Write a paper (c. 5 pp. or 1500 words) on one of the topics below. In evaluating your papers, I will consider both your understanding of Wittgenstein and your own thinking regarding the issues his book raises, so be sure to give ample attention to presenting your own thinking. An important aspect of the latter is your success in discussing both sides of any issue you consider.

• Choose one of the numbered remarks from the Philosophical Investigations, or a few shorter remarks on a single topic, and

• consider what Wittgenstein’s aim seems to be in this remark (although his general aim at any given point is usually to free himself or his reader from the grip of some philosophical confusion, individual remarks may have more specific aims of a different sort);

• discuss the way in which the remark seems designed to serve that aim;

• consider a philosophical position that would find something to object to in what Wittgenstein does here (in some cases, he presents such a position in the remark); and

• develop your own thinking about this issue by evaluating the relative strength of the two sides.

• A topic of your own, cleared with me in advance.