Wittgenstein famously described his own enquiries as sketches of landscapes made from different directions. The writers in the above volumes survey the landscape of Wittgenstein from a bewildering variety of perspectives, and record meir visions in various styles -media, one might almost say. What goals are worth having in thinking about Wittgenstein, and how should they be embodied in writing? -questions not, perhaps, always to be raised explicitly: but many of the present writers show little evidence of having considered mem. "In me course of a scientific investigation we say all kinds of things; we make many utterances whose role in the investigation we do not understand. For it isn't as though everything we say has a conscious purpose; our tongues just keep going". (Culture and Value p. 64). This captures something I found myself often thinking during my reading for this review.Von Wright, in his collection of studies, does touch upon some of these issues of genre. Let us begin with biographical writings. He remarks that he has never contemplated writing a full-scale biography and continues:"... me best pictures to be drawn of Wittgenstein as a man are impressionistic accounts of conversations and episodes". Taken as a claim about present possibilities, one must agree. But an account of a life can illuminate the man: why not in the case of Wittgenstein? The challenge he presents to the art of biography is indeed formidable, but I think it unwarranted^ pessimistic to accept Von Wright's view as a permanent injunction. (As a prediction, it may turn out to be true.) Indeed Von Wright's study of the origin of the Tractatus partly subverts his own judgment: for (unlike its companion on the Investigations) it is as much a chapter of an unwritten biography as an exercise in textual scholarship, and one which illuminates Wittgenstein's relation to his early work. Meanwhile we have, in Rush Rhees's collection, more such "impressionistic accounts". Von Wright singles out for high praise Fania Pascal's memoir -and it is a splendid piece. She does not write as a self-effacing * To avoid clutter, the above works are referred to by the names of their authors or editors.
New Books an argument of the youthful Freud. However he is mistaken, surely, in saying that Freud translated the Subjection into German. It was not this essay but The Enfranchisement of Women, which (together with three other papers by Mill) Freud translated for the last volume of Mill's Gesammelte Werke, edited by Mill's friend Gomperz. There is a short reading list, no notes, no index. The cover-picture (from Delacroix) shows a topless woman, Liberte, guiding the people in battle. The people shown here are all men.
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