INTRODUCTION

In this essay I shall try to describe the central features of Wittgenstein's critique of traditional philosophy as they appear in their most mature form in the Philosophical Investigations and in the Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics. The leading idea can be stated quite simply: Philosophers are led into confusion because they are antecedently disposed to view various uses of language in ways inappropriate to them. This is not usually (or simply) a matter of reasoning from false premises about language but is, instead, a tendency to view language from a skewed or disoriented perspective. The proper task of philosophy-indeed, its whole task-is to induce us to abandon such improper perspectives.

Wittgenstein uses various similes and metaphors to indicate how we can be captured by an inappropriate orientation: “It is like a pair of glasses on our nose through which we see whatever we look at. It never occurs to us to take them off” (PI, 103). Notice that this passage does not suggest that we exchange our glasses for a better pair. We should simply take them off, for our “uncorrected” way of viewing the world was adequate to begin with.