Predictive Knowledge in Wittgenstein

Predictive statements deserve a specific grammatical
inquiry, since they have not only an epistemological status,
but also appear in Wittgenstein"s writings on philosophy of
psychology and touch deeply the problem of free will. So
predictive knowledge covers a very large spectrum of
human experience. This grammatical exploration leads to
acknowledge an essential difference between predictive
statements, which are expressions or exteriorisations of
will (Willensäusserungen) and predictions, which are made
from the perspective of the third person (although they can
be uttered in the first). As Wittgenstein notes: "Two things
however, are important: one, that in many cases someone
else cannot predict my actions, whereas I foresee them in
my intentions; the other, that my prediction (in my
expression of intention) has not the same foundation as
his prediction of what I shall do, and the conclusions to be
drawn from these predictions are quite different� (PI, Iixi,
224e). It is the grammatical elucidation of predictive
language games that allows us to solve the problem of the
incompatibility between predicted and at the same time
free choices.