Is the 4th Edition the New Canonical Philosophical Investigation?:

The Problem of the “Part II”

Abstract

    The fourth edition of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations was published in 2009. The most radical change from previous editions is that the portion that once formed Part II of the book has been discarded in this new edition. This article examines the reasons for eliminating the part given by von Wright and the new editors of the Investigations, attempting to show that those reasons are not convincing. I draw on letters and circumstances to show that Wittgenstein would not have published the manuscript TS227 as it stood. Instead, it is more plausible that the closest that Wittgenstein ever came to completing the Investigations is not the text of TS227 alone but that of TS227 supplemented with further material; the most finished form of the latter is TS234.