56-61: prediction of the future and “can” as a conjecture

Game 56 introduces a long commentary of its own; and, in the shorter one after game 61 (p. 112), Wittgenstein the previous several examples in a comparably broad context.

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. 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 (see also the discussion of knowing how to go on in the Blue Book, p. 40). In the Investigations 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.