Philosophical Remarks

When in 5/1930, the Council of Trinity College, Cambridge, had to decide whether to renew Wittgenstein’s research grant, it turned to Bertrand Russell for an assessment of the work he’d been doing over the past year. His verdict: “The theories contained in this new work…are novel, very original & indubitably important. Whether they are true, I do not know. As a logician who likes simplicity, I should like to think that they are not, but from what I have read of them I am quite sure that he ought to have an opportunity to work them out, since, when completed, they may easily prove to constitute a whole new philosophy.” Philosophical Remarks] contains the seeds of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy of mind & of mathematics. Principally, he here discusses the role of indispensable in language, criticizing Russell’s The Analysis of Mind. He modifies the Tractatus’s picture theory of meaning by stressing that the connection between the proposition & reality isn’t found in the picture itself. He analyzes generality in & out of mathematics, & the notions of proof & experiment. He formulates a pain/private-language argument & discusses both behaviorism & the verifiability principle. The work is difficult but important, & it belongs in every philosophy collection.”—Robert Hoffman, Philosophy
“Any serious student of Wittgenstein’s work will want to study his Philosophical Remarks as a transitional book between his two great masterpieces. The Remarks is thus indispensible for anyone who seeks a complete understanding of Wittgenstein’s philosophy.”—Leonard Linsky, American Philosophical Association