The secondary literature can serve to confuse matters more, arguing over interpretation in light of other agendas. Since these texts practically never contain arguments, lack apparent structure, and don’t make their overarching purpose clear, they can be baffling and frustrating on first reading. The rest were collected and curated by his executors. He organized some of his remarks ( The Big Typescript and the first third or so of Philosophical Investigations) in the hope of publishing, but was never satisfied with what he had. Apart from the Tractatus and the Blue and Brown Books, every text we have of his was posthumously collected out of notebooks or unpublished typescripts. I think there are at least two reasons for this.įirst, no single text of his lays out this thought in an accessible or systematic manner. Wittgenstein’s name is recognizable then, but the content of his thought can be a mystery. But he himself rarely appears on syllabi outside of introductory surveys. He’s a name that lurks in the background, popping up in introductions, in comparative studies, in his unspoken influence on recent thinkers, or in the explicit rejection of what he’s supposed to represent. Strangely enough, however, I’ve only ever had one week of reading for one class where Wittgenstein was a set reading. It’s one of those strange things where a system of thought and the personality behind it combine such that reading him becomes a matter of compulsion. If you’ve met me, you probably know I enjoy reading, writing, and talking about Ludwig Wittgenstein.
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