Presented here is the transcript of a BBC radio broadcast by Elizabeth Anscombe that was recorded in May 1953 – the month when Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations appeared in England for the first time. In her radio talk, Anscombe provides some biographical and philosophical background for reading the Philosophical Investigations. She addresses the importance of the Tractatus and of the literary qualities of Wittgenstein’s writing. Anscombe warns that it would be fruitless to adopt slogans from Wittgenstein without insight. She also calls it a misunderstanding to think that Wittgenstein had championed something like the Ordinary Language Philosophy as it was practised at the time of the recording.

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Rush Rhees, Elizabeth Anscombe and Georg Henrik von Wright were Wittgenstein’s literary heirs and edited many posthumous volumes from Wittgenstein’s writings. Their archived correspondence provides unique insights into this editorial work. The selection of letters written by Rhees which is presented here stems from an early phase of his editorial endeavour to shed light on Wittgenstein’s philosophical development between the TLP and the PI. The letters were written between 1962 and 1964, in connection with the volume that appeared as Philosophische Bemerkungen (PB 1964), and show how Rhees’ understanding of Wittgenstein’s texts developed during editing. They contain some of the central considerations that governed Rhees’ work as Wittgenstein’s literary executor.