ABSTRACT
This fragment from 1931, although not published until 1980 in Culture and Value, will surprise most readers accustomed to academic theorists anxious only to impose their own conclusions upon anyone prepared to listen. It was written at a time when Wittgenstein was reacting against his own earlier philosophy, notably the Tractatus (published in 1921 and the only book to appear during his lifetime), and moving towards a new conception of the subject, the originality of which is still a matter of fierce debate. The mirror image is therefore in part autobiographical. Two years earlier he had put it somewhat backhandedly:
I still find my own way of philosophizing new, and it keeps striking me so afresh; that is why I need to repeat myself so often. It will have become second nature to a new generation, to whom the repetitions will be boring. I find them necessary.
