Although the topics addressed by this final group of games are not new, the fact that there is an average of one game per page means that the text will have a somewhat different character.
56-61: prediction of the future and “can” as a conjecture
Game 56 introduces a long commentary of its own
but in the shorter one after game 61 (p. 112) Wittgenstein explains how these examples are connected with his interest in abilities.
62-66: ascribing an ability
The extended commentaries following games 64 and 66 are indications that these examples get at the heart of Wittgenstein’s interests here. I already noted concerning The Blue Book that the ability to continue a mathematical series often serves him as a surrogate for the ability to use a language. And the phrase “Now I can go on” receives extended attention in his Philosophical Investigations. There he makes it clear that he focuses on this phrase because “Now I can go on” can seem to both report a mental event and assert a grasp of meaning, and this can seem to cast doubt on his view that the meaningfulness of signs does not lie in an accompanying mental process.
67-69: reading machines
Wittgenstein here returns to topics of rule-following. “Reading machines” provide a simple model for cases where following rules is a matter of being “guided” by something. Watch for places where he touches on the issue of whether being guided consists in the existence of a certain mental process.
70-73: deriving
Although these games enrich his set of examples a little further, our chief interest will be in Wittgenstein’s comments on philosophical method at the end.