The “Middle Wittgenstein”: From Logical Atomism to Practical Holism

Abstract

Wittgenstein arranged the Tractatus in its final form during the summer of 1918; Part I of the Philosophical Investigations was put into the form in which we now have it during the mid 1940s. The Tractatus was published in 1922; the Philosophical Investigations in 1953, two years after Wittgenstein’s death. Because the two books were widely studied and interpreted at a time when the rest of his writing was unavailable, it became common practice to speak of the author of the first book as “Early Wittgenstein”, and the author of the second as the “Late Wittgenstein”. As it gradually became clear that his writing during the intervening years was not only voluminous, but also could not simply be understood as a rejection of one view and the adoption of another, it was natural to speak of the author of this further body of writing, or at least those parts of it which could not be regarded as “Early”, or “Late”, as “Middle Wittgenstein”.