A Scholar's Wittgenstein

Abstract

The starry heavens above, the moral law within, and the work this volume represents fill me with awe.' Its 786 pages examine the Philosophical Investigations paragraph by paragraph, line by line and sometimes word by word, and fairly bulge with scholarly findings, as to where Wittgenstein expressed a similar or related view, where earlier formulations of the same point are to be found, where a remark has been lifted from one setting and used in a different context, what earlier doctrines it is to be contrasted with, how Wittgenstein's views developed in subtle stages through various manuscripts, sample writings of other philosophers expressing views Wittgenstein was opposing, comments on Miss Anscombe's translations, locations of Wittgenstein's undocumented references to such people as James, Ramsey and Frege, or of such literary allusions as to Adelheid and the Bishop-and much, much else besides. The book has much the form of Black's Companion to the Tractatus: there is a general introduction, followed by a division of the Investigations into forty-one parts, for each of which there is a general commentary followed by a detailed commentary on paragraphs, phrases and words. There is an appendix on what Wittgenstein read, and a bibliography. It seems fair to assume that the chief ambition of a book of this kind would be to help us make sense of the fine detail of the Philosophical Investigations, and most of my comments will be as to how successful it is in this regard; but at the same time it must be confessed there is room for doubt as to whether Hallett had that ambition at all. He almost never gives any explicit indication that he finds something puzzling, does not pose questions and. try to answer them, treats some of the most bewildering sections as if they needed no explanation, never confesses any failure to understand, and never betrays the least uncertainty as to the soundness of his observations. He does not come across as a puzzled man, actively engaged in posing and working out solutions to problems of interpretation. The questions that an average stretch