Book review: Seeing the Wood with the Help of the Trees

Two Wittgenstein publications of 1996 stand out as required comment, and both exemplify my title: the fifth (and alas possibly the last) volume of the Wiener Ausgabe, edited by Michael Nedo and published by Springer, and Farbthemen in Wittgensteins Gesamtnachlass by Josef Rothhaupt, published by Beltz. There is, of course, still a place for well-distanced, perspective views of the wood. I have found Ayer and Pears (the latter fortunately still alive) both helpful in this respect; for a forty five year long acquaintance with Wittgenstein's trees, branches, twigs, leaves and undergrowth, and twenty years of studying them in the form of the Cornell microfilms, does, one must admit, take some assimilating. Nevertheless, if we are to understand how Wittgenstein's mind worked when he turned philosophy upside down for us, we have to brave the detail.