Introduction

Abstract

The two most common views concerning Wittgenstein’s philosophical development are the following: he either had one dramatic or he had one subtle change of mind.¹ The one-change-view is wrong in all its versions. Wittgenstein changed his views substantially more than once. The changes are so substantial that he can be understood as holding several different philosophies in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The T’s goal, stated in its preface, of presenting the limits of language and thought remains largely in place until the BT and its revision around 1933, but the methods and tools to carry out the goal evolve through several stages. Early in 1929, Wittgenstein comes to think that the logical symbolism of the T alone is an insufficient tool to carry out the Tractarian task of giving the limits of language and thought. He then envisages a complementary (phenomenological) notation. Even though the draft of the language was promising, it failed. Wittgenstein then (from late 1929 onwards) developed a comprehensive notion of grammar and its rules that, he hoped, would fulfill the task of establishing the limits of language and thought. This notion of ‘grammar’ leads to the calculus conception of language at the end of 1930. As a complementary tool of the calculus conception, Wittgenstein invents the genetic method, which aims at dissolving philosophical puzzles by the understanding of how they come about. The complemented idea of grammar is further developed until the BT (1932–3).