirdre’s Smile: Names, Faces and ‘the Simple Actuality’ of Another’, published in 2021. Reading the essays together as a whole, however, adds real value, since they are not introduced chronologically but organized thematically in a way that allows one to discern what is distinctive of Cockburn’s philosophical vision — Camilla Kronqvist, Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, Psychology and Theology, Abo Akademi University, Turku, Finland; Philosophical Investigations 2022.

David Cockburn

Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at University of Wales, Trinity St David. He is the author of books on philosophy of mind and philosophy of time, and of papers on Wittgenstein, philosophy of mind, time, religion, language and ethics.