ABSTRACT
It’s a curious fact about pictures that most philosophers never use them. Browse through the works of the great philosophers and you will find almost no pictures at all. Wittgenstein is an exception; his works are filled with little sketches and rough diagrams. Descartes is another, though his diagrams are mostly connected with the scientific aspects of his work. If we leave Descartes aside, it’s probably no exaggeration to say that there are as many pictures in Wittgenstein’s published works as there are in all the other great philosophers combined. And what he has to say about pictures, diagrams and illustrations is interesting and important – though often only implicit in his remarks. Wittgenstein in later years may have abandoned his ‘picture theory of meaning’, but not his fondness for pictures.
