Write a paper (of about 8 pp. or 2400 words) in which you consider concerning an issue of interpretation of Wittgenstein raised in the secondary literature. The focus of your paper should be the consideration and evaluation of alternative ways of understanding a remarks (or small group of remarks) in Wittgenstein; and, in the course of doing this, you should refer to a secondary source in which at least one of these interpretations is discussed. While the Investigations is the easiest source of topics, you may discuss the interpretation of a remark or remarks in the Tractatus or On Certainty.

Issues of interpretation can be quite specific. For example, it is sometimes unclear whether a given sentence in the Investigations represents something Wittgenstein endorses, something he feels inclined to say but thinks better of, or something he imagines someone else saying. But interpretative issues can also be very general. One sort of example of this kind is the question of what he means by some key term (such as “language game,” “family resemblance,” or “private language”); another is the question of what he is up to, what he is trying to accomplish, in a given part of the work. A full treatment of such general issues would require a much longer paper than I am asking of you (or perhaps even a book); but, it may be possible to address them as they apply to a single remark or a few remarks.

The commentaries on the Investigations are full of discussions of issues of interpretation (and a similar work on the Tractatus, Max Black's A Companion to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus is also on reserve). While the discussions of individual remarks in the commentaries will, of course, raise such issues, the more general discussions will often state them more explicitly. In addition, there are a number of collections of essays on Wittgenstein in Lilly (I’ll put a few on reserve), and there is much discussion in journal literature. (A quick, but somewhat crude, way to see what journal literature is available on JSTOR is to search on something like “Wittgenstein” or “Wittgenstein Investigations” and the number of a remark you are interested in.)

Although I am asking you to refer to a discussion in the secondary literature, don’t think of your task as being to report on such a discussion. I am primarily interested in having you consider what can be said on each side of an issue of interpretation from your own point of view, but I am asking you to do so in a way is informed to some extent by the secondary literature.