Colours, Phenomelogy and Certainty: Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Colours in the Context of His Later Philosophy

Abstract

The posthumous publication of Wittgenstein’s papers took a very polemic and intricate form. This is particularly the case with his last writings. Almost all the manuscripts from 1946 to 1951 are in print, but the decisions about how to present them in different books do not help understanding how Wittgenstein conceived the relationship between his remarks on colors, psychology and “certainty”. Reading Remarks on Colors is particularly problematic without a clear understanding of this broader context. To understand this material in a more consistent way we propose a revision of the original manuscripts making clear the context of the remarks on color and the sense in which they relate to the questions that concern Wittgenstein from 1946 to 1951 (after concluding the 693 paragraphs of Philosophical Investigations). We hope that this perspective provides the elements for a more consistent and integrated understanding of Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Colors.