1
Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Development
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WOLFGANG KIENZLER
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There are two good reasons why Wittgenstein’s development is a philosophically
intriguing problem as well as a complex and intricate matter.
The first reason is that Wittgenstein wrote the Tractatus and the Philosophical
Investigations, two philosophical classics and two very different books. Ever since the
publication of the Investigations their mutual relation has been a matter of debate.
The second reason is that during the decades since Wittgenstein’s death a wealth of
material has been published from his papers, including several books as well as nearly
complete electronic editions of his manuscripts and his correspondence. These books do
not constitute independent treatises on various topics or questions; to a large degree
they contain variations, preparatory material, or continuations of things Wittgenstein
expounded in his Investigations or in the Tractatus.
The question about Wittgenstein’s development could therefore be phrased thus:
how does all this material connect and make sense, and how can we best understand
“Wittgenstein’s progress?” (assuming that he was indeed progressing).
Early introductions to his philosophy established a simple two‐part scheme, still in
widespread use today, sometimes labeled “Wittgenstein I” and “Wittgenstein II” (Pitcher,
1964; Fann, 1969; Pears, 1971; Biletzky and Matar, 2014). The first more detailed
presentation, proceeding publication by publication, can be found in Kenny (1973).
On the whole this abundance of material has deterred scholars from attempting
manuscript‐based interpretations of Wittgenstein’s philosophy in its entirety. In the
meantime, the topic of the early and the later Wittgenstein surfaces even in quite
popular treatments of his philosophy (e.g., Hankinson, 1999).
Many authors writing on him have focused either on the early or on the later
Wittgenstein. It is fairly easy to dismiss the Tractatus as less important if one believes the
Investigations to be his one true masterwork (see for instance Hacker, 1996), and one
can also find the Investigations of less interest if one believes that symbolic logic is the
modern philosopher’s indispensable tool (Russell). There exists, however, a tradition of
“hardcore Wittgensteinians” opposing the division into Wittgenstein I and Wittgenstein II
on account of strong underlying continuities. This line started with Anscombe (1959),
Rhees (1970), Winch (1969), and Mounce (1981), with more recent contributions
A Companion to Wittgenstein, First Edition. Edited by Hans-Johann Glock and John Hyman.
© 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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WOLFGANG KIENZLER
from Diamond (1991), who took her start into Wittgenstein through editing his 1939
Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics, and Conant (2012). Reading the Tractatus
with the later developments in mind, one can easily fall into the trap of reading too
much of the later Wittgenstein into his early work – yet doing so can also sharpen one’s
understanding of the ways in which those later ideas developed from his earlier ones.
This first chapter discusses some general features of Wittgenstein’s work, then gives
an overview of his early writings, and finally surveys his philosophical activities after
1929 (his “development” in the more specific sense of the term).
The evidence collected will suggest that there is quite substantial continuity, but
also one major turning point in Wittgenstein’s way of handling philosophical
questions. This turning point took place around 1931–1932, as will be explained in
Section 4 below.
1
Some Basic Features of Wittgenstein’s Work
Some of the features of Wittgenstein’s way of doing philosophy hardly changed over
time. These include:
(1) Wittgenstein did not write philosophical books – he wanted to write the
philosophical book. His ambition was to settle the matter of philosophy once and for all.
In his view, the proper study of philosophy was mainly philosophy itself. His first paper
on record was a four‐minute piece entitled “What is Philosophy?” It was delivered in late
1912 to the Moral Sciences Club in Cambridge, defining philosophy as “all those primi
tive propositions which are assumed without proof by the various sciences.” His last
lecture, given to the same club in 1946, was again simply on “Philosophy” (McGuinness,
2008, pp. 35, 404; PPO 332, 338–9).
Once we have gained clarity about the nature of philosophy we will have the key to
treat all particular questions – and Wittgenstein was only interested in giving the master
key: most of the remaining work he would happily leave for others to do. It was only
during his later career that he decided that there could not be one single key after all, but
that all he could do was to give examples of his way of treating philosophical questions.
He thus found it worthwhile to conduct some extended investigations into the nature of
meaning and understanding, the foundations of mathematics, and the maze of
psychological concepts. About some of his unwanted followers he remarked in 1949:
“They show you a bunch of stolen keys, but they can’t use them to open any door”
(MS 138, p. 17a).
Therefore, excepting the first two years, when he asked: “What is logic?,” his prime
question and topic was “What is philosophy?” For this reason, the titles of his books and
book projects all sound very general and quite similar: Philosophical Remarks,
Philosophical Grammar, and the like. Wittgenstein was convinced that nobody had given
an adequate answer to this question, and that it was his job to work one out. This over
arching aim gives his work a high degree of unity – but also sometimes an appearance
of amorphousness, as everything is very much intertwined and cannot be separated
neatly into different topics discussed or questions raised and answered (as already Frege
complained about in a letter to Wittgenstein dated 28 June 1919).
(2) The second feature is closely related to the first: the basic unit of Wittgenstein’s
work is not the book, nor the scholarly article, but rather what he called a “remark.”
This is usually a self‐standing, compressed paragraph intended to illuminate one aspect
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WITTGENSTEIN’S PHILOSOPHICAL DEvELOPMENT
of a philosophical problem. It may take on the form of a short aphorism but it can also
extend up to a page and a half. This has been compared to the work of an artist or a poet,
and again and again Wittgenstein tried to sum up highly complex matters into one
short paragraph. He liked to speak of the liberating, “spell‐breaking word” (das erlösende
Wort) and kept on searching for it (BT 409; PO 164).
(3) When writing philosophy, Wittgenstein would first write down a large number
of such remarks, and then he would try to arrange these remarks into a larger whole,
eventually into a book. He intended his book to be the best possible arrangement of
all his good remarks. He did, for a while at least, regard the Tractatus as such a book,
but he was never completely satisfied with the Investigations and did not publish
them himself.
(4) Wittgenstein was a perfectionist. On every issue he aimed at just the right
way of expressing it – and here his style makes it at the same time easy and hard
for academic, as well as nonacademic, readers. Both of Wittgenstein’s books are
written in a concise, terse style, with many striking metaphors and comparisons,
and this has made them appealing to a wide range of readers. However, academic
interpreters have wildly disagreed about why he says what he says. In the course of
composition he pruned away so much that to most readers the result seemed quite
hermetic. Many have admired his style but have at the same time complained that
they cannot make out what he is “really driving at” (see Chapter 2, wittgenstein’s
texts and style).
This way of writing philosophy resulted in many different versions of the same, or
almost the same material, and many of the books posthumously published under his
name are very similar in subject matter, and even contain a large amount of verbatim
repetitions.
(5) Wittgenstein took great care of his manuscripts. He knew that they were valuable
and he cared about what became of them. In 1917, and again in 1938, he had the most
important ones stored in safe places (McGuinness, 2008, p. 266). Although, or because,
he never had a permanent residence, he repeatedly reread and sifted his manuscripts.
His care about his manuscript volumes shows some similarity to Heidegger, whose
Nachlass has become the source of an even greater output of publications. To Wittgenstein,
the process of developing his philosophical thoughts mattered almost as much as the
final result. The overall structure of his Nachlass is, by comparison, very orderly and the
most striking overall feature of his work is the ongoing transformation of his thought.
His later thought is thoroughly shaped by responding to his earlier thought. Wittgenstein
may not have cared much for the history of philosophy as others have written it, and he
is not known to have read any contemporary philosopher, but he continuously read,
rewrote, commented on, and copied his own manuscripts. This also makes for a high
degree of continuity in his work.
(6) Wittgenstein’s views about the general nature and aim of philosophy hardly
changed (see Chapter 13, philosophy and philosophical method). To him philosophy
was definitely not one of the sciences, but neither was it to consist of “transcendental
twaddle” (Letter to Engelmann, 18 January 1918). Philosophy had to start from consider
ations of language, and especially the language it was to be expressed in, otherwise
it would be quite hopeless. In this sense, Wittgenstein always practiced the linguistic
turn and advocated the liberation from the entanglement of our thinking within
the loops of language. Already when he wrote the Tractatus he referred to Hertz and
his clarificatory work on the concept of “force” as a paradigm of philosophical work.
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WOLFGANG KIENZLER
In 1933–1934 (BT 421; BB 26), 1939, and late 1946 he still referred to Hertz when
explaining his own notion of philosophy (PPO 379, 399). The 1945 typescript of the
Investigations’ preface carries a motto from Hertz:
When these painful contradictions are removed, the question as to the nature of force
will still not have been answered, but the mind, no longer tortured, will cease to ask the
illegitimate question. (See Chapter 6, wittgenstein, hertz, and boltzmann)
This was eventually replaced by the motto from Nestroy about progress always
looking much larger than it really is. This too, emphasizes the continuity in Wittgenstein’s
work. In addition, the Nestroy motto can be seen to echo the Kürnberger motto to the
Tractatus (both are from Austrian nineteenth‐century writers). Although he mostly
lived in an English‐speaking philosophical environment, Wittgenstein remained an
author writing in his own style of German. These features set Wittgenstein aside from
all other philosophical writers.
In 1941 Wittgenstein said the following in conversation:
It’s like this. If you find your way out of a wood you may think that it is the only way out.
Then you find another way out. But you might never have found it unless you had gone
along the other way first. I should not be where I am now if I had not passed through what
is expressed in the Tractatus. (PPO 387)
2 The Early Work
Coming from an engineering background, Wittgenstein entered philosophy through
reading and meeting Frege and Russell around 1911. Frege had invented modern
symbolic logic in 1879; Russell had just co‐authored and published the first volume of
his monumental Principia Mathematica, and was becoming widely regarded as the
leading proponent of modern logic‐based philosophy. (Without Russell’s intervention
the Tractatus might never have been published.) While Frege had invented modern logic
in order to prove “logicism,” i.e., the claim that arithmetic is a branch of logic, Russell
had intended to set up a logic‐based system that would put all our knowledge on a
secure (preferably absolutely secure) foundation. In pursuit of these extra‐logical objec
tives both had written rather voluminous books. Wittgenstein was impressed by both,
but quite from the start his interest took another turn. He wanted to know: what is the
nature of logic itself? If logic was to be the foundation: what kind of foundation was it?
Wittgenstein had moved to Cambridge to study with Russell and wanted to clarify this
in a short book.
In 1913 he composed his first few pages of philosophical text (from notebooks now
lost), written down in collaboration with Russell and a typist, later called Notes on Logic.
The Notes start from the idea that the logical connectives, like negation in “~p,” or
conjunction in “p.q,” can only be applied to propositions that are already complete. He
thus separated the propositions and their content from all specifically logical vocabu
lary. This means that the connectives, the “logical constants” could not contribute to
the content or meaning of propositions. There cannot be “logical objects” corresponding
to the logical vocabulary. Therefore logic is not about anything; it is not informative
and it is no science (NL 107; see Chapter 17, logic and the TRACTATUS).
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The Notes conclude that purely logical propositions must be of an altogether different
nature from ordinary, informative propositions. This at once put the projects of Frege
and Russell in severe doubt, since both wanted to start from logic and advance as far as
they could. But this could only work if the propositions used were all of basically the
same kind – they should express and secure knowledge. Only then could they serve as the
foundation of other knowledge.
After this discovery, Wittgenstein was convinced that neither Russell nor Frege had
understood the “nature of the proposition.” Propositions are essentially bipolar, they
can be true or false, and they must retain this bipolarity. Only that which could conceiv
ably be false could possibly be true.
This also means that a proposition and its negation must have the same content.
Negation simply reverses the sense of the original proposition, but it does not alter it.
Neither negation nor other logical vocabulary can therefore be part of the sense of a
proposition.
Logic could thus not generate any sense but must presuppose it. This put the notion
of sense, as it had been introduced by Frege, at the center of Wittgenstein’s inquiries.
Wittgenstein also found that Frege had, in order to make his logical system more
versatile, re‐assimilated propositions to names by introducing “truth values,” now
regarding propositions as “names of truth values.” This had distorted Frege’s original
conception of the sense of a proposition as it committed him to the claim that a propo
sition and its negation would designate different objects, and hence that they could not
have the same sense. Frege had downplayed this because he was only interested in the
true propositions of his system.
Wittgenstein also found that Russell had no clear conception of sense at all and could
not distinguish between a false and a nonsensical proposition. Russell believed that
every proposition claims that at least two items stand in some relation to each other,
thus forming a complex of items (“A stands to B in the relation L: ‘A loves B’”). If such a
complex really exists, the proposition will be true; if it does not exist, it will be false.
But it may just as well be nonsensical. Russell showed the same attitude in his analysis
of “The present king of France is bald.” According to Russell this sentence must be either
true or false, and he analyzed it as false.
In 1914 Wittgenstein dictated some new results to G.E. Moore. These Notes Dictated
to Moore introduce Wittgenstein’s fundamental distinction between saying and show
ing. Wittgenstein believed that now he could explain the difference between ordinary
and logical propositions. The notes commence: “Logical so‐called propositions show
[the] logical properties of language and therefore of [the] Universe, but say nothing”
(NM 109). Ordinary propositions say something and they claim that what they say is
true. We then have to check if what they say (the sense of the proposition) is actually
true. With logical propositions, however, “by merely looking at them you can see these
properties” (NM 109). This means that for ordinary propositions we must distinguish
their sense from their being true or false – we understand them without knowing whether
they are true or false. With logical propositions it is different. From looking at the struc
ture of the proposition itself we can determine whether it is logically true (tautological)
or false (contradictory). Therefore logical propositions are “true” and “false” in a differ
ent sense of these terms. Wittgenstein would go on to find that everything essential – and
this amounts to everything philosophical – can at best be shown, but never said.
During World War I, Wittgenstein served in the Austrian Army, all the while
continuing his philosophical work. Some of his wartime notebooks have been preserved.
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They show how he tried to elaborate his basic ideas into a systematic whole. In particular,
he came upon the idea that ordinary propositions are like models or pictures. In a
picture one can transmit claims about how things look like, but no picture can prove its
own truthfulness (see Chapter 8, the picture theory). This finally gave him an expla
nation of ordinary propositions.
Wittgenstein then tried to find the systematic unity of all propositions, the “general
form of the proposition.” He was convinced that this must exist and that it should be
capable of fairly easy expression. In 1916 he wrote: “It must be possible to set up the
general form of the proposition because the possible forms of propositions must be a
priori” (NB 21.11.16). He also concluded that his results were close to encompassing
not just logic but quite literally everything.
In late 1915 Wittgenstein started a large volume containing the “Prototractatus,”
an early version of his book (MS 104). In it he introduces his seven main propositions,
including the “general form of the proposition.” Wittgenstein wrote down the bulk of
his remarks, taken from other sources, and only then arranged them by giving them
numbers, partially changing and rearranging them in the process. The volume shows
that (and how) Wittgenstein did not write but rather arranged his first book, and the fac
simile reproduction shows how hard he worked on every detail of it. The volume
contained an introductory note that “all the good propositions from my other manu
scripts” should be assembled between the major propositions of his work (PT 41).
He would work in a similar spirit again after 1929.
In 1918 Wittgenstein was able to complete his investigations and to arrange all of
his material into his Logisch‐Philosophische Abhandlung, as he preferred to call it. It was
first published as a book in an English–German parallel edition in 1922. On this occasion
Moore suggested the title Tractatus Logico‐Philosophicus and Wittgenstein accepted it,
after rejecting the first suggestion “Philosophical Logic.” The book consists of 526 indi
vidually numbered remarks, ordered around seven main propositions. In this book
Wittgenstein expanded his logical investigations into a general view on the “logic of
language.” He believed that, at bottom, philosophy and logic were very simple and
crystal clear. He underlined this conviction by selecting a motto stating that “every
thing can be said in three words.” While everyday language seems very complicated,
the basic “logic of language” ought to be very simple. This, however, is only possible if
we apply logical analysis and reduce the apparent surface complexity to the underlying
simplicity of fundamental elements. After analysis every proposition would be self‐
explaining. Every meaningful proposition would be a picture of some simple state of
affairs, claiming it to be the case. All meaningful propositions could then be described as
made up from such elementary propositions, and each of the latter would be a “logical
picture” of something that “is the case.” The set of all meaningful propositions (true or
false) can then be described through a general scheme of operations: the “general form
of the proposition.” Apart from the propositions describing states of affairs, the book
explains how logical propositions are tautologies or contradictions (“senseless”), while
philosophical propositions are elucidations rather than pictures of anything (“nonsen
sical”). Ethics and aesthetics deal with values, which cannot be expressed in meaningful
propositions, but only in an attitude toward the world. The systematic structure of the
book seems to climax in the general form of the proposition, encompassing in one for
mula “everything that can be said.” Putting it in more concrete terms, the book explains
some basic differences between various types of propositions or proposition‐like struc
tures. Besides those already mentioned, Wittgenstein discusses identity statements,
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definitions, belief sentences, mathematical equations, laws of nature, and statements
of probability. Taken together this constitutes a series of (extremely short) chapters on
logical syntax, or grammar, as Wittgenstein would say later. Philosophy thus comes out
as the activity of making the differences between these types of propositions as clear
as possible. In the end, we will be able to find our way about language and thus will
“see the world aright,” as the penultimate remark of the book says.
While the wartime notebooks, especially those from 1916, contain quite extensive
passages on ethical matters, the Tractatus is very brief in this regard. Wittgenstein once
remarked that for ethical reasons one should be silent about ethics. He also said that his
book had an “ethical point,” and that it had two parts, of which he had left the more
important ethical part unwritten. In 1929, on the occasion of his sole “popular” lec
ture, “A Lecture on Ethics,” he explained his views on ethics in more detail. No amount
of facts can have any ethical import, he claimed, because value is something extra, not
an additional fact. This extra cannot be expressed in meaningful propositions and there
fore we have to use comparisons that are, strictly speaking, nonsensical – e.g., “I feel
perfectly safe,” “I wonder at the existence of the world.” “A Lecture on Ethics” seems
very much inspired by Kierkegaard’s writings about the “paradox”: “It is the paradox
that an experience, a fact, should have supernatural value” (LE 10; PO 43). In the end,
it is the attitude toward the world and life that counts, independently of all facts.
The lecture still has the early Wittgenstein speaking.
From 1919 until 1928 Wittgenstein retired from philosophical research. All he did
was explain his Tractatus to his friend, Russell (in 1919), to the editor of his book, Ogden
(in 1921), and to his translator, Ramsey (in 1923; with an extra note in 1927).
Professionally, he worked first as a primary schoolteacher, during which time he edited
a Dictionary for Elementary Schools (1926). The entries of the Dictionary were arranged
alphabetically, but in some cases Wittgenstein permitted exceptions when he believed
that this would help his schoolchildren find a word more easily. From 1926 to 1928 he
worked as an architect, collaborating with Paul Engelmann, who had worked with
Loos, building a house for his sister. This presented Wittgenstein with the opportunity to
combine his aesthetic sensibility and his perfectionism. (On the related question of
Wittgenstein’s later acknowledgment of Loos’s influence on his philosophy, see Hyman,
2016.) The stamp they used for the documents reads: “Paul Engelmann – Ludwig
Wittgenstein. Architects” (Wijdeveld, 1993, p. 36). Beginning in 1927, Wittgenstein
spoke to members of the vienna Circle about the Tractatus. Eventually, this drew him
back into philosophy.
3 Thinking about Wittgenstein’s Development
There has been some debate about when to date the change from the early to the later
Wittgenstein. In chronological order, the following choices have been offered. (1) Early
1929, the return to philosophical work, the new start. (2) Late 1929, when he aban
doned the search for a “phenomenological language” and decided that all he had to
investigate was the grammar of ordinary language. (3) Somewhere between 1929 and
1932, when he wrote the first 10 philosophical manuscript volumes; or in 1933, when
he prepared the Big Typescript, which almost looks like a book and contains much
material later used in the Investigations. (4) In 1934, when he introduced language‐
games in the “Blue Book.” (5) In 1936–1937, when he wrote the first portion of the
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Investigations, which is quite close to its eventual form. (6) There also have been proposals
for just one Wittgenstein who never changed all that much, as well as for several
Wittgensteins, such as the early (TLP), the middle (PR and BT), and the late (PI) – some
times complemented by a very late Wittgenstein after 1945 (OC), or an early middle
(PR) and a late middle Wittgenstein (BT). It appears, however, that these several
Wittgensteins have been introduced mainly in order to mark off research fields more
conveniently.
very often the criteria for drawing these distinctions are not stated very clearly. When
they are, the picture becomes much clearer and the motivations for controversy
diminish. Below are the different results concerning the development of Wittgenstein’s
work according to the different criteria applied (where (0) and (4*) indicate ways of
refusing the introduction of clear distinctions):
(0) The One‐Wittgenstein View insists that actually there is too much continuity in
his thought and work to divide Wittgenstein into two distinct portions, early and late.
As already explained, there is a lot to be said in favor of this view, especially when
Wittgenstein is compared to other philosophers, contemporaries or not. He stands out
and it is hard to find anybody working in a similar way. It is also true that the particular
features of his earlier and later work can be appreciated much better if taken together
and if held against the backdrop of his philosophical personality and his general
character. Regarding the wealth of material and information that has come to light it
seems equally indisputable, however, that Wittgenstein underwent some substantial
developments during his career. Thus, a “moderate” One‐Wittgenstein view that
doesn’t ignore such changes may well agree with the varieties of distinctions to be
explained shortly. It may be mentioned that a “not so moderate” One‐Wittgenstein
view, advocating some sort of stable unity in his work, seems to be especially popular
with readers who emphasize Wittgenstein’s personality and his ethical, aesthetical,
and religious views. Yes, he always remained a severe person, contemplating his sins
and shortcomings, taking religious matters very seriously, and he also remained a
perfectionist in every detail of his writings, as well as a person whose tastes had been
shaped for good by nineteenth‐century Central European literature and music in
particular; and he was always highly suspicious of modernity and of almost any
form of progress. But from all this it does not follow that he did not develop
philosophically.
(1) From his biography it seems obvious to attribute to the later Wittgenstein the time
span from 1929 to 1951. However, this period might still be subdivided into the earlier
period until 1935, when Wittgenstein, after his attempts at writing a book had seem
ingly failed, traveled to Russia with the firm intention to find a nonphilosophical job and
stay there. The time after his second return to philosophy would then coincide with the
actual work toward the Investigations.
(2) On bibliographical grounds concerning manuscripts, it seems reasonable to
consider all the material starting with MS 105 in February 1929 as belonging to the
later Wittgenstein, especially when considering the numerous interconnections and
rewritings.
(3) On other bibliographical grounds, the different books since published under
Wittgenstein’s name have made it seem natural to introduce a middle Wittgenstein who
“wrote” Philosophical Remarks and the Big Typescript as well as Philosophical Grammar,
and a very late Wittgenstein who wrote Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, Remarks
On Colour, and On Certainty, not to mention the very early Wittgenstein up to the
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Prototractatus. There are scholars specializing in just one or two of the four to six
Wittgensteins thus distinguished. Middle Wittgenstein has even been honored with his
own Vienna Edition. (One could call this the “Wittgenstein‐Industry view.”)
(4) From a more philosophical perspective it is tempting to look for differences of
doctrine. In this way we can distinguish, e.g., Wittgenstein’s early logical atomism, his
middle theoretical holism, and his late practical holism (Stern, 1995). In another way,
Wittgenstein can be viewed as moving from an essentialist to an anti‐essentialist posi
tion. While the early Wittgenstein tried to define the essence of language by finding the
crystalline logical form of any possible language, the later Wittgenstein contented
himself with describing “family resemblances” within the varieties of our language
(see Chapter 25, vagueness and family resemblance).
These differences can also be framed in various other ways. However, all can be
contested. For Wittgenstein strongly emphasized that he found philosophy primarily
not a matter of doctrine but rather a matter of method and approach. But then again it
is not so easy to separate “doctrine” from “method” in Wittgenstein’s work – as can
be seen in the debate concerning the question “Did Wittgenstein follow his own
pronouncement that in philosophy there ‘can be no theses’?” (see e.g., PI §128; cf.
Glock, 2007).
(4*) Some interpreters who argue that Wittgenstein (early and late) considered it a
mistake to have any doctrine in philosophy but who still want to bring out the difference
between both, have claimed that the early Wittgenstein held some metaphysical views
without meaning to (e.g., about philosophy necessarily having to be simple) while only
the later Wittgenstein resolutely abstained from any doctrine. Such a suggestion brings
in the difference between Wittgenstein claiming to have certain views in theory and his
actually practicing a certain approach. Wittgenstein himself supported such a view by
repeatedly stating that he really should have done philosophy as “pure description” and
“without putting forward any claim,” but fell short of his own standard (WvC 183).
He also liked to repeat certain slogans with only slight modifications: for instance,
“Logic/ Language/ Grammar – must take care of itself ” (TLP 5.473/PG 40), or “Process
and result are equivalent’” (TLP 6.1262/RFM I §82).
Things get even more complicated if readings attribute to him the idea that the
apparent claims of the early Wittgenstein are really to be understood as targets of
his later criticisms. Such an ironic, two‐layered reading of the Tractatus seems,
however, hardly compatible with his motto about “saying everything in three words”
(Kienzler, 2012).
(5) Another criterion could be a distinction regarding Wittgenstein’s method. Thus
we could have the early Wittgenstein advocating logical analysis, the middle Wittgenstein
using the method of tabulating rules of philosophical grammar, and the late
Wittgenstein developing his views mainly by the method of describing language‐games.
A variant of this idea contrasts the early Wittgenstein, who believed in one method
(methodological monism), with the later Wittgenstein who advocated the use of several
methods in philosophy (methodological pluralism). Sometimes this pluralism is
extended into a form of Pyrrhonism where all methods (sometimes called “voices”) are
balanced out so that no answer to any question is reached and philosophy can end
peacefully (Fogelin, 1987; Stern, 2006). It is, however, by no means obvious that
Wittgenstein believed that he followed a method, or applied two (or more) methods.
His use of the word “method” remains quite informal throughout (see BT 414–21,
431–2; PI §§48, 133).
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(6) From a philosophical point of view, the most “Wittgensteinian” way to distin
guish periods in his work would be to check when he changed his overall style of doing
philosophy, of handling philosophical problems. To him, doctrine, if considered impor
tant at all, followed from the general approach. As will be seen, it is quite obvious and
well documented that there is just one such major change of general style in his career,
and that this change occurred gradually but definitely around 1931–1932. This is his
move away from a variety of “dogmatisms.” As the way Wittgenstein wrote down his
remarks changed little between 1930 and 1950, questions concerning the particular
style of his projected book are, by comparison, of lesser importance.
(7) There is another important element in Wittgenstein’s writing, namely his quest
to find the perfect expression for his way of doing philosophy. From 1932 until 1937 he
worked especially intensely on this problem, and he rejected several versions of a
reworking of the Big Typescript before he found the form of what was later to become the
Investigations. Considering the importance of style for Wittgenstein, some commenta
tors have argued that everything intermediate is just “unfinished business” and that the
later Wittgenstein can only be the author of a finished work, such as the Investigations
(Schulte, 1987). To many readers this book almost palpably stands out, not just from
other philosophical books, but also from everything else Wittgenstein wrote.
If we follow this line of reasoning all the way, however, we find that, strictly speaking,
there never was a later Wittgenstein. For he continued to introduce changes into the
Investigations until the very end of his life, including a change of motto. Not only did he
not publish his second book in his lifetime, he did not finish it either.
(8) Finally one might try to admit Wittgenstein’s own testimony on this issue. In
1931 he drew up a list of people who influenced him (Cv 41). This list names Hertz,
Frege, Russell, and Spengler and it ends with Ramsey and Sraffa, both of whom are
mentioned in the preface to the Investigations. There is no obvious later addition to this
list. In the same year, he voiced his critique of dogmatism, to be discussed below.
In addition, many of the best‐known remarks about the nature of philosophy were first
written down in 1931–1932. He even seems to have compared himself to Copernicus
and Darwin during this time (MS 112, p. 233/Cv 55). It is also around this time that
Wittgenstein, who earlier had simply dismissed the history of philosophy as meaning
less, starts to consider the way philosophical misconceptions, including his own, arise
from pre‐theoretical, seemingly everyday platitudes. He uses passages from Plato,
Augustine, and his own Tractatus to illustrate and trace these sources. Around this time
he even considers beginning his projected book with some material from Frazer’s Golden
Bough (PO 116‐19; on Wittgenstein on Frazer see Chapter 41, wittgenstein and
anthropology). He becomes interested in retracing the steps that lead into dead alleys
that are then mistaken for “philosophical problems.” The most famous of these retrac
ings deals with the genesis of the kind of super‐skepticism Kripke later located in the
Investigations and attributed to Wittgenstein.
Wittgenstein’s commentaries on later stages of his work mostly concern his prob
lems in finding the right way to fit all of these aspects and the best of his remarks into
one book. In April 1932, even before he started to assemble the Big Typescript, he wrote:
“I’m growing more and more doubtful as to the publication of my own work, that is, of
what I’ve been writing in the last 3 or 4 years” (Letter to Watson, 8 April 1932).
These problems of finding the right expression for his thoughts within the scope of a
book also led to the plan that Friedrich Waismann should write a book that would
explain Wittgenstein’s philosophy. This book was first announced in 1929, and the
32
WITTGENSTEIN’S PHILOSOPHICAL DEvELOPMENT
letter just quoted also mentions the project. Wittgenstein abandoned his part in it only
around 1936, and for nonphilosophical reasons. Such a project would not have made
sense with somebody like Russell, who was liable to change his philosophical views at
short intervals.
None of Wittgenstein’s commentaries on his own development mention more than
one major change in his philosophical outlook. Wittgenstein changed his book‐plans
several times, and he often despaired over them, but after 1931 he remained very single‐
minded about his way of thinking.
There are, of course, many features in Wittgenstein’s work that changed over time,
such as changes between language, mathematics, or psychology as the main surface topic.
There also are some late manuscripts, those published as On Colour and most famously
On Certainty, which can be regarded as belonging to a very late Wittgenstein. There he
investigates particular language‐games concerning color and certainty along the lines
of his basic approach to doing philosophy and they will therefore not be considered here.
4 The Transformation
When Wittgenstein returned to philosophy he mainly worked on two projects. First, he
tried to explain his Tractatus to members of the vienna Circle. Second, he slowly began
to return to active philosophical work. At first he considered the need to expand on
some of the issues he had thought to be irrelevant while writing the Tractatus.
Looking back on his path in late 1931, Wittgenstein explained that the worst fault in
his Tractatus had been some sort of “dogmatism” (WvC 182). This was the notion that
it was philosophy’s task to lay down that which is necessarily so, to put down the
requirements for signs to be used as language. The second aspect of this “dogmatism”
was the idea that all that cannot be decided in advance can be left to others to worry
about. Wittgenstein had stated in the preface to the Tractatus that all problems had, “in
essentials,” been solved. In 1929, Wittgenstein returned to a question he had put aside
in the Tractatus, namely what are the elementary propositions? His first try was a
language that would immediately describe visual experience. It would have to be a
“phenomenological language” that was modeled on the logical form of experience itself.
This project, however, did not proceed very far, as Wittgenstein soon came to realize that
in trying to get closer to the visual phenomena themselves he would have to abandon all
use of ordinary language. In the end he would not be able to say more than: “This!” He
concluded that the phenomena would not speak for themselves, but that he had to learn
how our everyday language works when we are describing visual and other phe
nomena. This opens the study of grammar, i.e., the grammar of our language, not
grammar as deduced from logical syntax. This 1929 change to the study of ordinary
language has been taken to be the decisive turn towards the later Wittgenstein (Hintikka
and Hintikka, 1986). The first typescript collecting his results in 1930 starts with the
observation:
A proposition is completely logically analyzed if its grammar is laid out completely clearly.
It might be written down or spoken in any number of ways.
The phenomenological or ‘primary’ language, as I called it, is no longer my aim; I don’t
hold it to be necessary. All that is possible and necessary is to separate the essential of our
language from its inessential elements. (PR §1; see also BT 417/PO 177)
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WOLFGANG KIENZLER
Another problem arose from the idea that elementary propositions are like
semantic atoms (see Chapter 7, logical atomism). In 1929 Wittgenstein still believed
that our analysis must come to the point where we find such propositions, or else we
would be “destroying the propositional form as such” (RLF 162/PO 29). The para
digm for this is the way we use variables p, q, r, and the like in elementary logic to
stand for propositions that can take on truth values independently of each other.
This leads to the much‐discussed “color exclusion problem”. If “a is red” is an
elementary proposition, it must not exclude any other elementary proposition such
as “a is green.” In the Tractatus, and even his earlier Notebooks, Wittgenstein had
already discussed this problem and decided that because we feel that there is a con
tradiction, “a is red” cannot be an elementary proposition (TLP 6.3751). But if “a is
red” is not an elementary proposition, what else could possibly be one? In discussing
the exclusion problem, he had at first argued: “Two elementary propositions indeed
cannot contradict each other!” (MS 105, p. 26). The investigation of the “logic of
color” led him to consider systems of propositions: if A is red, then it cannot be green,
blue, brown, and so on (see PR §§76–85). In the end, Wittgenstein concluded: “The
notion of an elementary proposition loses its earlier importance” (PR §83). In 1931
he reworked his remark about color exclusion and also found that the statement
“There can be only one colour in one place at the same time” has nothing to do with
a logical contradiction in the technical sense; rather, “It is a proposition of our
grammar. Negating it yields no contradiction, but it contradicts a rule of the grammar
we have adopted” (MS 112, p. 251/BT 477). We don’t have to infer how anything
must be; we just have to describe grammar as it is now before our eyes (see Chapter 34,
wittgenstein on color).
Wittgenstein slowly found that he had been asking the wrong kind of question. His
aim changed from deducing logical syntax to a description of the grammar of our lan
guage. Grammar describes the forms of language we use. In this sense, grammar will be
shown in the way language is used, while language is used to say things about the world.
For a while he called this “the limit of the world” (see the late allusions to this idea in PI
§133). In describing grammar we have to describe what we are presupposing as soon as
we speak – we cannot separate ourselves from this “object.” While earlier Wittgenstein
had found the first‐person singular, the ego, to be the limit of the world, now he finds
that grammar shapes everything we can express.
In 1930 Wittgenstein assembled his first typescript from his notes, but there are no
indications that he considered it for publication.
Wittgenstein went on to transform his entire work. The hardest change was to shake
off the urge to be “dogmatic”. It had always seemed natural that philosophy was to
describe the “essence of the world,” or at least “the essence of language,” but now he
needed to prepare himself to take language (and grammar) as it is.
In 1931–1932 Wittgenstein illustrated this change of direction in a series of exam
ples. He took his own 1929–1930 remarks and went over them. For example, one of
them reads: “In a certain sense an object cannot be described, i.e. the description must
not attribute any properties to it, the lack of which would annihilate its existence”
(MS 105, p. 13). Wittgenstein now quotes the first half and adds: “Here ‘object’ means
‘reference of a non‐definable word’ and ‘description’ or ‘explanation’ really: definition”
(MS 111, p. 31/TS 214, p.14/PG 208). He collects the criticisms of his earlier ways of
speaking of “complex” and “fact” as well as “object” in an extra typescript (TS 214),
appended to the Big Typescript.
34
WITTGENSTEIN’S PHILOSOPHICAL DEvELOPMENT
Wittgenstein concludes that he had been misled by his own analysis of logical forms
into believing that there must be simple objects, which cannot, because of their sim
plicity, be described. He also notices that he could have taken this step away from
atomism already in the Tractatus; there he had remarked that “a coloured body is in a
colour‐space” (PR §83; see TLP 2.0251). In his first book, however, he had disregarded
this insight, as he wanted to have it purely analytic and logical all the way. Now he
returns to his initial observation.
In a similar way he moves away from his picture theory, and contemplates how
propositions can be compared to pictures. Now he is also more careful to describe the
use of sentences – items that can be written on a board – while the word “propositions”
is liable to oscillate between “thoughts,” “logical pictures,” and plain sentences.
Thus, Wittgenstein moves away from transcendental arguments like this one:
“Because language works, and because language can only work on the condition
S, therefore condition S must be fulfilled.” Thus, he moves from a Kantian toward a
Humean attitude, that is toward describing what we find people doing and saying. In
another sense, however, he moves closer to Kant, as he recognizes something that
might be called “synthetic a priori”– except that he feels it would be wrong to speak of
“knowledge” in this connection (see Chapter 21, necessity and apriority and Chapter 14,
grammar and grammatical statements). Grammar is not built on the principle of contradic
tion and this attitude can also be seen in his investigations into mathematics. There
Wittgenstein points out again and again that mathematics does not simply proceed
according to the principle of contradiction. But mathematics uses synthetic methods
and part of it consists in inventing new conceptual connections (“The mathematician is
an inventor, not a discoverer,” RFM I §168).
There are some features that gained prominence in Wittgenstein’s work only after
1932. This is especially true of the method to describe language‐games and, closely
connected, his “anthropological view,” often attributed to the influence of Sraffa. While
Wittgenstein worked out this way of presentation only later, the initial discussions with
Sraffa had taken place earlier. This can be seen from some passages mentioning Sraffa
from 1931–1932 (e.g., BT 242), and also from their correspondence (Letter to Sraffa,
31 January 1934). Although the famous incident when Sraffa asked Wittgenstein
about the grammar (or possibly the logical form) of a Neapolitan gesture cannot be
dated exactly (Engelmann, 2013, pp. 152–4), there is a response to Sraffa’s point at BT
10 (handwritten addition). Furthermore, Wittgenstein had already in late 1931
accepted the possibility that there might not always be a definite grammar and definite
rules: “Let’s say: we investigate language for its rules. If here and there it does not have
any, then this is the result of our enquiry” (MS 112, p. 190/BT 254).
Language‐games, too, can already be found this early (BT 202), and even a list showing
their wide variety (BT 162, handwritten addition; see also PI §23), although their extended
use comes only later. On the other hand, Wittgenstein keeps speaking of “grammar” and
he calls his investigations “grammatical remarks.” The same holds for the notion of family
resemblance as opposed to a precise definition of concepts (PG 75). The quotation from
and reference to Augustine at the beginning of the Investigations can also be traced back to
1931 (MS 111, p. 15/BT 25–7/PG 56). The fact that this example acquired such prominent
use only gradually marks no substantial change in Wittgenstein’s philosophy. Remarks
about the importance of a “perspicuous representation” also occur in 1931 (MS 110,
p. 257/BT 417; see PI §122 and Chapter 16, surveyability). Wittgenstein links this idea
to Spengler (also mentioned on the 1931 list of influences; see above).
35
WOLFGANG KIENZLER
All these features first appear between 1930 and 1932, but just having them was not
enough. Wittgenstein worked very hard to form a coherent and unified book from the
mass of his resources, and this took him years to achieve. This work is mainly centered
on the adequate presentation of his philosophy, not on its transformation. In his 1933
letter to Mind he states quite plainly:
That which is retarding the publication of my work, the difficulty of presenting it in a
clear and coherent form, a fortiori prevents me from stating my views within the space of
a letter. (PO 167)
While the Investigations has become a classic, it is hard to imagine that any of the
earlier versions might have reached quite the same status. When it comes to doing
something with Wittgenstein, however, many readers are happier to deal with some
of his earlier writings – unless they just tear some remarks out of context. Thus, espe
cially the “Blue Book” has been very popular (more so than the “Brown Book”), and
quite a few readers have found the more discursive and spread‐out writings of the
middle Wittgenstein more accessible and sometimes even more convincing than the
pruned‐down later versions. The earlier versions also help to identify the persons or
positions Wittgenstein refers to, since he deleted most of these names in the process
of revision. To some it seemed almost as if he wanted to cover up his traces. This
situation has made it appear natural to explain the Investigations by adducing large
amounts of earlier material through “passage‐hunting” where his opinions seem
easier to discern (Glock, 1990). Wittgenstein had considered this possibility himself:
“I waste an inordinate amount of toil arranging my thoughts – and quite possibly to
no avail” (Cv 46).
Wittgenstein’s major change can also briefly be described as follows. In the Tractatus
his favorite words were “it is clear” and interjectives like “indeed” (ja), forcefully express
ing the idea that anyone not blind must positively and clearly see things this way. In the
Investigations, on the other hand, his favorite words are particles like “well” (nun), often
followed by a long dash (a “thought‐stroke,” Gedankenstrich). They help to express
hesitation in answering a question on the terms suggested by the question itself – often
the hesitation before rejecting the question. Wittgenstein wants us to slow down – then
we will all by ourselves refrain from advancing theses about how things must be – so
that we can be more open to seeing things as they are. “Don’t think [how it must be] – but
look [how it is]” (PI §66) might be taken as his motto.
5 The Typescripts and Revisions
From 1929 to 1932 Wittgenstein wrote, with the help of many notebooks, 10 large
manuscript volumes, numbered I to X (MSS 105–14). In 1930 he had a selection from
volumes I–Iv typed up in chronological order as TS 208. (A somewhat revised version,
TS 209, was posthumously published as Philosophical Remarks.) In late 1930 he assem
bled TS 210 from the rest of volume Iv. In 1931–1932 he dictated the bulk of material
from volumes v–X into the 771 pages of TS 211. Again Wittgenstein planned to col
lect “all his good remarks” in one typescript. In order to achieve this he had earlier
mined the first part of TS 208 and copied all that he still found useful into volumes
v–X, usually revising the remarks – sometimes quite heavily, more often only slightly.
36
WITTGENSTEIN’S PHILOSOPHICAL DEvELOPMENT
Then he took material from the second half of TS 208, from TS 210, and most of the
remarks from TS 211 to form one big collection, TS 212. This collection consists of
almost 2000 items, entire pages as well as cuttings of various sizes. Wittgenstein first
sorted the material roughly according to catchwords that he arranged in alphabetical
order, as Josef Rothhaupt (2010) has discovered. In the next step he wrote small slips
with headings for 19 chapters and 140 sections and thus tried to organize all this
material. From this he went on to dictate TS 213, the so‐called Big Typescript, as well as
five short appendices (TS 214–18). Because of its surface organization, it has sometimes
been mistaken for a book, and has even been called Wittgenstein’s third Hauptwerk. But
the chapter headings were only intended to help him find his way around the huge
amount of material and he would never have considered publishing it. While Wittgenstein
was generous in giving titles, even to his manuscript volumes, he did not give a title to his
“large typescript” (thence its name) – and there is neither a motto nor a preface nor a
title page. The German–English version published in 2005 increases this bulkiness by
including the handwritten changes and revisions along with the typewritten material.
This is truly a “scholars’ edition” of material still farther removed from an actual book.
In his 1938 preface Wittgenstein remarked that “four years ago“ he had made a first
attempt at writing his book in a fashion where “the thoughts should proceed from one
subject to another in a natural, smooth sequence” (MS 225, p. 1/PI, Preface). This does
not refer to the Big Typescript, but rather to his next step. In 1933–1934 he tried to
rewrite the Big Typescript into one long continuous manuscript (MS 114–15), later pub
lished as Philosophical Grammar, but he eventually abandoned this attempt. (On the fly
leaf of MS 115 he wrote in despair: “This book can be shortened – but it would be very
difficult to do this in the right way.”) In late 1933, while he was still working on this new
version, Wittgenstein started to dictate to some of his students what would become his
“Blue Book.” This was done in English, and it was, by comparison, a very simple text
explaining some of the basic features of his way of doing philosophy. It was not a serious
alternative to his original book project. Rather, he intended to have some copies of these
“lecture notes” made for the use of his students and friends to convey some preliminary
idea of what he was doing. “I explain things to my pupils and then dictate to them short
formulations of what we’ve been discussing and of the results” (Letter to Watson, 12
November 1933). The students had the idea that Wittgenstein felt some connection to
his book project: “I understand Wittgenstein is in a snag with his book. It’s thought
these sessions with us are also by way of clarifying his own difficulties” (Ambrose to
Stevenson, 1 January 1934, quoted in McGuinness, 2008, p. 219). In 1934–1935 he
dictated his “Brown Book,” which was not intended for any circulation but rather as a
fresh start toward writing his book. Here he tried to arrange his thoughts in an orderly
fashion by developing everything from the description of simple language‐games that
became increasingly more complex. Some more general comments were added in paren
thesis. This already starts from the Augustine quotation and it shows many similarities
with the arrangement of the Investigations. In October 1935 he expressed the intention
to have “something publishable ready by the end of this academic year” (Letter to
Watson, 19 October 1935). In August 1936 Wittgenstein tried to carry out this plan by
producing a German version of the “Brown Book” (see MS 115, pp. 118–73; published
in German as “Eine Philosophische Betrachtung,” but not published in English). However,
he abandoned this attempt fairly close to the end, expressing his dissatisfaction with the
result. Later he explained that trying to follow his own text had made his thought
“cramped” and that his new attempt seemed to be turning out “a little better.”
37
WOLFGANG KIENZLER
Soon afterward Wittgenstein started anew. This time he wrote freely but he also used
his older material from TS 213 and MSS 114–15. This resulted in MS 142, the first ver
sion of the Investigations up to §188. In 1937 he wrote a continuation on the philosophy
of mathematics, and by August 1938 the typescript of the early version of the
Investigations, including a preface and two parts, was finished (TSS 225, 220, 221; TS
221 is a close predecessor of RFM I). The preface explains that “four years ago” he had
made a first attempt to organize his thoughts into one orderly book, but that the results
were unsatisfactory, and that “several years later” he had become convinced that he had
to abandon these attempts, in favor of just writing remarks (TS 225, p. 1). There is no
hint that he had in the process changed much of the content that he wanted to express.
Wittgenstein also tried to produce an English translation of the first part, and he
even approached a publisher. These plans came to nothing, and from 1938 until 1944
Wittgenstein wrote much new material on the philosophy of mathematics (much of it
now published in RFM II–vII) and also worked to make Part I more complete. In several
layers he prepared a revised early version (TS 239), an intermediate version of 300
remarks (using TS 243 in the process), and finally the late version of 693 remarks (TS
227). (All these versions are described and meticulously edited in Schulte’s Kritisch‐
genetische Edition of Wittgenstein’s later masterpiece (Schulte, 2001).)
In order to prepare this final version, Wittgenstein first collected the best of all his
leftover remarks from 1929 to 1945, many of them from TS 213, in a new extra type
script (TS 228). These make up the majority of remarks in the final version of the
Investigations. Thus in a certain sense the Investigations are a slimmed‐down and more
refined version of the Big Typescript material.
In early 1946 the typescript of the late version was finished. Wittgenstein felt that he
had worked on the Investigations, at least from 1931, as part of one continuous process
of giving his philosophical ideas a shape that he could be content with. In his 1945
preface he calls the book “the precipitate of […] the last 16 years.” However, he even
then still added some clippings to his TS, and he changed the motto, probably in 1947.
A few weeks before he died he wrote some final notes that he intended to insert into the
preface (Nedo, 2012, p. 403).
While he did a lot of polishing on Part I of his main work, Wittgenstein did not try to
do further work on his material on mathematics. In 1949–1951 he composed instead
new material on the philosophy of psychology, even preparing two voluminous type
scripts. Wittgenstein found much of this material unsatisfying but he produced a selec
tion of it (MS 144). This was posthumously published as “Part II” of the Investigations.
(This has been rectified in the recent edition by Hacker and Schulte, which labels it
“Philosophical Psychology – A Fragment.”) Wittgenstein also kept a box of cuttings
containing “leftovers” from the preparation of TS 227, mostly from TS 228, which was
later published as Zettel.
Still later, in 1950–1951, he wrote connected notes on problems regarding lan
guage‐games about color (Remarks on Colour), and in his very last months and weeks,
on questions concerning the language‐games of knowing and being certain. These
have become very well known as On Certainty (see Chapter 35, wittgenstein on knowledge
and certainty and Chapter 36, wittgenstein on skepticism). It seems that Wittgenstein
considered all these writings as applications of his way of doing philosophy as laid
down in his Investigations.
A coherent and comprehensive history of “Wittgenstein’s progress” has yet to be
written.
38
WITTGENSTEIN’S PHILOSOPHICAL DEvELOPMENT
References
Anscombe, G.E.M. (1959). An Introduction to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. London: Hutchinson.
Biletzky, A. and Matar, A. (2014). Ludwig Wittgenstein. In E.N. Zalta (ed.). The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/wittgenstein/
(last accessed 31 May 2016).
Conant, J. (2012). Wittgenstein’s Methods. In O. Kuusela and M. McGinn (eds). The Oxford
Handbook of Wittgenstein (pp. 620–45). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Diamond, C. (1991). The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and the Mind. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press.
Engelmann, M. (2013). Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Development. Basingstroke: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Fann, K.T. (1969). Wittgenstein’s Conception of Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell.
Fogelin, R.J. (1987). Wittgenstein. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Glock, H.‐J. (1990). Philosophical Investigations: Principles of Interpretation. In J. Brandl
and R. Haller (eds). Wittgenstein: Towards a Re‐Evaluation (pp. 152–162). vienna: Hölder‐
Pichler‐Tempsky.
Glock, H.‐J. (2007). Perspectives on Wittgenstein: An Intermittently Opinionated Survey.
In G. Kahane, E. Kanterian, and O. Kuusela (eds). Wittgenstein and his Interpreters: Essays in
Memory of Gordon Baker (pp. 37–65). Oxford: Blackwell.
Hacker, P.M.S. (1996). Wittgenstein’s Place in Twentieth‐Century Analytic Philosophy. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Hankinson, J. (1999). The Bluffer’s Guide to Philosophy. London: Oval.
Hintikka, M. and Hintikka, J. (1986). Investigating Wittgenstein. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Hyman, J. (2016). The Urn and the Chamber Pot. In S.S. Grève and J. Mácha (eds). Wittgenstein
and the Creativity of Language (pp. 198–217). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kenny, A. (1973). Wittgenstein. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Kienzler, W. (2012). Reading the Tractatus from the Beginning: How to Say Everything Clearly
in Three Words. In P. Stekeler‐Weithofer (ed.). Wittgenstein: Zu Philosophie und Wissenschaft
(pp. 70–102). Hamburg: Meiner.
McGuinness, B. (ed.). (2008). Wittgenstein in Cambridge: Letters and Documents, 1911–1951.
Oxford: Wiley‐Blackwell.
Mounce, H.O. (1981). Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.
Nedo, M. (ed.). (2012). Ludwig Wittgenstein: Ein Album. [Ludwig Wittgenstein: An Album.]
Munich: Beck.
Pears, D. (1971). Wittgenstein. London: Fontana.
Pitcher, G. (1964). The Philosophy of Wittgenstein. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice‐Hall.
Rhees, R. (1970). Discussions of Wittgenstein. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Rothhaupt, J. (2010). Wittgenstein at Work: Creation, Selection and Composition of “Remarks.”
In N. venturinha (ed.). Wittgenstein after his Nachlass (pp. 51–63). Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Schulte, J. (1987). Wittgenstein: An Introduction. Albany: SUNY Press.
Schulte, J. (ed.). (2001). Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophische Untersuchungen, Kritisch‐genetische
Edition. [Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations, critical‐genetic Edition.] Frankfurt:
Suhrkamp.
Stern, D.G. (1995). Wittgenstein on Mind and Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stern, D.G. (2006). How Many Wittgensteins? In A. Pichler and S. Säätelä (Eds). Wittgenstein:
The Philosopher and his Works (pp. 205–229). Frankfurt: Ontos.
Wijdeveld, P. (1993). Ludwig Wittgenstein: Architect. Amsterdam: Pepin Press.
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Further Reading
Diamond, C. (2006). Peter Winch on the Tractatus and the Unity of Wittgenstein’s Philosophy. In
A. Pichler and S. Säätelä (eds). Wittgenstein: The Philosopher and his Works (pp. 141–71).
Frankfurt: Ontos. [Traces a tradition of continuity readings, starting with Anscombe, Rhees
and Winch.]
Engelmann, M. (2013). Wittgenstein’s Development. Basingstroke: Palgrave Macmillan. [The only
book in English explicitly devoted to the topic of this chapter, describing the rise of the “genetic
method” and the “anthropological view.”]
Kienzler, W. (1997). Wittgensteins Wende zu seiner Spätphilosophie 1930–1932. [Wittgenstein’s
Turning‐Point toward his Later Philosophy, 1930–1932.]. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. [A close
study of Wittgenstein’s doings and writings from 1930 to 1932.]
Kuusela, O. (2012). The Development of Wittgenstein’s Philosophy. In O. Kuusela and M. McGinn
(eds). The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein (pp. 597–619). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[Advocating a perspective of basic continuity regarding Wittgenstein’s aims with some
important discontinuity regarding the means employed toward achieving those aims.]
Pichler, A. (2007). The Interpretation of the Philosophical Investigations: Style, Therapy, Nachlass.
In G. Kahane, E. Kanterian, and O. Kuusela (eds). Wittgenstein and his Interpreters: Essays in
Memory of Gordon Baker. Oxford: Blackwell. [Emphasizes the importance of stylistic changes
during the years 1933–1937.]
Rothhaupt, J. (1995). Farbthemen in Wittgensteins Gesamtnachlass. [Color Themes Within
Wittgenstein’s Entire Nachlass.] Weinheim: Beltz Athenäum. [The most comprehensive study
of the succession of Wittgenstein’s writings and their mutual connections.]
Stern, D.G. (2006). How many Wittgensteins? In A. Pichler and S. Säätelä (Eds). Wittgenstein:
The Philosopher and his Works (pp. 205–229). Frankfurt: Ontos. [Raises objections against all
clear‐cut divisions, but considers the years 1936–1937 as of special importance.]
von Wright, G.H. (1982). Wittgenstein. Oxford: Blackwell. [Contains groundbreaking first‐hand
research reports relating to the origin and composition of both the Tractatus and Philosophical
Investigations.]
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