Wittgenstein
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loginSo much of Wittgenstein’s work has now been posthumously publishedthat an overall study is bound to be selective, and so many volumes havebeen devoted to its elucidation that a new one may well appear superflu-ous. I have exercised selectivity by concentrating on Wittgenstein’s phil-osophy of language and mind, and by almost ignoring the philosophy ofmathematics to which he devoted nearly half his work; I have hoped toescape superfluity by emphasizing the continuity of Wittgenstein’s thoughtand tracing its evolution through the recently published and little studiedworks of his middle years. The first and last chapters of the book trace thegeneral continuity, the first in a simplified and biographical manner, thelast in more technical summary. The second chapter attempts to providesufficient philosophical and logical background to enable a reader tofollow Wittgenstein’s own writings. The intervening chapters are eachcentred on a single problem and a single work: thus Chapter3dealswith the early notebooks, Chapters4and5with theTractatus, Chapter6with the conversations with Waismann, Chapter7with theBemerkungen,Chapter8with theGrammatik, and so on. The abbreviations by which theworks are referred to are given in a list on pp. ix–x.
