ABSTRACT
Also I hope it will now be agreed that it is essential to pore over Wittgenstein’s text to appreciate what he is driving at. It is futile to try to reconstruct §§1-133 as a series of arguments for general philosophical doctrines, if only negative ones, and we miss what is most fascinating and important about the book if we read it as comprising premises and conclusions that can be isolated and evaluated. Wittgenstein’s summary statements can hardly be improved on, and his discussion becomes flat and uninteresting if we take these statements out of context and elevate them to the status of philosophical theses. To do justice to what he is saying, we must regard it as an investigation aimed at uncovering and probing philosophical prejudices and biasses. It is not by chance that Wittgenstein speaks of himself as travelling ‘over a wide field of thought
criss-cross in every direction’ (p. ix) and to get something out of his remarks we have to make the journey with him.
