ABSTRACT
A main source of our failure to understand is that we do not command a clear view of [übersehen] the use of our words.—Our grammar is lacking in this sort of perspicuity [Übersichtlichkeit].—A perspicuous representation [eine übersichtliche Darstellung] produces just that understanding which consists in ‘seeing connexions’. Hence the importance of finding and inventing intermediate cases. The concept of a perspicuous representation is of fundamental significance for us. It earmarks the form of account we give [unsere Darstellungsform], the way we look at things. (Is this a ‘Weltanschauung’?)
(PI §122)
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
This text is well known and often quoted. It seems to condense into one short remark much of Wittgenstein’s distinctive conception of philosophy. It lodges a complaint about ‘the grammar of our language’ (a lack of perspicuity), and it suggests that he took as a primary goal remedying this defect in our understanding by providing ‘representations’ of grammar that would make things perspicuous. The search for perspicuity (Durchsichtigkeit or Übersichtlichkeit) is a leitmotif of his later philosophy, clearly audible from the opening of Philosophical Remarks to the close of Last Writings. It must be an integral part of the philosopher’s business of describing the actual use of language (§124). Indeed, perspicuity might be taken to be the single ultimate end of all of the activities of the philosopher (cf.
