This is the first comparative study of the pioneering work on language of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Hans-Georg Gadamer.
The book focuses on how Wittgenstein and Gadamer treat language in their accounts of language as game and their major writings on the subject-Philosophical Investigations and Truth and Method, respectively. Chris Lawn goes on to offer a critique of Wittgenstein's account of linguistic rules, drawing upon Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics, particularly his emphasis upon tradition, temporality, historicality, and novelty. The text demonstrates how paying attention to such elements-excluded by Wittgenstein's conception of rules-in fact strengthens Wittgenstein's position from a hermeneutical perspective. Finally, Wittgenstein and Gadamer investigates the possibility of connection between Wittgenstein's focus upon lexical particularity and Gadamer's greater concern for the universal and the general.