Italics in Wittgenstein

LANGUAGE & COMMUNICATION

Language & Communication 19 (1999) 181±211

Italics in Wittgenstein Gordon P. Baker* St. John's College, Oxford University, Oxford, OX1 3JP, UK Keywords: Italics; Diacritics; Wittgenstein; Philosophy of language

Even the most casual and cursory look at the text of the Philosophical Investigations Part I makes clear that Wittgenstein made very copious use of italics in this most polished of his later texts. But this practice is equally conspicuous in all his writings, both typescripts and manuscripts. It is even characteristic of texts that he dictated. This raises a problem: How do italics contribute to the intended interpretation of a remark? What do they add? What would be the e€ect of deleting them? The painstaking care he took in framing his thoughts, his obsessive redrafting of remarks in subtly modi®ed forms, suggest that his italics are not gratuitous ornaments, not at least in any relatively polished text. He must have thought that his use of italics always makes a di€erence, and he would presumably have been able to explain in each case what di€erence is made. Can we now make signi®cant headway in clarifying this aspect of his writings? Or must we resign ourselves to being unable to decipher this typographical device? It is noteworthy that italics occur in many remarks that have become the focus of discussion and controversy. It is also noteworthy that commentators pay little attention to this point; at best they observe that the whole remark is emphatic.1 The immediate aim of this paper is to bring to light some general patterns in Wittgenstein's use of italics; to clarify this single aspect of the grammar of Wittgenstein-Speak. We will discover that italics have a number of fairly de®nite roles. Once we have identi®ed these patterns, we may learn to spot them in cases where they are not readily apparent to most modern readers. The more remote aim is to suggest some new and better-supported interpretations of a few of his most celebrated remarks. This might be seen as some opening moves in a new research programme. *E-mail: [email protected] 1 For example, Malcolm multiplies italics in his paraphrases as part of arguing that Wittgenstein saw the concept of following a rule to be `essentially social': What is harder to grasp is Wittgenstein's conception that following a rule . . . is a practice, a custom, an institution. It is a form of life, a feature of the natural history of human beings [Malcolm, 1995, p. 165]. 0271-5309/99/$ - see front matter # 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S027 1-5309(99)0000 2-6

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1. The problem Of course all readers of Wittgenstein's work are familiar with the fact that italics (or `emphasis') occur frequently in his remarks. This usually takes the form of underlining in his manuscripts and typescripts, but there is occasional use of other equivalent devices: capitalising an entire word [xx253, 263, 398; RFM 183, 330], multiple underlining, or the German stenographic practice of spacing out the letters of a word (`Sperrdruck').2 Italics in his writings might be treated as the written counterpart of a well-known feature of his speech: he had the habit of putting very considerable stress on particular words or phrases.3 This mannerism proved infectious with some of his `disciples'. It has given much leverage for caricature and mockery (of him and of them); as if a random exaggerated stress on such words as `this' or `that' might suce by itself to create an aura of profundity. What may not have struck most readers, however, is the frequency with which italics crop up in remarks that seem especially important or pivotal. Here is a small sample: x 585: When someone says ``I hope he'll come''Ðis this a report [Bericht] about his state of mind, or a manifestation [AÈusserung] of his hope? x199: To obey a rule, to make a report, to give an order, to play a game of chess, are customs (uses, institutions). x116: What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use. x109: We must do away with all explanation, and description alone must take its place. x66: Don't say: ``There must be something common, or they would not be called `games''' . . . x307: If I do speak of a ®ction, then it is of a grammatical ®ction. x371: Essence is expressed by grammar. x69: How should we explain to someone what a game is? I imagine that we should describe games to him, and we might add: ``This and similar things are called `games'''. BT 417: Above all, our grammar is lacking in perspicuity [UÈbersichtlichkeit]. x122: A main source of our failure to understand is that we do not command a clear view [uÈbersehen] the use of our words. 2

As in the `Big Typescript'. This German typographical device is not familiar to literate anglophones; hence it may be easily overlooked by readers when the English translation of a German text simply copies this form of emphasis (BT xx 86±93). 3 In the case of dictations, this might be the sole source of italics. Yet he seems to have intervened in inserting italics and quotation-marks in the Blue Book, and he may have dictated such punctuation to Waismann.

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PI p.226: What has to be accepted, the given, isÐone could sayÐforms of life. Zx651: Shrugging the shoulders, shaking the head, nods and so on we call signs ®rst and foremost because they are embedded in the use of our word-language [Wortsprache]. x404: . . . there is a great variety of criteria for personal `identity' [Kriterien der `IdentitaÈt' der Person]. Zx477: What is common to sense-experiences?±The answer that they give us knowledge of the external world is partly wrong and partly right. It is right in so far as it is supposed to point to a logical criterion. Commentators seem almost uniformly to take the italics in all of these remarks simply to emphasize or underline something.4 On this view, their role is uniform and comparable to prefacing the remark with an expression like ``Now hear this!'' or ``Oyez! Oyez!''; or perhaps to supplementing the italicized expression with some adverb such as ``de®nitely'', ``certainly'', ``unequivocally'', or ``literally'' (``au pied de la lettre''). The e€ect of italics is taken to be his insisting on the relevance of all the connotations or implications of the italicized expression. The possibility that italics serve other functions is not even considered, let alone rejected for good reasons (which would surely have to vary from case to case). As a thought-experiment, just imagine that Wittgenstein had adopted some more Heideggerean device instead of italics, say writing the expression with a line through it (cancellation) or giving the general instruction that anything underlined be printed upside down.5 How much would then be left intact of what we now consider the Leitmotiven of ``Wittgenstein's later philosophy''? At the very least, might italics not a€ect the spirit in which his remarks are to be taken? The currency of the term ``emphasis'' suggests widespread commitment to the idea that italics in writing simply deputize for stress or emphasis in speech. This idea should undoubtedly not go unchallenged.6 But even its acceptance indicates the need for careful study of italics. Stress in speech has many di€erent forms and many di€erent functions. (Think of Churchill's line: ``Some chicken! Some neck!''.) Hence the putative correspondence of italics with stress would at best be a paper draft on interpreting a remark, not a complete explanation of its intended signi®cance. 4

So, e.g., $371 is italicised in toto to stress the point that it `crystallizes a leitmotif of Wittgenstein's later philosophy'. (Hacker, 1990, p. 437.) Or, conversely, this remark is picked out as a good epigram, but paraphrased as `Essence is determined by grammar'. (Hallett, 1977, p. 424). Such comments indicate that italics are not taken to contribute to the content of remarks in PI. 5 He suggested this policy in respect of the word ``shock'' when he wrote the introductory discussion to an MRC report by Grant and Reeve on the physiology of shock. (His idea was not carried out in the publication.) (See R. Monk, 1990, p.447.) 6 In English printed texts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries italics serve many distinct purposes, and the pattern of use gradually shifts. For example, they are often used as catchwords in the margins of texts and as headings in indices or in the text; they are regularly used for quotations from authorities and for expressions in foreign languages, sometimes for the citation of words or phrases, for the de®nitions of expressions, or even for every proper name of an historical person.

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2. Preliminary patterns In some cases, italics in Wittgenstein's texts seem to have some of the more commonplace roles of spoken stress (even if these are dicult to survey or to catalogue).7 Here is a sample of the variety of uses emphases may have: Stress on a point that is apt to be neglected, or even expected to give rise to objections: e.g. x28: . . . an ostensive de®nition can be variously interpreted in every case. x23: . . . how many di€erent kinds of sentences are there? . . . ÐThere are countless kinds: countless di€erent kinds of use of what we call ``symbols'', ``words'', ``sentences''. x16: What about the colour samples that A shows to B: are they part of the language? Italics may indicate the focus of a remark. Perhaps a particular concept: e.g. x244: How do words refer to sensations? x291: What we call ``descriptions'' are instruments for particular uses. Or an aspect of something: Zx527: . . . the picture of the process of calculating as, so to speak, submerged and going on under the surface. LPE 302: I am saying that there is nothing behind the moaning [when another expresses pain]. BT 81: The sense [of a sentence] does not lie behind it (as does the mental process of imagining something etc.) Perhaps a contrast between two concepts: e.g. x585: When someone says ``I hope he'll come''Ðis this a report [Bericht] about his state of mind, or a manifestation [Aeusserung] of his hope? x303: ``I can only believe that someone else is in pain, but I know it if I am.'' PG 66: I am only describing language, not explaining anything. Sometimes a contrast between singular and plural: e.g. xx36, 69, 132, 133. Italics may clarify a back-reference: e.g. x129: Unless that fact has at some time struck him. 7

One common in nineteenth-century texts but not evident in Wittgenstein is the practice of italicizing the whole of an author's de®nitions of expressions (e.g. Frege's de®nition of ``function'' in BS x9). This may have been intended to facilitate the reader's locating these de®nitionsÐan especially important matter when the practice was to publish books without indices.

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They may focus attention on the positive connotations or associations of a word or phrase. x87: It may easily look as if every doubt merely revealed an existing gap in the foundations . . . 8 Equally, italics may focus attention on the negative implications of a word or on the absence of a contrary: e.g. x43: For a large class of casesÐthough not for allÐin which we employ the word ``meaning'' . . . x587: Does it make sense to ask ``How do you know that you believe?''Ðand is the answer: ``I know it by introspection''? In some cases it will be possible to say some such thing, in most not. Italics may be used to highlight a pattern within a complex remark. For example, drawing attention to detailed points of contrast between closely related sentences: x20: I think we shall be inclined to say: we mean the sentence [``Bring me a slab''] has four words when we use it in contrast with other sentences such as ``Hand me a slab'', ``Bring him a slab'', ``Bring two slabs'', etc.; that it, in contrast with other sentences containing the separate words of our command in other combinations. No doubt, in a large class of cases, italics can be said to indicate emphasis. Hence they may have any of the various di€erent functions that emphasis may have in speech. (Their precise function must be worked out from case to case.) But some occurrences seem to exemplify di€erent and more idiosyncratic patterns. Here are some samples: (1) One (with many historical precedents9) is the italicization of everyday expressions of which an author gives his own speci®c explanation. This device is often employed at the place where the de®nition is given. BB 13: We shall say that the rule is involved in the understanding, obeying, etc. if . . . the symbol of the rule forms part of the calculation. PG 54: The comparison suggests itself that the word ``is'' in di€erent cases has di€erent meaning-bodies [BedeutungskoÈrper] behind it; that it is each time a square surface, but in one case it is the end surface of a prism and in the other the end surface of a pyramid. Imagine the following case . . . [An explanation follows.] F 39: By grammatical rule I understand every rule that relates to the application of language. LSP 43-4: By grammar we understand everything about language which can be put in place before the language is applied at all. The antonym of this will thus 8 Here italics seem meant to highlight the fact-claiming force of ``reveal''; to draw a contrast with ``create'' or ``invent''. 9 For example, in Locke, Watts, Hume, and Schopenhauer.

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be the application of language. . . . If the word ``grammar'' is taken in this extended sense, . . . [Unter Grammatik verstehen wir alles das an der Sprache, was man festlegen kann, noch bevor man die Sprache anwendet. Der Gegensatz hierzu wird dann die Anwendung der Sprache sein . . . Nimmt man das Wort ``Grammatik'' in diesem weiten Sinn, . . . ]10 Italics may subsequently be used to secure back-reference to such an explanation; viz as equivalents of ``in this sense'', ``in a certain sense'', or ``in our sense''. One clear example of this extended pattern is the lengthy discussion of reading (xx156±171; BB 119±125). This opens with a special explanation: x156: First I need to remark that I am not counting the understanding of what is read as part of `reading' for the purposes of this investigation: reading is here the activity of rendering out loud what is written or printed; and also of writing from dictation, writing out something printed, playing from a score, and so on [cf BB 119]. The following eight sections sporadically italicize the word ``read'' (once in each of xx156±62), sometimes (even if not always11) to remind us to tie down the subsequent remarks to this explanation. The whole discussion makes sense only when pinned down to this particular sense of ``read''. For example x159: But when we think the matter over we are tempted to say: the one real criterion for anybody's reading is the conscious act of reading, the act of reading the sounds o€ from the letters. This point holds true even after the italics peter out. E.g. x166 opens: I said that when one reads the spoken words come `in a special way'. And x169 opens: But when we read, don't we feel the word-shapes somehow causing our utterance? (We might say that the scope of the italics extends over these subsequent occurrences of ``read''.) Sometimes this use of italics occurs where a special de®nition is implied rather than expressly formulated. RFM 123: Here one needs to remember that the propositions of logic are so constructed as to have no application as information in practice. So it could very well be said that they were not propositions at all . . . 10

Whether or not the content of this explanation of the correlative terms ``grammar'' and ``application'' is Wittgenstein's, its form conforms exactly to his practice. 11 For example x161. Similarly, neither reading (BB 121) nor read (BB 122) is meant to be a backreference to the special explanation of ``read'' (BB 119).

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This restrictive use of proposition12 is paralleled by other di€erent ones, each related to a context-speci®c explanation which is either given or understood (xx135±6; cf RFM 117, 162±4; cf PLP 280±303 (esp 290), WWK 106±7). This function of italics occurs in various cases of introducing or using Wittgenstein-Speak (his `jargon'). This is important for understanding these remarks, e.g. BB 24±5: To the question ``How do you know that so-and-so is the case?'', we sometimes answer by giving `criteria' and sometimes by giving `symptoms'. [A case of giving a de®nition.] LPE 252: When we talk of the private experience which the others don't know, we don't originally mean to talk of a shapeless nothing but of a variable with a certain de®nite value. [A back-reference to a special glossing of ``private''.] Italics are certainly not necessary to this practice, especially where the newly explained expression is immediately applied in this special sense, with or without the rider ``in this sense'' or ``in our sense'', e.g. DS 3: One could put the point roughly like this: we do not step beyond the bounds of language in giving any explanation of what a word means, not even in an ostensive de®nition, and language is in this sense autonomous. [Man koÈnnte es beilaÈu®g so ausdruÈcken, dass wir durch keinerlei ErklaÈrung der Wortbedeutungen, auch nicht durch die hinweisende, aus der Sprache hinaustreten, und dass die Sprache in diesem Sinn autonom ist.] DS 16: We say that grammar determines which word-combinations have sense and which do not; but on the other hand too, grammar is not answerable to any reality, [so] it is in a certain sense arbitrary. [Wir sagen, die Grammatik bestimme, welche Wortzusammenstellungen Sinn haben und welche nicht; andererseits aber auch, die Grammatik sei keiner Wirklichkeit verantwortlich, sie sei in gewissem Sinn willkuÈrlich.] (Omission of italics in such cases may be a particular characteristic of texts transcribed from dictation.) This use of italics is the counterpart of a familiar scholastic practice. First the author gives an ad hoc explanation: e.g. By the word ``thought'' [``cogitatio''] I understand . . . And that is why not only understanding, willing and imagining, but also sense-perceiving [sentire] are here the same thing as thinking.13 Then explicit back-reference to this explanation is signalled by some phrase such as ``in this sense'', ``properly so-called'', ``strictly speaking'', etc.: e.g. 12

To avoid both confusion and pedantry, I have followed this practice: No quotes are used in mentioning expressions which are themselves italicized or enclosed in quotation-marks, single or double. Otherwise, double quotes are used for mentioning expressions. 13 Principia Philosophiae, Book I, x9 (Adams and Tannery, VIII).

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The word ``sense-perceive'' [``sentire''] in this restricted sense [praecise sic sumptum] is nothing other than a mode of thinking.14 Ignoring these purpose-speci®c explanations or back-references to them is apt to yield ¯agrant misinterpretations of remarks whose intended meaning is fully clari®ed. [For example, the unquali®ed assertion that Descartes in Meditationes II and Principia I.9 extends the term ``cogitare'' to include ``sentire'' (sense-perception).] The scholastic tradition insisted on the importance of making such local distinctions and of attending to them in interpreting texts; i.e. of scrupulously avoiding the fallacy of equivocation. But where scholastics signalled their `disambiguations' by such phrases as `praecise' or `praecise sic sumptum', Wittgenstein often used the more economical device of italicizing the relevant expression.15 His practice of constantly redrafting and reorganizing remarks might be expected to yield less clear (or defective) instances of this use of italics. In particular, it might happen that his intention is to attach a special sense to an italicized expression, even though the present version of the text where the remark occurs fails to give much if anything of a prior explanation.16 One arguable case in PI is the use of italics apparently to invoke his own conception of grammar: (x307) If I do speak of a ®ction, then it is of a grammatical ®ction. Would this remark make sense to any reader unfamiliar with his rather unorthodox use of ``grammar''? The italics might indicate the need to interpret ``grammatical'' by reference to his various explanations of the term, though, as it happens, these are given only in other texts (e.g. F 39). A parallel case from PI, perhaps even clearer, is the use of italics in references to his particular conception of UÈbersicht. The expression uÈbersehen (x122), e.g. picks up a conception of UÈbersicht and UÈbersichtlichkeit that is developed and illustrated in various scattered texts (esp GB). Hence, italics ¯ag the ®rst introduction of this conception in each text; e.g. BT 417: UÈbersichtlichkeit. (Once italics have been introduced in this role, subsequent uses of a word or its cognates need not be italicized in the same remark since it is natural for the reader to relate them to the initial italicized occurrence. For example, x122: uÈbersehen governs ``UÈbersichtlichkeit'' and ``uÈbersichtliche Darstellung''; as it were, the scope of the italics includes all three expressions.17 That would explain why the italics present in BT 417 (Above all, our 14

Meditationes II (Adams and Tannery VII 29). He also used single quotes (`scare-quotes') for this purpose. 16 His use of scare-quotes produces similar anomalies. For example `privately' in x202 must be understood by reference to the explanation of a ``private language'' which occurs only subsequently in x243. (By relocation, it has lost its original back-reference in MS 180a.) 17 In some other cases, the scope of italics may be meant to extend over other related expressions or over alternative phrasings of a remark. For example, the italics in x199 are probably to be understood to extend over the brackets so that the remark could be redrafted: To follow a rule . . . are customs (uses, institutions). (It is noteworthy that the term ``Gebrauch'' is italicized (underlined) in one MS ancestor of this remark: 15

MS 180a: 23r: Schachspielen, Regeln folgen ein Gebrauch.

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grammar is lacking in perspicuity [UÈbersichtlichkeit]) were omitted in its redrafting in x122.) Another clear example is the expression AÈusserung in PI, e.g. x585: When someone says ``I hope he'll come''Ðis this a report about his state of mind, or a manifestation [AÈusserung] of his hope? Zx53: The statement ``I am expecting a bang at any moment'' is an expression [AÈusserung] of expectation. This an everyday expression Wittgenstein hijacked to express his own distinctive conception.18 Here, presumably, the explanation to be supplied turns on regarding a ®rst-person expression of hope or expectation as a manifestation of an `inner state', hence on the possibility of regarding these utterances as learned replacements for primitive or natural reactions (cf x244). According to this explanation (absent from PI), AÈusserung is to be contrasted with statement [Behauptung] (Z x549) and report [Bericht] (x585). [A di€erent but related conception is attached to PG 66.) (2) Another quite di€erent use of italics is to indicate the need for the reader to supply a special explanation that is neither peculiar to the author nor explicit in the author's text. This might be conceived as a distant cousin of the previous use. In that case, italics mean roughly the same as the phrase ``in my sense'' (or ``in our sense''); and the onus is ultimately on the author to explain this. In this case, by contrast, italics mean ``in a certain sense'' or ``in some sense'' or even ``one might say''. The reader is then landed with the tasks of identifying which sense is intended and of supplying the appropriate explanation. The onus is on him to work out somehow what is relevant to interpreting the remark. Here, obviously, it is more debatable what the intended interpretation is, and adversarial disputes may defy resolution by discussion. In some cases italics may indicate that an explanation is to be supplied from another source (a particular author or even a speci®c set of authors). Consider: x256: And now I simply associate names with sensations and use these names in descriptions. This remark seems to invoke a conception of bare association that is common in a certain tradition of psychology.19 More commonly, the required explanation must be generated by the reader from his own resources. As in these two cases: x219: I follow the rule blindly. (PI p.226) What has to be accepted, the given, isÐone could sayÐforms of life. The interpretation of such remarks calls for sensitivity, imagination, and judgment. The most important guide is clues given by the author. 18

Perhaps too for the purpose of disambiguating the term ``expression'' [``Ausdruck''](cf.x317). This conception is fundamental to the causal theory of meaning presented in Russell's Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (Russell, 1973). 19

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In the ®rst example, blindly seems tied to the adjacent comment: When I follow the rule, I do not choose. Also to the neighbouring comment (x217): If I have exhausted the justi®cations . . . I am inclined to say: ``This is simply what I do.'' In an analogous case, Wittgenstein himself gave a gloss on his italics. This might provide a model to follow here. RFM 422: One follows the rule mechanically . . . ``Mechanical''Ðthat means: without thinking. But entirely without thinking? Without re¯ecting. Taken together, these remarks seem to make clear in what sense Wittgenstein here used the term ``blindly''. It does not imply that the agent is not attentive to what he is doing, that he is acting like someone whose mind is `elsewhere', as it were like an automaton or zombie (cf x156). Rather, it implies that he does not question what he does in response to the rule, hence too that he could o€er no reasons (justi®cation) for following it just as he does. He follows the rule blindly in a certain sense: viz in the sense that Euridice followed Orpheus blindly in making her way with him back to Earth from Hades. Unhesitatingly, willingly, in perfect trust: these seem to be the relevant connotations of ``blindly''. In the other case, the italicized expression Lebensformen (forms of life) might be intended to focus sharply on some quite particular conception (Which one?), and, if so, this might make it irrelevant or pointless for interpreting this controversial remark to investigate and clarify the use of the word ``Lebensform'' in nineteenth-century German philosophy or science.20 (Wittgenstein's term may be the heir of this practice, but it need not inherit all the properties of its predecessors.) This method of interpreting the italicized expression involves discrimination and selection. It stands in sharp contrast with the policy of taking any remark incorporating italics to have as its intended content whatever might be obtained by substituting for the italicized expression any legitimate dictionary equivalent. More generally, in this use, italics function as ®lters, not as licenses for treating all of the connotations of the italicized expression as yielding acceptable interpretations of a remark. (In that respect, this use of italics di€ers sharply from the picture of `emphasis' which informs most commentaries on Wittgenstein's writings.) There might well be occurrences of italics which are ambiguous between this use and the previous one. An important instance might be his use of ``grammar'', e.g. x307: If I do speak of a ®ction, then it is of a grammatical ®ction. 20

An analogous case in the term uÈbersehen in x122. It seems quite irrelevant for grasping Wittgenstein's conception to investigate the long tradition connecting UÈbersichtlichkeit with the axiomatic presentation of a body of knowledge (evident in Frege, 1959, x5 (cf. also Frege, 1879, x13) and also in Boltzmann (1974, pp. 4, 16, 96).

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One interpreter might argue that this is meant to invoke a special explanation of the term ``grammar'' which is missing from this text.21 Another might call attention to Wittgenstein's contention that he did not use ``grammar'' in any special sense (Moore, 1959, p. 276f.) and then argue that grammar restricts attention to some particular aspect of what we call ``grammar'', say that rules of agreement and in¯ection are not answerable to the nature of what words signify. It is not clear that such a con¯ict can be resolved, or even that there would be any real point in trying to do this. (3) Both previous patterns of using italics have parallels in Wittgenstein's use of single quotes or `scare-quotes'.22 This suggests a more general scheme of interpretation: in many cases the use of italics is equivalent in Wittgenstein-Speak to the use of single quotes. Italics might then be employed for whatever purposes single quotes might be introduced. (This invites a separate investigation of his use of single quotes to narrow down the range of admissible interpretations on both devices.) In the case of special explanations of everyday expressions, italics and single quotes are used interchangeably to secure back-reference. There are clear examples of this parallellism. The term `reading' in {7 of x156 refers back to the explanation given in {1, just as reading in {5 does. Surely `private' in x256 (`private language' in x275 and `privately0 in x202) is to be referred back to the explanation given in x243 of the expression ``private language''; hence it functions just as private does in LPE 252 (and perhaps too in x311). Similarly, `AÈusserung' (Z x19) has the same signi®cance as AÈusserung (Z x58); and the phrase ``eine `uÈbersichtliche' Darstellung'' (cf GB 241) would be equivalent with ``eine uÈbersichtliche Darstellung'' (cf x122).23 As in the case of italics, we might replace this use of single quotes with the phrase ``in our sense'' or ``in this sense'', e.g. we might redraft x256 in this form: In that case my language is not, in our sense, a private one. It is noteworthy too that italics and single quotes are used together in passages where Wittgenstein gave an idiosyncratic explanation or de®nition of some everyday expression. (Notably `criterion' and `symptom' occur in BB 24-5.) The second use of italics is also parallelled by one use of single quotes. In certain cases, both seem meant to single out some particular use or implication of an expression, but without any explicit or detailed explanation of the intended 21

On this model:

PLP 13±4 . . . the grammar of the language . . . [is] everything about language which can be ®xed before language is applied . . . Grammar is, as it were, the installation and adjustment of a system of signs, in preparation for their use . . . If we take the word `grammar' in this wide sense, . . .[it] includes all the enormous number of conventions which . . . are presented in the understanding of everyday language. 22 In most of his writings, both manuscript and typescript, single-quotes are used di€erently from double-quotes. This important contrast is too complicated to clarify here. 23 For di€erent reasons, neither phrase occurs in the quoted form. Rhees captures the force of the double-quotes in GB replacing them by single-quotes in his translation, while in x122 the scope of the italicization of uÈbersehen extends over the quoted phrase.

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conception.24 It is of the utmost importance to work out exactly what is to be understood in such cases. One family of parallels rami®es around x219: I follow the rule blindly. This remark is tied to a metaphor: lines or rails that stretch through the whole of space to in®nity (xx218±9). Following a rule is likened to a wagon's running along tracks. This mythological description of the use of a rule (x221) generates a large family of remarks. RFM 371: But what I want is that one should be able to go on inferring mechanically according to the rule without reaching any contradictory results. RFM 217: I was playing a game and in doing so I followed certain rules . . . Now I wanted to play this game in such a way as to follow the rules `mechanically' and I `formalized' the same. But in doing this I reached positions where the game lost all point; I therefore wanted to avoid these positions `mechanically'. RFM 214: The misuse of the idea of mechanical insurance against contradiction. In these cases it seems transparent that `mechanical' and mechanical are to be understood in the same way (even if the precise interpretation of these passages must be left unsettled here). The discussion of securing consistency within a calculus switches back and forth between these idioms. Similar interchangeability of italics and single quotes typi®es a wider range of remarks concerned with contrasting doing things `mechanically' and `thinkingly'. BB 33: Now we might say that whenever we give someone an order by showing him an arrow, and don't do it `mechanically' (without thinking), we mean the arrow in one way or another. x156: Now what takes place when, say, [an Englishman with the usual education] reads a newspaper [aloud] . . . He may attend to what he reads, or againÐ as we might put it-function as a mere reading-machine: I mean, read aloud and correctly without attending to what he is reading. Z x103: . . . an important distinction between creatures that can learn to do work, even complicated work, in a `mechanical' way, and those that make trials and comparisons as they work. Z x108: . . . some of the creatures [anthropoid brutes] work `thinkingly', others quite mechanically. RFM 422: One follows the rule mechanically . . . ``Mechanical''-that means: without thinking. But entirely without thinking? Without re¯ecting. 24 Single quotes alone, but not italics, are used to make allusions to other thinkers or texts. Some are clear: e.g. `organizations' (PI p. 196) refers to KoÈhler, `speaking with tongues0 (x528) to the Bible. Others are problematic: e.g. `Weltanschauung' (x122) might allude to Spengler (cf. GB 241).

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The equipollence of italics and single quotes in these passages is striking. All these remarks call for e€ort to work out precisely what contrasts are being drawn. A general investigation of the grammar of ``mechanical'' or ``thoughtless'' may well be of minimal use in deciding in what sense an activity is described as `mechanical' or mechanical in any one of these remarks. There are other important instances of this parallel pattern of use of italics and single quotes, or equally of parallels between these re¯exive devices and such phrases as ``in this sense''. Examples include ``arbitrary'' [``willkuÈrlich''], ``autonomous'', ``accompaniment'', ``interpretation'', and ``primitive''. These all deserve careful investigation since all of them are crucial to some of Wittgenstein's most distinctive ideas (e.g. ``the autonomy of grammar''25). Tracing remarks through repeated redraftings turns up some evidence for Wittgenstein's sometimes replacing italics by single quotes or vice versa (e.g. interchanging `UÈbersicht' and UÈbersicht). Detailed investigation might show this practice to be common. In some other cases, there is evidence for some degree of interchangeability of italics and single quotes, even though these cannot be classi®ed clearly under either of the two previous patterns. Here is one isolated case: x178: the guiding character of the movement . . . the movement one of `guiding' . . . [cf x170]. A more systematic interchangeability is evident in the case of certain verbs connected with linguistic communication: namely, ``to mean (something)'' [``meinen''], ``to understand'' [``verstehen''], to think'' [``denken''], etc. x609: Interpreting `understanding' as an atmosphere; as a mental act. x81: . . . what can lead us . . . to think that if anyone utters a sentence and means or understands it he is operating a calculus according to de®nite rules. x186: ``The right step is the one that accords with the order-as it was meant.'' Ð . . . But that is just what is in question: what, at any stage we are to call ``being in accord'' with that sentence (and with the meaning you then put into the sentence-whatever that may have consisted in). x665: Imagine someone pointing to his cheek with an expression of pain and saying ``abracadabra!''. ÐWe ask ``What do you mean?''. And he answers ``I 25

Compare:

PG 63: The calculus is as it were autonomous. DS 3: One could put the point roughly like this: we do not step beyond the bounds of language in giving any explanation of what a word means, not even in an ostensive de®nition, and language is in this sense autonomous. PLP 40: Grammar is autonomous and not dictated by reality. . . . This is how we should regard grammar . . .

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meant toothache''. ÐYou at once think to yourself: How can one `mean toothache' by that word? Or what did it mean to mean pain by that word? x33: And what does `pointing to the shape', `pointing to the colour' consist in? Point to a piece of paper. ÐAnd now point to its shape-now to its colour-now to its number (that sounds queer). ÐHow did you do it? ÐYou will say that you `meant' a di€erent thing each time you pointed. ÐHow is that done? ÐYou will say you concentrated (or directed) your attention now on the colour, now on the shape. This is an extensive and important class of cases. It seems likely that italics and single quotes are both regularly employed to mark a `®shy' conception of these things as mental activities or processes, a picture which is liable to mislead us (x154: BB 15±6). These expressions all require careful investigation in detail. For various reasons, the signi®cance of italics and single quotes seems to be roughly the same in many remarks.26 For readers of today's philosophical journals and monographs, this is surely an unexpected use of italics. It could scarcely be categorized as a form of emphasis or stress. Yet an informed and sensitive reader of Wittgenstein should be constantly alive to the possibility of cashing out italics into single quotes. This is not just a hare-brained proposal, but a recognition of the author's intention as made manifest in his texts. (Bearing in mind the possibility of this equivalence might help to reduce dogmatism in interpretations, even to persuade us that we have no idea what is meant by italicized expressions in advance of detailed investigation of ideas that surround each particular remark.) At the same time, this parallelism with single quotes makes it important here to ward o€ a possible misunderstanding. Italics, even when used together with or interchangeably with single quotes, are more closely akin to using the italicized expression than to mentioning it. This point seems evident.27 On the other hand, they do regularly license back-references of a meta-linguistic kind.28 e.g. x101: The idea now absorbs us, that the ideal `must' be found in reality. Meanwhile we do not as yet see how it occurs there, nor do we understand the nature of this ``must''. 26

One case is familiar to us in English: the convention of using quotation-marks in referring to the titles of chapters in a book or articles in a journal, but italics in referring to the titles of books or journals. 27 It is hard to ®nd clear counter-examples in Wittgenstein, but here is one: RFM 309-10: `It must be so' . . . This must shows that he has adopted a concept. This must signi®es that he has gone in a circle. Though now unusual, this use of italics was standard in many earlier philosophical texts, e.g. Locke and Watts; also in nineteenth-century texts, e.g. Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Frege [who used the locution: the concept ``horse'' (Frege, 1959, x46) interchangeably with the idiom: the concept horse (Frege, 1960, p. 196)]. It is also common in contempary linguistics for the citation of type-expressions (in contrast with spoken or written tokens). 28 The same two point hold of single quotes, used with or without italics. For example x202 (And hence also `following the rule' is a practice) is not a remark about the phrase ``following the rule'', but about an imaginary language-game (previously described in MS 180a). At the same time, in BB133 the expression `seeing what's common' leads to a back-reference in the form: the phrase ``seeing what's common''; similarly BB 135 discusses whether a mental strain and a bodily strain are `strains' in the same sense of the word.

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x141: Can't an application come before my mind? ÐIt can: only we need to get clearer about the use of this expression. [cf x154; RFM 371] (These cases will remind a well-informed reader of Quine's two-level analysis of the sentence: ``Georgione was so-called because of his size.'') There is a danger of misinterpreting Wittgenstein if we do not keep our bearings on this complexity. I have tried to make visible three general patterns, partially overlapping, in Wittgenstein's use of italics. How far each of them extends calls for investigation, but this can't be undertaken before we know what to look for. Available secondary literature manifests total aspect-blindness in these matters. 3. Some speci®c patterns In addition to these general patterns, we can also discern at least three more quite particular patterns in Wittgenstein's use of italics. All three have some philosophical signi®cance. The ®rst is his using italics for the purpose of disambiguating the ®rst person plural pronoun `we' (and its variants `us', `our', `ours'). It contrasts ``we''; with ``they'', ``the rest'', ``others'', etc.29 Italics here make a crucial contribution to interpreting many remarks. Indeed, uncertainties about how to interpret ``we'' from case to case is a notorious source of diculty and controversy. [With correlative diculty uncertainty about interpreting second-person pronouns, esp. in interior dialogues. Who is the we who say . . . ? And who is the you who say . . . ?] In some cases it seems clear that I (LW, the author) am the Centre of the `wecircle'. Discussion is conducted with `the royal ``we'''. Here the pronoun ``we'' is to be taken as referring to Wittgenstein himself and some rather inde®nite group of like-minded people who are imagined to surround him (sometimes an idealization of the set of his interlocutors in his seminars/lectures at Cambridge, sometimes a set of sympathetic philosophers including Schlick and Waismann30). Italicizing ``we'' generally seems to have the purpose of marking o€ this particular use of ``we'', e.g. x116: What we31 do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.32 BB 25: We, in our discussions . . ., constantly compare language with a calculus proceeding according to exact rules.33 29 Also with the inde®nite third-person pronoun ``one'' (``man''), as in ``one might say . . . '' (``Man moÈchte sagen . . . ''). 30 As in Waismann's elaboration of `our method' [`unsere Methode'] (Waismann, 1965, 19760). 31 This emphasis is absent in the earlier draft in BT 412. 32 If this comment is descriptive, as it appears to be, then it must be restricted to us the practitioners of Wittgenstein's method. If it were taken to apply to all of us philosophers, the host of past and present participants in the intellectual activity names ``philosophy'', it would a ludicrous generalization. 33 Rhees seems to misunderstand this particular use of we. He takes Wittgenstein to be explaining the source of philosophical problems, hence to be addressing the question why we (philosophers) do constantly compare language with a calculus. The answer Wittgenstein o€ered is simply that philosophical puzzles `always spring from just this attitude towards language'. And he objects: `And you might wonder whether this is an answer'. (BB pp. x±xi) It seems a perfectly good answer to a di€erent question, namely one about Wittgenstein's adopting a particular strategy in his philosophizing; particularly because this strategy is built on a counterfactual hypothesis!

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BB 4: But if we had to name anything which is the life of the sign, we should have to say that it was its use.34 PG 87 (=BT 58): What interests us in the sign, the meaning which matters for us, is what is embodied in the grammar of the sign.35 This use of italics is particularly conspicuous in Wittgenstein dictations to Waismann in the early 30s:36 (F 14) The explanation of what a word means can be seen as the cause of its subsequent use, but in this sense we are not interested in the explanations of words. We are interested in them only as parts of a set of rules and operations (a calculus), i.e. only from the standpoint [Gesichtspunkt] of rules governing the use of signs [Zeichenregeln]. (F 15): We say: when a thought swims before one's mind [einem vorschwebt], this is similar to the case when the solution of a mathematical problem swims before one's mind: the task is not thereby /completed//solved/. . . . For us it all comes down to this, that the presentiment of a thought is not a thought. [F 26] . . . `The word must be used thus' or `That is really its meaning'. In the word `really' lurks a great danger, for one is then always tempted, if not to alter things, at least to stretch what is actual [the reality of language] to ®t this pattern. We have no need to do anything of this kind. We place the pattern beside what is actual [language] and let it throw as much light on that as it can. PLP 27837: We put forward the following terminology; we suggest that in the case in which the word `red' is explained by means of a colour spot we shall say that one sign is explained by another, that a word is explained by a sign of another sort . . . The colour spot will be used by us in future as a standard of comparison, a paradigm, and is, in this sense, part of language.38 Once introduced, this device might be taken to disambiguate subsequent comments where parallel italics are absent (as in the last two citations), e.g. we in BB 25 dominates this remark: BB 25-6: Why then do we in philosophizing constantly compare our use of words with one following exact rules? The answer is that the puzzles which we try to remove always spring from just this attitude towards language [cf PG 63]. One could say that the scope of the italics, though somewhat inde®nite, regularly extends over some subsequent uses of ``we''; as it were, those uttered in the same logical breath. 34

The ®rst emphasis is missing from the printed text, though present in Wittgenstein's own copy. The title of BT x14 emphasizes both occurrences of the pronoun. 36 References are to the catalogue numbers of the dictations. 37 Largely derived from F 36. 38 This conception [Au€assung] is immediately contrasted with `the usual view' [PLP 278]. 35

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Italics are surely not necessary for using ``we'' in this sense. Indeed. this reading seems required in many cases where ``we'' is not italicized. E.g., xx132±3: Our clear and simple language-games are . . . set up as objects of comparison . . . x115: A picture held us captive.39 BT 410: Indeed we can only convict somebody else of a mistake if he acknowledges . . . What the other acknowledges is the analogy I am proposing to him as the source of his thought. BT 416: . . . again and again in our investigations when we show that . . . BB 27: Philosophy, as we use the word, is a ®ght against the fascination which forms of expression exert upon us. BB 28: . . . our method is not merely to enumerate actual usages of words, but rather deliberately to invent new ones . . . PG 312: Grammar is for us a pure calculus (not the application of a calculus to reality). Nor are italics sucient to ®x this sense of ``we'', e.g. Z x529, where we are contrasted with hypothetical creatures or automata. Or x20 contrasts our language (English or German) with unspeci®ed other languages (real or imaginary) which have radically di€erent sentence-forms. Or PG 321: The reason why there are in®nitely many cardinal numbers is that we construct this in®nite system and call it the system of cardinal numbers. The moral to be drawn is rather inde®nite but not useless. Wittgenstein made extensive and varying use of the ®rst-person plural pronoun. Working out its reference is of critical importance for the interpretation of many remarks, and italicization is a clue that we cannot a€ord to ignore. Moreover, in the absence of italics, crucial ambiguities may arise, and some, perhaps, may have to be left unresolved. For example we might wonder whether x122 might be clearer if drafted in this form: The concept of a perspicuous representation is of fundamental importance for us. It earmarks the form of account we give, the way we look at things. Or would this revision give the remark a content di€erent from its intended one? In respect of BT 418, we might canvas a similar redrafting: A simile belongs to our structure . . . We can draw no conclusions from it. As when we compare a sentence to a picture . . . or when I [sic!] compare the application of language with, for instance, the calculus of multiplication. Equally, one might consider recasting remarks apparently framed with `the royal ``we''' in versions making use of the ®rst-person singular pronoun. This is a pattern that Wittgenstein himself sometimes exploited, e.g. 39

Surely an autobiographical remark, alluding to the Tractatus.

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PG 66: I am only describing language, not explaining anything. BT 421: As I do philosophy, its entire task consists in expressing myself in such a way that certain troubles//problems//disappear [(Hertz.)]. It seems clear enough that these remarks are fully equivalent to others couched in We-Speak, e.g. x109: We must do away with all explanation, and description alone must take its place. x133: . . . the clarity that we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear. Careful attention to the details of Wittgenstein's use of ®rst-person pronouns, singular and plural, might help to break the tyranny of the idea that he sought to clarify the nature of philosophy, at least if this is taken to be a description of the only possible method of philosophizing.40 Commentators seem here to exhibit the in¯uence of their own craving for generality. At the least, there is another pattern to be seen in his methodological comments. Look again at this in¯uential remark: x116: What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use. And ask yourself what precise signi®cance you attach to his use of italics here. A second frequent and distinctive pattern is the italicization of demonstratives. There are many reasons for this. But one recurrent one is to indicate a particular conception of demonstrative reference, or equivalently a particular conception of the limits of language. The symbol ``this'' is regarded as composite, as consisting of the utterance of the pronoun ``this'' together with the gesture of pointing [BB 109; cf PG 88]; it is, as it were, partly concrete, and speaking here includes bodily action in addition to articulating sounds. [cf x669: Here pointing is a part of the languagegame.] The italicised this might be taken to call attention to this point; i.e. to an aspect of the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity [x23]. This interpretation might be strengthened by noting that Wittgenstein often used direct quotation with an italicized demonstrative (e.g. ``This is red'') to record a speech episode where the utterance includes (or requires) a demonstrative gesture. [x28; cf Z x713]. In some cases, this usage is further augmented by an arrow inserted after the demonstrative pronoun; the arrow apparently deputizes for the gesture of pointing at something; e.g. in the report ``This!is red''. [e.g. LPE 259. 262, 269, 270, 274; F 39] Italics and arrows with demonstratives are clear idiosyncrasies in Wittgenstein's use of oratio recta, but both seem to be motivated by his philosophical concern to make sure that we include gestures in our description of the use of demonstrative pronouns.41 40

This implication may manifest a serious misunderstanding of Wittgenstein's conception of essence. (For clari®cation of this point, see `A Vision of Philosophy' [Baker, forthcoming].) 41 This feature is important in distinguishing the uses of demonstratives from standard uses of proper names [cf x38].

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An important variant on these cases of stressing demonstratives: ``going on like this''Ðwhere the speaker does not point or gesture to an action or a pattern, but rather produces it himself.42 He may recite the opening of the alphabet, execute a mordant on a harpsichord, exhibit the correct pronunciation of a word or the intended way of declaiming a Shakespearean soliloquy, demonstrate how to hit a backhand at tennis or how to bow to the Vice-Chancellor in a degree ceremony, or show the lie of the land with a gesture [PI p.198]. Somebody understands such an explanation only if he grasps the pattern exempli®ed in the performance (a way of acting, a method of reproducing or extending a geometrical ornament, a technique of forming numerals) [PI p. 193, 196; RFM 310±1, 317, 320, 328, 331, 332])]. In this case the italicized demonstrative seems meant to call attention to the way that certain de®nite behaviour of the speaker is interwoven with a particular use of words; perhaps also to the way that knowing how to go on is interwoven with understanding these words. Italicizing demonstratives seems to be a miniscule but important contribution to the conduct of a major philosophical campaign. Namely to persuade us (his readers) of the need to reconsider our (unconscious? pre-re¯ective?) picture or conception of the boundary between language and extra-linguistic things or the boundary between speaking and the varied activities of human life. (We are inclined to take these boundaries to be sharply drawn and permanently ®xed rather than vague, ¯uctuating, and purpose-relative (cf xx38, 50).) To treat the use of italics with demonstratives as a stylistic quirk or mannerism is to neglect the dimension of depth in this typographical device. A third prominent pattern is the italicization of modal expressions: especially ``must'', ``may'', and ``cannot''. (Also the italicization of expressions used to draw attention to the absence of modal auxiliaries: e.g. ``is not'', ``does not'', and ``would not''.) Modal distinctions are crucial to the intended meaning of many remarks [e.g. x66, 81, 87, 90, 101, 131], and Wittgenstein employed italics for the purpose of ensuring that readers not overlook these quali®cations. (One might say that this use of emphasis is to call attention to his practice of not using modal auxiliaries merely to express di€erent shades of emphasis or assertiveness.43) x66: Don't say: ``There must be something common, or they would not be called `games''' . . . BB 41: I have been trying . . . to remove the temptation to think that there `must be' what is called a mental process of thinking, hoping, wishing, believing, etc. independent of the process of expressing a thought, a hope, a wish, etc. BB 43: Our investigation tried to remove this bias, which forces us to think that the facts must conform to certain pictures embedded in our language. 42 MS109:286: [Instances of the justi®cation of a course of action as following an order] Or also somebody has told me, if it means `Do p and q', then I ought to do this (whereupon I exhibit the activity). 43 Contrast Frege, 1879, x3, (strength of evidence) and Russell, 1973 (level of con®dence).

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Other remarks use italics to stress other modal quali®cations, or even their absence, e.g. x28: He may suppose this; but perhaps he does not. x41: . . . suppose that the tool with the name ``N'' is broken [in language (8)] . . . Here one might say: ``N'' has become meaningless . . . BB 20: If for instance I expect B to come to tea, what happens may be this: . . . BB 49: . . . the proposition ``An iron nail can't scratch glass'' [could be rewritten] in the form ``experience teaches us that an iron nail doesn't scratch glass'', thus doing away with the ``can't''. Most of Wittgenstein's texts contain many instances of this pattern of italicization. Here, arguably, the force of italics is primarily stress. Modal quali®cations and modal distinctions have enormous philosophical consequences,44 and many philosophers have a strong urge to disregard them, to minimize their signi®cance, or to misunderstand them.45 [For example interpreters of Wittgenstein neglect the contrast between saying that every proposition is composite and claiming that any proposition must be composite;46 or the contrast between saying no word in English has a meaning outside a sentence and claiming that any word can have a meaning only in a sentence.47] Wittgenstein followed the opposite policy of attending scrupulously to modal distinctions as an integral part of his campaign to distinguish sharply between grammatical and empirical judgments (RFM 165, 363). He suggested that statements with ``must'' and ``cannot'' constitute dogmas or prejudices [BB 130, 137]. Their presence is diagnostic of what he called the metaphysical use of words (x116; BB 35). In excluding possibilities, such statements have the function of norms of representation or rules of grammar (whether or not this is intended) [BB 55, 61, 139]. Hence, framing a remark with emphasis on ``need not'' or ``may'' is the main way of implementing the strategy of bringing words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use (x116; e.g. x66). Conversely, when he himself put emphasis on ``cannot'' or ``must'', he meant this remark to be understood as a determination to take a sentence to formulate a rule of grammar, a principle that regulates the use of the other constitutent words (e.g. BB 41). In Wittgenstein's writings, the copious use of italics with modal expressions has clear philosophical motivations. Indeed, in his texts, modal quali®cations, with or 44 Neglect of them is one reason that Wittgenstein gave for thinking that set theory fosters conceptual confusion (PI p. 232; cf WWK 213±7). 45 Disappearance of these `subtle nuances' must be the most serious general defect in the various notes made by persons who attended his lectures. Quite naturally they concentrated on what they picked out as `the message'. 46 It is this second claim that belongs to the `theory of common structure' as expounded ®rst in the Tractatus and later by Schlick in `Form and Content'. 47 This gives rise to the odd practice of constructing counterexamples to refute things put forward as necessary truths! (cf. Morris, 1994).

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without italics, are always crucial to the content of a remark.48 (Interpreters seem to operate on the erroneous principle that if they focus on the sense of a remark the can's and must's can (or must?) be left to take care of themselves.) All three of these speci®c patterns in the use of italics could be called variants of emphasis.49 But in each case emphasis seems to serve a de®nite purpose, and the purpose is di€erent from case to case. (One might then deny that italics are used `merely for emphasis'.) The message carried by this (viz the importance of seeing gestures as part of language) is di€erent from the message carried by must (viz that a sentence formulates a rule of grammar); and both di€er from the signi®cance of we (viz contrasting our ways of seeing and describing things with those of an amorphous set of `others'). All of this seems tolerably clear. Might it also seem puzzling? How can mere italics carry so much baggage? How can the expression this (or we or must) say all that? This puzzlement should surely be dissolved. It is the extended patterns of Wittgenstein's di€erent uses of italics that ®x how they are to be interpreted in these di€erent cases. His intentions are clearly embodied in his texts. Is it any more puzzling that he could give this single re¯exive device all this rich and variable signi®cance than that he could appropriate the term ``UÈbersicht'' to convey his own complex and subtle conception of a form of analogical insight? Italics are no more-and no less-wonderful than other linguistic symbols! 4. Methods of investigation At least four di€erent general patterns have emerged in the use of italics in Wittgenstein-Speak. All seem capable of considerable extrapolation. In addition to the various forms of emphasis, we have noted the equivalence of italics with quotationmarks (especially with single quotes); the use of italics to express `in our sense'; and their use to express `in some sense' or `in a certain sense'. How far these patterns do extend in Wittgenstein's writings seems worthy of investigation. Even the relatively unfamiliar ones might turn out to be common in his work if we cultivated the habit of looking for them. The recognition of the existence of these patterns seems to open up the possibility of a range of new interpretations of many apparently `mined-out' remarks. As a long-term project, one might make use of these patterns in a systematic reexamination of his texts. By eliciting some degree of order out of an apparent motley, this investigation might well turn up further patternsÐmore subtle but no less clear than the preliminary ones. One could then take these back to the texts, thereby revealing yet more re®ned patterns. And so on. The aim would be to set up a virtuous circle! (An hermeneutic circle?) A progressively more sensitive understanding 48

Compare Freud's lament:

. . . quali®cations and exact particularization are of little use with the general public; there is very little room in the memory of the multitude; it only retains the bare gist of any thesis and fabricates an extreme version which is easy to remember (Freud, 1963, vol. VII, p. 267). 49

Single quotes never take over the role of italics in these cases.

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both of his thinking and of his ways of expressing his thoughts. Much of the available interpretation of his work might ®nish up looking impossibly crude. Provisionally, we might adopt this somewhat laboured method of procedure (at least until we have acquired new habits of thinking). For each remark containing italics we will generate four `readings'. Here to serve as a model are four ways of rephrasing the remark: Following a rule is a custom (cf x199). 1. Following a rule is really, unambiguously, or de®nitely a custom. [Or: Following a rule is a paradigm of a custom. Or even: Following a rule is what is called ``a custom''.] 2. Following a rule is, in our sense, a custom. 3. Following a rule is, in a certain sense, a custom. 4. Following a rule is a `custom'. [Or even: Following a rule is, as it were, or so to speak, a custom.] Applying this method, we generate four readings for any italicized expression in any remark. The task of interpretation must minimally include canvassing reasons for or against each of these paraphrases. No doubt this method would prove tedious, but it might be worth the e€ort if it generated some really eligible new readings of central texts. 5. Some applications Let us examine in a bit more detail four remarks whose interpretation seems to turn on working out the precise signi®cance of italics. (1) x371: Essence is expressed by grammar. Compare the same italicized expression in xx92, 547. We might paraphrase each of them with single quotes: e.g. (x371) `Essence' is expressed by grammar. All three seem to indicate particular conceptions of essence, evidently not always the same one! What seems to be at issue are di€erent conceptions [Au€assungen] of essence; meanings that we give to the word ``essence'' (Z x467), not a fact to be discovered about the concept of essence (not some linguistic fact [sprachliche Tatsache (Z x447)] about the use of ``essence''50). A fortiori, Wittgenstein's intention is not to establish a principle from which we can deduce such grammatical principles as that ``the use of a word does not follow from the object it names'' (Hacker, 1990, p. 102). Here (in x371) the italics seem to mark Wittgenstein's own present conception of essence (unlike x92, where essence is contrasted with this conception and picks out his previous conception which informed TLP51). So we might arrive at this preferred 50

It might be wondered to what extent there is any everyday use of ``essence'' in English. (Contrast French!). The concern to delineate the essence of any possible language sharply di€erentiates the doctrines of TLP from any description of the working of any particular languages. All of the remarks about symbolism in TLP are to be understood as formulating necessary truths, i.e. to belong to the metaphysics of signsystems. For example the claim that all proportions are composite [zusammengesetzt]. Hence they are invulnerable to refutation by observations about the use of words in natural languages. (Among commentators on TLP, Waismann is unique in his sensitivity to this point. cf PLP 317±20.) 51

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paraphrase: Essence, in our sense, is expressed by grammar. (Or particular applications of this dictum: e.g. what we call ``the essence of a natural number'' is the grammar of the words ``zero'', ``one'', ``two'', . . .). If so, omitting these italics would yield a di€erent remark,52 certainly contestable, arguably both dogmatic and false.53 Most interpreters take x371 to formulate some species of conventionalism, taking Wittgenstein to endorse the cited remark (x372): ``The only correlate in language to an intrinsic necessity is an arbitrary rule.''54 By contrast, the remark in x92 requires a di€erent paraphrase from x371: . . . questions as to what is, in a certain sense, the essence of language. Or even: . . . questions as to the so-called essence of language. (That conception of essence is explicitly contrasted with Wittgenstein's own: For if we too in these investigations . . . For they see in the essence . . . [x92: both emphases added].) Might the gloss here put on the italics in x371 be rejected on the grounds that any alternative conception of essence is incoherent? Is that view clearly expressed anywhere by Wittgenstein? (Perhaps the Aristotelian conception of essence is a paradigm of something that is more a superstition than a mistake (cf x110).) Did he articulate the view that what are commonly conceived (by whom?) to be the natures or essences of things ``are merely the shadows cast by grammar''?55 One might say: the topic of x371 is essence, not essence. In other words, italics here belong to the content of this remark.56 (2) x199: To obey a rule, to make a report, to give an order, to play a game of chess, are customs (uses, institutions). Do these italics serve to make an emphatic assertion of a point likely to meet with resistence? Some (or even most?) philosophers are allegedly loathe to concede that these things must all really be social practices shared within a community; so Wittgenstein took the step of insisting that they are customs, uses, institutions. This idea is widely thought to be the crucial move in his analysis of following rules, especially in his resolution of the paradox of x201.57 52 So too would extending italics over the whole remark in paraphrasing it (Hacker, 1990, p. 437). The ®rst would, in e€ect, eliminate the rider `in our sense', while the second would alter its scope. 53 In the Aristotelian tradition (e.g. Aquinas and Suarez), the essence (substantial form) of a horse explains a fundamental feature of biological reproduction, viz that the mating of a pair of horses generates another horse. Essence in that sense is surely not expressed by `grammar'. (It has been displaced by mechanisms of reproduction which are investigated by molecular biology.) 54 In e€ect, ignoring the preamble: e.g. G.P. Baker and P.M.S. Hacker, 1985, pp. 329±347. 55 Hacker, 1990, p. 438. (And what justi®es the word `merely' in this paraphrase?). 56 This is Waismann's understanding of the matter. He cited as an example of vision in philosophy Wittgenstein's sudden insight into the nature of such things as hoping, fearing, intending, meaning, understanding, etc. On this novel conception (itself an instance of vision in philosophy), ``the nature of understanding reveals itself in grammar, not in experiment'' [Waismann, 1956, p. 37]. This presented as one conception of essence among others, and hence too as something that we are free to reject. 57 These points are forcefully presented by Malcolm, 1995, pp. 146±147, 156, 162, 170.

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What about the alternatives of taking this remark to be equivalent to: . . . are `customs'? or to: . . . are, as it were, customs? or to: . . . are, in a certain sense, customs? or to: . . . are, in our sense, customs? Prevalent interpretations of x199 do not consider these alternatives, let alone o€er reasons for judging them to be unacceptable. In spite of the enormous body of secondary literature on rule-following in Wittgenstein, nobody examines the import of these italics.58 All available reasoning runs along these lines: emphasis on ``custom'' has the implication that the listed activities are all paradigms of what are called ``customs''; therefore all of the connotations of ``custom'', a fortiori the property of being shared among the members of a community, must apply to all these activities, a fortiori to following a rule. This reasoning has the obvious merit of building on a natural and appropriate explanation of the term ``custom''. Indeed, customs might be de®ned as social habits (von Wright, 1963, p. 9)Ðto emphasize that they are shared among members of certain societies, that they vary from society to society and that they are a product of nurture, not nature. This explanation would license our saying: ``In England, orderly queuing is a custom.''; also ``Among the fellows of St Jude's, it is the custom to dine at least once a week on high table.'' The existence of these practices di€erentiates some groups from others. By contrast, applying the same explanation of ``custom'' to all Wittgenstein's examples in x199 runs into diculties. It would surely not license our saying: ``Giving an order is a custom''! Why not? Because there is nothing here of the variability from society to society which is both characteristic of customs and integral to our calling them social habits (von Wright, 1963, pp. 9±10). Could we conceive of a society that lacked all forms of interaction which fall under the general headings of giving and following orders? of making reports? of following rules? Or is it conceivable that any society have rules but lack the habit of following them? (Is it a habit that humans walk with their feet on the ground?) On re¯ection, don't all these suggestions strike you as absurd? These re¯ections might suggest that italics here function as a ®lter on the connotations of ``custom''. They direct us to consider what is here to be understood by ``custom'', rather than to import all of the connotations of ``custom'' (say, being social) and to apply them in interpreting this passage.59 Most non-commitally, one could operate with the paraphrase: . . . following a rule is, in a certain sense, a custom. This would force us to confront the question: In what sense (or in what respects) are these things similar to paradigmatic customs? Which implications of ``custom'' are meant to be highlighted here, and which ignored? 58 Similarly, but even more surprisingly, nobody even remarks on the fact that the phrase ``following the rule'' [``der Regel folgen''] in x202 is enclosed in single quotes, just as ``privately'' is. Hence, without any justi®cation whatever, commentators give asymmetric interpretations of this single re¯exive device within the compass of one short remark; and they ignore a striking di€erence between the drafting of x199 and that of x202. 59 A parallel use of italics occurs in an earlier version of this remark: (MS 180a:23r): Schachspielen, Reglen folgen ein Gebrauch.

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Working out a well documented answer to this question would be a considerable undertaking. But here is one direction that might be explored with pro®t:60 A custom is a normative practice that lacks any authoritative codi®cation; indeed, it may nowhere be formulated `in so many words' (von Wright, 1963, p. 10).. Wittgenstein often pointed out that any explicit codi®cation of rules and any practice of appealing to rules to justify particular actions presupposes prior mastery of practices that are inculcated by imitation, drill and practice (Z x419) and thereafter policed without recourse to a rule-book. It might have been for the purpose of drawing attention to this point, as it were the primacy of practices over rule-formulations, that he remarked that following a rule is, in a certain sense, a custom.61 This might be one skirmish in his general campaign to bring to others' notice the deep insight embodied in Goethe's maxim: Am Anfang war die Tat. (3) x665: Imagine someone pointing to his cheek with an expression of pain and saying ``abracadabra!''. ±We ask ``What do you mean?''. And he answers ``I meant toothache''. ±You at once think to yourself: How can one `mean toothache' by that word? Or what did it mean to mean pain by that word? Here the topic is: How can one `mean [meinen] toothache' by the word ``abracadabra''? The italics seem to indicate a particular conception of meaning as an `inner process' which is only contingently related to any outward expression. This gives rise to serious perplexity (cf x112). On the one hand, it seems that such a mental act must be what gives life to signs (cf BB 4). On the other hand, it seems opaque how what goes on in me when I utter the word can have the consequence of endowing the word with meaning (cf PI p. 218). The problem is to explore and clarify what it means to `mean toothache'. What is under investigation here is a particular picture or conception of meaning something by a word. Wittgenstein contrasted this (®shy) picture with an alternative picture of the use of ``meaning (something)'' ±one which relates the application of this verb, on the one hand, to mastery of a technique or practice, and, on the other hand, to the circumstances surrounding such humdrum but variable activities as pointing at someone, tracing the contour of something (x35), sitting down at a chessboard, etc. (especially what comes before and after saying things [BB 43]). We are apt to get ourselves thoroughly confused unless we recognize that the expressions `mean' or mean and ``mean'' have radically di€erent explanations. Both single quotes and italics (xx19, 29, 81, 156, 161, 186±8, 190, 209, 276, 358, 590, 634, 665; BB 65, 80, 142; Z 27, 397) are regularly used to mark similar conceptions (or misconceptions) of understanding, thinking, etc. These devices seem generally to signal that these concepts are here regarded as instances of `mental activities' or `mental processes', where the term ``mental'' is understood to indicate that what they describe is altogether extraordinary and mysterious (cf BB 6). Quotes and italics regularly single out these pseudo-concepts. It is Wittgenstein's task to bring us to acknowledge that these complex expressions have no meaning because 60

Another interpretation is developed at length in Baker and Hacker, 1985, pp. 154±181. An earlier draft (in MS 180a) reads: . . . presupposes a custom.

61

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their alleged (so- called?) `explanations0 (`private' ostensive de®nitions) do not determine how they are to be used (x258; cf PG 60). Here then is a recurrent pattern of use of re¯exive devices with `psychological verbs'. Failure to spot its instances or to appreciate its signi®cance would be damaging to the understanding of the whole Wittgenstein's philosophy of psychology. One might say that what the `Big Typescript' tries to get rid of is `meaning' and `understanding', not meaning and understanding (BT 1€.). Less obviously, but no less crucially, the topic of x202 is not following a rule (as in x199), but `following the rule'. In a large number of remarks about meaning or `meaning', understanding or `understanding', etc. the italics (and single quotes) modify the content. (4) BB 125: Our method is purely descriptive. Previous considerations suggest that italics and single quotes might qualify the phrase ``purely descriptive'' in the same way. Hence we can now spot a variant of BB 125 in this remark: BB 18: Philosophy really is `purely descriptive'. At the very least, it cannot be taken for granted that these two remarks make different points (despite the apparent contrast between ``philosophy'' and ``our method''). Both invite the question: In what sense ``purely descriptive''? Surely neither version makes a statement of fact about the whole of what has been carried on under the label ``philosophy''. Is the intention to lay down the limits of what makes sense for philosophers to do? (To make a dominative use of ``is'', as in the constitutional provision ``The House of Representatives is elected every two years''?) The phrase ``our method'' de®nitely suggests something more modest. We might see both remarks as a declaration of Wittgenstein's own intention about how to proceed: the intention actually embodied in his work. This would carry no pretensions to intellectual imperialism. ``Our method is purely descriptive'' is itself a simple description of our method: not an attempt to lay down the law about ``the method, the only method, of philosophy . . . ''(Baker and Hacker, 1980, p. 266). What then is the property of being purely descriptive? Here is one possible paraphrase: Our method is, in our sense, purely descriptive. This paraphrase would call for parallel paraphrases of some linked remarks. In particular, since description is contrasted with explanation (BB 18, 125), our method surely requires that we do away with all explanation (x109).62 Thus we must avoid giving any explanations, in our sense. (BB 18: I want to say here that it can never be our job . . . to explain anything.) So what is ``description, in our sense''? And correlatively, what is ``explanation, in our sense''? These seem to be the questions which need to be answered in order to arrive at the intended interpretation of this remark (and its close relatives). This is a vast topic. Here I can do nothing more than give some directions for thinking about it. What needs to be clari®ed is what Wittgenstein understood by the 62

Cf. Waismann, 1956, p. 12: we only describe; we do not `explain'. [Here single quotes seem to be equivalent to the italics in x109.]

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project of describing the grammar of our language,63 and there are here at least three dimensions of uncertainty. (a) The explanations to be avoided are not con®ned to scienti®c theories (even though scienti®c discoveries have no authority to e€ect modi®cations to grammar). The explanations put on the Index include anything which generates ``musts'' and ``cannots'' about how words are used: and hence, anything which opposes looking and seeing how language functions (xx5, 66). This will include a large (and variable!) range of pictures, prejudices, dogmas, and philosophical theories of language which have certainly not been advocated as empirical or scienti®c generalizations. For example Augustine's picture of language (x1); Frege's claims that every judgment can be analyzed as the value of a function for an argument and that every concept must be de®ned for every object (cf x71); or the theses of the Tractatus that every propositional-sign must be a fact or that every proposition must be a truth-function of elementary propositions. It is this kind of claim that is to be excluded by rigorously adhering to the principle that there are no deductions within grammar (x126). Similarly, it is just these metaphysical statements that are to be undermined by bringing such terms as ``sentence'' and ``language'' back from their `metalogical0 to their everyday use (x108, cf. x116). ``Explanations, in our sense'', one might say, covers a multitude of sins. (b) Descriptions of the grammar of our language are not concerned with facticity, with establishing what is the actual public practice of the English-speaking peoples. Wittgenstein's descriptions include possibilities (x244), imaginary language-games (xx1, 2, . . .),64 objects of comparison (xx130±1), similes and pictures of word-use (xx422-5), and aspects of our use of words (x123).65 Acceptance of his descriptions is always voluntary; it is a form of free acknowledgement (BT 408±9). The aim of any philosophical investigation is to bring to my consciousness an internal con¯ict (CV 16); a clash between di€erent things that I feel driven to say. [Nothing can be established against my willÐas objective facts about the grammar of my language! Because rules cannot operate at a distance! I can follow only those rules which I acknowledge.] Consequently, ``descriptions, in our sense'' has an application far more open-ended and person-relative than one might expect. (c) Descriptions of the grammar of our language are con®ned to everyday, nontechnical terminology for speaking about how we speak. (Our everyday metadiscourse is itself a major topic of philosophical investigation, not something that stands outside the paths of Wittgenstein's investigations.) What is excluded here is `scienti®c' discoveries about word-use; e.g. a grammarian's de®nition of the category of `static verbs', or the philosopher's claim that the word ``that'' which introduces an indirect statement is really a demonstrative pronoun. According to this conception, 63 Some of the ambiguities of `the grammar of our language' are discussed in Baker, 1992, pp. 107±131; and di€erent conceptions of the clari®cation of grammar are developed in Baker [forthcoming]. 64 CV 74: Nothing is more important for teaching us to understand the concepts we have than constructing ®ctitious ones. 65 Perhaps the pattern of using arithmetical equations for the purpose of transforming one empirical statement into another; hence the possibility of seeing equations under the guise of rules of grammar (a conception [Au€assung] of arithmetic).

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there is no meta-languageÐjust as there is no meta-mathematics (PG 296). [In this sense, language must speak for itself (cf PG 40, 63).]66 Our method is purely descriptive, not purely descriptive. Here italics are to be understood as gesturing at Wittgenstein's own complex conception of description and explanation. This device should arguably here be cashed out into the phrase ``in our sense''. This makes a BIG di€erence to the content of this crucial remarkÐand to grasping the spirit of all his philosophical investigations. In all four cases, these remarks have been generally interpreted without any careful attention to the occurrence of italics. If noticed at all, emphasis has been taken simply to demonstrate that Wittgenstein took these remarks to be of cardinal importance within the framework of his thinking. This manifests serious misunderstanding in each case. Indeed, available interpretations pin on him various dogmas that he would surely have disowned (e.g. that following a rule must be a public practice shared within a community, i.e. that this is part of the grammar of the term ``rule''). A better understanding of his varied uses of italics might have helped to forestall these serious misinterpretations. The same point holds for dozens of other important remarks in the corpus of his work. Here is a small sample: x115: A picture held us captive. x241: It is what human beings say that is true and false; and they agree in the language they use. That is not agreement in opinions but in form of life. (x307) If I do speak of a ®ction, then it is of a grammatical ®ction. (Z x423) The red visual impression is a new concept. PI p. 204: A concept forces itself on one. PI p. 208: ``Now he's seeing it like this'', ``now like that'' would be said only of someone capable of making certain applications of the ®gure quite freely. The substratum of this experience is the mastery of a technique. But how queer for this to be the logical condition of someone's having such-and-such an experience! (PI p.226) What has to be accepted, the given, isÐone could sayÐforms of life. 6. Envoi This paper is unusual in two respects: First, it is intended to make visible an aspect of Wittgenstein's method, viz various signi®cant patterns in his use of italics. For this purpose, it o€ers what I hope are persuasive interpretations of a few pivotal remarks. None of this is, in one sense, de®nitive or conclusive. Somebody who is determined to uphold a di€erent position (in support of customs' being shared practices or philosophy's being essentially descriptive) cannot be dislodged by force 66

This is not what Wittgenstein himself meant by this slogan!

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of argument. Here, as elsewhere, aspect-seeing is voluntary. Possibilities may be exhibited, but nothing proved. Some philosophers will think that this concession makes my enterprise pointless. What is certainly true is that they will gain nothing from it. Second, I do sincerely think that this paper will achieve little of real value unless it stimulates others take up the challenge to think out for themselves how to interpret remarks in Wittgenstein's texts where italics play a signi®cant role. I have tried to demonstrate a method of interpretation in a few cases. There are countless cases where important work remains to be done. 7. Abbreviations used for references in the text 7.1 Published works The following abbreviations are used to refer to Wittgenstein's published works, including derivative primary sources and lecture notes taken by others. WWK Ludwig Wittgenstein und der Wiener Kreis, shorthand notes recorded by F. Waismann, ed. B. F. McGuinness (Blackwell, Oxford, 1967). The English translation, Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle (Blackwell, Oxford, 1979), matches the pagination of the original edition. PR Philosophical Remarks, ed. R. Rhees, tr. R. Hargreaves and R. White (Blackwell, Oxford, 1975). PG Philosophical Grammar, ed. R. Rhees, tr. A. J. P. Kenny (Blackwell, Oxford, 1974). BB The Blue and Brown Books (Blackwell, Oxford, 1958). LPE `Wittgensteins's Notes for Lectures on ``Private Experience'' and ``Sense Data'', ed. R. Rhees, Philosophical Review, 77 (1968), pp. 275±320. LSD The Language of Sense Data and Private Experience' (Notes taken by R. Rhees of Wittgenstein's lectures, 1936), Philosophical Investigations, 7 (1984), pp. 1±45, 101±40. RFM Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, ed. G. H. von Wright, R. Rhees, G. E. M. Anscombe, revised edition (Blackwell, Oxford, 1978). LFM Wittgenstein's Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics, Cambridge 1939, ed. C. Diamond (Harvester Press, Sussex, 1976). PI Philosophical Investigations, ed. G. E. M. Anscombe and R. Rhees, tr. G. E. M. Anscombe, 2nd Ed. (Blackwell, Oxford, 1958). Z Zettel, ed. G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright, tr. G. E. M. Anscombe (Blackwell, Oxford, 1967). RPPI Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, Volume I, ed. G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright, tr. G. E M Anscombe (Blackwell, Oxford, 1980). RPP II Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, Volume II, ed. G. H. von Wright and H. Nyman, tr. C. G. Luckhardt and M. A. E. Aue (Blackwell, Oxford, 1980).

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LPP CV PLP F LSP GB

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Wittgenstein's Lectures on Philosophy of Psychology 1946±7, notes by P. T. Geach, K. J. Shah, A. C. Jackson, ed. P. T. Geach (Harverster Wheatsheaf, Hemel Hempstead, 1988). Culture and Value, ed. G. H. von Wright in collaboration with H. Nyman, tr. P. Winch (Blackwell, Oxford, 1980). The Principles of Linguistic Philosophy, F. Waismann, ed. R. Harre (Macmillan and St Martin's Press, London and New York, 1965). DicteÂes de Wittgenstein aÁ Waismann et pour Schlik, ed. Gordon Barker; trans. under the direction of Antonia Soulez. P.U.F., Paris, 1997. Logik, Sprache, Philosophie, ed. G. P. baker and B. F. McGuinness, Reclam, Stuttgart. `Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough', tr. J. Beverluis, reprinted in Wittgenstein: Sources and Perspectives, ed. C. G. Luckhardt, Cornell UP, Ithaca, 61±81.

Reference style; all simple references of the form x243 are to Philosophical Investigations, Part I. References to other printed works are either to sections signi®ed `x' (Z, RPP, LW) or otherwise to pages (e.g. LFM 21=LFM page 21). 7.2 Nachlass All references to unpublished material cited in the von Wright catalogue (G. H. von Wright, Wittgenstein (Blackwell, Oxford, 1982), pp. 35€. are by MS. or TS. number followed by page number. BT The `Big Typescript' (TS. 213) 1993, vi pp. table of contents, 768 pp. DS `Diktat fur Schlick'. (TS. 302. French translation published as DicteÂes de Wittgenstein aÁ Waismann et pour Schlick, 1997, P.U.F., Paris). References Adams, C., Tannery, P., 1897±1910. Oeuvres de Descartes, 12 vols. LeÂopold Cerf, Paris. Baker, G.P., 1992. Some remarks on ``language'' and ``grammar''. In: Grazer Philosophische Studien, vol. 42. Baker, G.P. forthcoming. A vision of philosophy. Baker, G.P., Hacker, P.M.S., 1980. Understanding and Meaning. Blackwell, Oxford. Baker, G.P., Hacker, P.M.S., 1985. Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar and Necessity. Blackwell, Oxford. Boltzmann, L., 1974. In: McGuinness B.F. (Ed.), Theoretical Physics and Philosophical Problems. Reidel, Dordrecht & Boston. Frege, G., 1879. Begri€sschrift, eine der arithmetischen nachgebildete Formelsprache des reinen Denkens, 1879, L. Nebert, Halle. [Photo reproduction: 1964, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt.] Frege, G., 1960. Concept and Object (P. Geach, Trans.). In: Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, tr. P.T. Geach and M. Black. Blackwell, Oxford. (Uber Begri€ und Gegenstand.) Frege, G. 1959. The Foundations of Arithmetic, a Logico-mathematical Enquiry into the Concept of Number, (J.L. Austin, Trans.), 2nd ed. Blackwell, Oxford. Freud, S., 1963. In: Stratchey (Eds.), The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Hogarth, London. Hacker, P.M.S., 1985. Rules, Grammar, and Necessity. Blackwell, Oxford. Hacker, P.M.S., 1990. Wittgenstein: Meaning and Mind. Blackwell, Oxford.

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Hallett, G., 1977. A Companion to Wittgenstein's ``Philosophical Investigations''. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, and London. Locke, Watts, Hume and Schopenhauer. Malcolm, N., 1995. Wittgensteinian Themes, Cornell. University Press, Ithaca. Monk, R., 1990. Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. Jonathan Cape, London. Moore, G.E. 1959. Wittgenstein's Lectures in 1930±33, Mind LX111 and LXIV (Reprinted in Philosophical Papers. George, Allen and Unwin, London. References are to this edition.) Morris, K.J., 1994. Wittgenstein on the ``context principle''. Philosophical Quarterly, 44, 294±310. Russell, B. 1912. The Problems of Philosophy. Oxford University Press, London. Russell, B., 1973. An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth. Fletcher and Son Ltd, Norwich. von Wright, G.H., 1963. Norm and Action, Routledge and Keegan Paul, London. Waismann, F., 1956. How I See Philosophy. Macmillan, London. Waismann, F., 1976. In: Baker, G.P. and McGuinness, B.F. (Eds.), Logik, Sprache, Philosophie. Reclam, Stuttgart. Wittgenstein, L., 1993. In: Klagge, J., Nordmann, A. (Eds.), Philosophical Occasions: 1912±1915. Hackett Publishing Company, Cambridge.