ABSTRACT
In 1929, Wittgenstein watched the Tractatus collapse before his eyes. By 1931, the outlines of a new view were in place. One thesis of this essay is that what happened then also changed drastically Wittgenstein’s relation to Frege. The source of the collapse can be traced back to the difference between Russell’s and Frege’s conceptions of thought, or of representing-as, as emerges in the correspondence between these two, between 1902 and 1904. Though young Wittgenstein took pains to hold Russell at arm’s length, what separated Russell from Frege—what Russell failed to understand about what Frege was doing—were so profound as to survive mere arm’s length distances, so that what remained of Russellian influence in the Tractatus is precisely what undermined it. In brief, the Tractatus is blind to the point of Frege’s argument (nominally) against ‘correspondence’ theories of truth. Later Wittgenstein thus emerges as much closer to Frege than his young self. The present essay begins to say some things as to just how. In particular, later Wittgenstein took over Frege’s anti-reductionist and anti-naturalist concerns. Which, of course, is more than reason enough, if not the only reason, for Wittgenstein to feel alienated from the temper of the times.
