Tracing the Development of Wittgenstein’s Writing on Private Language

Abstract

The discussion of private language in the Philosophical Investigations is one of the last pieces of Part I of that book to have been drafted. Most of it was written between 1937 and 1945, after the first 190 remarks of Part I of the book had almost reached their final state. The post-1936 writing on private language that leads up to the final version of section 243 ff. represents a fresh start, both in wording and in conception, on the pre-1936 drafts. Almost none of the post-1936 writing is a direct reworking of the previous material, and while it discusses many of the same topics, it approaches them differently.