Wittgenstein and Memory

Abstract

One of the most significant explicit references to the philosophical problem of memory in Philosophical Investigations 1 is contained in § 265 which occupies a very central position in the discussion of private language. Because of its position, that section has been quoted and paraphrased innumerable times in the context of the wide debate provoked by Wittgenstein’s thesis concerning the latter issue, and in this way it has become quite widely known. On the other hand, it has been far less considered in itself as containing certain notions which, while they are connected with other more general aspects of Wittgenstein’s theory, put forward a viewpoint on memory which has its own intrinsic interest. The reason for this probably lies in the fact that in Philosophical Investigations the other references to the specific philosophical problem connected with memory are somewhat rare and unsystematic. The recent edition of the previously unpublished works of his late years provides new material of considerable interest to this question for the first time, and this leads us to attempt a summary of what Wittgenstein thought on this specific issue.