Many contributors of the debate about knowledge by testimony concentrate on the problem of justification. In my paper I will stress a different point – the concept of testimony itself. As a starting point I will use the definitional proposal of Jennifer Lackey. She holds that the concept of testimony should be regarded as entailing two aspects – one corresponding to the speaker, the other one to the hearer. I will adopt the assumption that we need to deal with both (...) aspects. Nevertheless, I will show that her concept – which suggests regarding testimony as an act of communication conveying information – is too broad and, therefore, I will end up with a different twofold definition. (shrink)

Rush Rhees, Elizabeth Anscombe and Georg Henrik von Wright were Wittgenstein’s literary heirs and edited many posthumous volumes from Wittgenstein’s writings. Their archived correspondence provides unique insights into this editorial work. The selection of letters written by Rhees which is presented here stems from an early phase of his editorial endeavour to shed light on Wittgenstein’s philosophical development between the _TLP_ and the _PI_. The letters were written between 1962 and 1964, in connection with the volume that appeared as _Philosophische (...) Bemerkungen_, and show how Rhees’ understanding of Wittgenstein’s texts developed during editing. They contain some of the central considerations that governed Rhees’ work as Wittgenstein’s literary executor. (shrink)

La discussion sur le langage privé que l’on trouve dans les Recherchesphilosophiques a été écrite entre 1937 et 1945, après que les 190 premières remarques de la partie I du livre eurent presque atteint leur forme finale. Les textes post-1936 sur le langage privé constituent un nouveau départ, dans sa lettre et son esprit, par rapport au matériau d’avant 1936.Néanmoins, entre 1929 et 1936, Wittgenstein s’est penché à plusieurs reprises sur l’idée d’un langage « que moi seul peux comprendre ». (...) Un volet de cette question qui, lui, est abordé directement dans les Recherches, c’est l’idée que « si j’appliquais le mot “douleur” uniquement à ce que j’ai nommé jusqu’ici “ma douleur”, et les autres “la douleur de L.W.”, je ne ferais ainsi aucun tort aux autres, si toutefois l’on avait prévu une notation qui d’une façon ou d’une autre, permettrait de pallier l’absence du mot “douleur” dans d’autres combinaisons ». Cependant, la discussion de cette question dans les Recherches est beaucoup plus brève que dans les textes d’avant 1936. J’examine le rapport entre ce § 403 des Recherches d’un côté, et de l’autre côté les textes des cahiers de 1929 et les Remarques philosophiques , en retraçant le développement initial de cette argumentation et en explorant les principales lignes de continuité et de discontinuité dans le traitement que Wittgenstein réserve à la question du langage privé.The discussion of private language in the Investigations was written between 1937 and 1945, after the first 190 remarks of Part I of the book had almost reached their final form. The post-1936 writing on private language represents a fresh start, both in wording and in conception, on the pre-1936 material.Nevertheless, Wittgenstein did repeatedly discuss the idea of a language which “only I myself can understand” during 1929-36. One strand in this discussion that is directly taken up in the Investigations is the idea that “If I were to reserve the word ‘pain’ solely for what I had hitherto called ‘my pain”, and others “L.W.’s pain,” I should do other people no injustice, so long as a notation were provided in which the loss of the word ‘pain’ in other connexions were somehow supplied.” However, the discussion of this topic in the Investigations is much briefer than in the pre-1936 writing. I look at the relationship between §403 and texts from the 1929 notebooks and the Philosophical Remarks, assembled in the spring of 1930, mapping out the earlier development of this line of argument and exploring the principal continuities and discontinuities in Wittgenstein’s treatment of private language. (shrink)

Les Remarques philosophiques sont la première tentative de mettre en oeuvre le programme qui découle de l’échec du projet du Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Le noyau de ce programme est donné par l’abandon de l’analyse des nombres avancée dans le Tractatus. Wittgenstein se rend compte que les nombres doivent se trouver à la base même du langage, dans la structure des propositions élémentaires. En même temps, il se rend compte qu’il est impossible de fournir la logique sousjacente au langage avant d’avoir procédé (...) à l’analyse. Le projet d’une investigation logique des phénomènes s’imposait, donc, même après l’abandon de l’idée d’un langage phénoménologique. The Philosophical Remarks is a first attempt at pursuing the philosophical agenda determined by the failure of the Tractarian project. The central point of this agenda is the abandonment of the analysis of number that had been given in the Tractatus. Wittgenstein realizes that numbers should be brought back to the basis of language, as part of the structure of the elementary propositions themselves. At the same time, he realizes that it is impossible to give the logic underlying our language before the process of logical analysis is carried out. He undertakes the project of a logical investigation of phenomena even after giving up the idea of a phenomenological language. (shrink)

This paper contains a historical introduction and an edition of a hitherto unpublished manuscript of Wittgenstein's that was found among G. H. von Wright's materials kept in Helsinki. The document concentrates on British anti-Nazi propaganda and was written in 1945. Wittgenstein's criticism of this kind of propaganda, such as that promoted by Robert Vansittart, is also present in other sources of this period belonging to both the _Nachlass _and the correspondence.