Perspicuity and Aspect

On Wittgenstein's Notion of Übersehen

Abstract

Although Wittgenstein insists on the importance of the notion of a perspicuous representation (übersichtliche Darstellung) in his Philosophical Investigations (section 122), this notion has scarecely been clarified by Wittgenstein scholars. The aim of my paper is to throw light on this notion. A clue is found in the sections 90-92 of Philosophical Investigations, where Wittgenstein explains the aim of his invesitigations by contrasting them with the investigations which aim at exact representaions of the use of our words. Another clue is found in his Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, where Wittgenstein says that changing notation of a proof-pattern that is not perspicuous into one that is perspicuous changes our way of looking at it. From these clues I try to show that the opening sections of Investigations (i. e. a famous example of five-red-apples and a primitive language-game of section 2) should be seen as a typical place where Wittgenstein uses a perspicuous representation as the method of his philosophy.