Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations

During his lifetime, Wittgenstein published only one philosophical book, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, written while he was a soldier in the First World War and published shortly afterwards. After publish- ing a short conference contribution in 1929, which he had repudiated by the time he was due to read it, none of his subsequent work satisfied him enough that he was willing to give it to the printer. In his will, he left his unpublished papers, usually referred to as his Nachlass, con- sisting of approximately twelve thousand pages of manuscript and eight thousand pages of typescript, to G. E. M. Anscombe, Rush Rhees, and G. H. von Wright. Shortly after Wittgenstein’s death, Anscombe and Rhees edited, and Anscombe translated, Philosophical Investigations, the book Wittgenstein had worked on from 1929 to 1949.