The crash of the philosophy of the Tractatus

the testimony of Wittgenstein's Notebooks in October 1929

Jaakko Hintikka

pp. 153-169

in: Enzo de Pellegrin (ed), Interactive Wittgenstein, Berlin, Springer, 2011

Abstract

One of the most crucial developments in Wittgenstein's philosophy was his rejection of phenomenological languages in October 1929. His notebooks from that period show how he came to take that momentous step. In this paper, I will present a translation of the crucial entries together with a commentary. It will turn out that Wittgenstein's brief notebook remarks are in reality connected with all sorts of different ideas in his overall philosophical thought and serve to illustrate them, even ideas that are not directly connected with his change of his main position vis-à-vis the contrast of physicalistic and phenomenological languages.

Cited authors

Wittgenstein Ludwig