Meaning and Understanding: Relating to the So-called “Gap” of the Philosophical Investigations

Abstract

    Does (the former) “Part II” of the Philosophical Investigations represent departures for new directions toward the “philosophy of psychology”? In this article, we will go back to Wittgenstein's pre-Investigations writings and see that the examination of the concept of meaning experiences, together with the examination of other “peculiar” psychological experiences, constitutes a driving force within his later philosophy. In particular, we will note that Part II of the Brown Book deals predominantly with themes from the philosophy of psychology, and how Wittgenstein attempts therein to represent descriptions of experiences in terms of the grammar of expression, thereby shunning the Augustinian conception of description. Such interest in meaning experiences and related psychological experiences is not fully reflected in the last sections of “Part I” of the Investigations. In view of Wittgenstein's prior concern, the possibility strongly remains that the now severed “Part II” forms in some way an indispensable part of his unfinished masterpiece.