ABSTRACT
Wittgenstein’s writings from 1929 to 1936/1937, aptly dubbed “transitional”, show him struggling to shake the influence of the Tractatus and groping towards the viewpoint pioneered in the Investigations. Only after much twisting and turning, and more than a few stumbles, did he mange to free himself from what he took to be his earlier errors and discover the path he would travel for the rest of his life. During these years he shifted his ground on many matters, some small, some big. Thus he modified and eventually dropped the claim, central to the Tractatus, that elementary propositions are independent, substituted the idea of a motley of languages for the idea of a single language, came to construe meaning in terms of rules rather than in terms of naming, straightened out his view of colloquial language as completely in order, and turned the spotlight on understanding, intending and thinking, topics that received short shrift in the Tractatus. Yet not everything changed, and some of what is generally believed to have changed remained intact. In particular Wittgenstein did not shift his view of language in the mid-1930s and renounce “the calculus model of language” for “the language-game model”. Contrary to conventional wisdom, he continued to treat language in calculus-like terms, and it is a mistake to regard the notion of a language-game as a mainstay, never mind the mainstay, of his later philosophy.
