In 1938 Wittgenstein delivered a short course of lectures on aesthetics to a small group of students at Cambridge. The present volume has been compiled from notes taken down at the time by three of the students: Rush Rhees, Yorick Smythies, and James Taylor. They have been supplemented by notes of conversations on Freud (to whom reference was made in the course on aesthetics) between Wittgenstein and Rush Rhees, and by notes of some lectures on religious belief. As very little is known of Wittgenstein's views on these subjects from his published works, these notes should be of considerable...

Wittgenstein on Ethics and Religious Belief both expounds and relates the ethical and religious views of a philosopher more usually discussed in terms of language, science and logic. Cyril Barrett addresses three principal issues. First, the over-riding importance Wittgenstein attaches to value, ethical, religious and aesthetic. Second, his conviction that these matters cannot be expressed in the language of scientific or everyday discourse. Third, the thesis that Wittgenstein's views on value did not alter between the Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations, in spite of his rejection of...