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 |title=Philosophical Investigations
-|content=-->"Philosophical Investigations" is the title that Wittgenstein, starting from the mid-1930s, began to attribute to a collection of German-written manuscripts, often converted into typescripts, which he submitted many times to extensive and compulsive revisions, in an attempt to shape a second book of philosophy that never saw the light of day during the author's lifetime: it was only in 1953 that Wittgenstein's literary executors posthumously published the text with an English translation, in a form that has not failed to provoke criticism due to the inclusion of a so-called “Part II” of the work. The contents of this section were apparently derived from materials collected by Wittgenstein during his last period of teaching in Cambridge between 1947 and 1949. Those materials were later selected by the philosopher himself and typed out. While Wittgenstein's literary executors claimed that it was his intention to incorporate these contents into the final version of the work, there is no irrefutable confirmation of this. Additionally, the themes discussed in "Part II" are undeniably more aligned with the work Wittgenstein carried out on the philosophy of psychology during those years of teaching. For these reasons, on our website, we exclusively reproduce what is known as the "Part I" of the work. This follows the suggestion of Joachim Schulte, the editor of the [https://www.suhrkamp.de/buch/ludwig-wittgenstein-philosophische-untersuchungen-t-9783518223727 German edition of the ''Philosophical Investigations''], who also observes that the integration proposed by the literary executors, while undoubtedly welcomed at the time of publication as it allowed readers of the ''Investigations'' to become acquainted with Wittgenstein's reflections that had otherwise been kept hidden for many years, is now superfluous, because many of the contents of “Part II” were channeled by Wittgenstein into the ''Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology''.
+|content=-->"Philosophical Investigations" is the title that Wittgenstein, starting from the mid-1930s, attributed to a collection of German-language manuscripts, often converted into typescripts, which he repeatedly, extensively, and compulsively revised in an attempt to shape his second book of philosophy. Even if the resulting typescript (Ts-227 in von Wright's catalogue) is considered to be the most polished among the later Wittgenstein's writings, the book did not see the light of day during the author's lifetime: it was only in 1953 that Wittgenstein's literary executors posthumously published the text along with G.E.M. Anscombe’s English translation, in a form that has not failed to provoke criticism due to the inclusion of a so-called “Part II” of the work. The content of this section consists of materials written between 1947 and 1949, which Wittgenstein made a selection of and had typed out (the resulting typescript was catalogued as Ts-234). G.E.M. Anscombe and Rush Rhees claimed that it was his intention to incorporate these contents into the final version of the work, but they also made it clear that it was their decision to attach "Part II", in its relatively "raw" form, to the relatively "finished" text of "Part I". Additionally, the themes discussed in "Part II" are more closely related to the work Wittgenstein carried out on the philosophy of psychology after 1945. For these reasons, on our website, we exclusively reproduce what is known as "Part I" of the work, as do an increasing number of recent editions of the ''Philosophical Investications'' – for example, Joachim Schulte's [https://www.suhrkamp.de/buch/ludwig-wittgenstein-philosophische-untersuchungen-t-9783518223727 German edition]. Schulte also observes that the integration proposed by the literary executors, while it was welcome at the time of publication as it allowed the reader of the ''Investigations'' to become acquainted with reflections by Wittgenstein that would otherwise have remained unknown for many years, is now superfluous, because the content of "Part II" is now widely available thanks to the electronic editions of the ''Nachlass''.
-Although the final version of the first part of the work was only composed between 1943 and 1945, with some marginal rehashes thereafter, it would be flawed to argue that the ''Investigations'' reflect Wittgenstein's thought limited to the late 1940s. As he writes in the Preface, the ideas contained in the book are “the precipitate of philosophical investigations which have occupied me for the last sixteen years”. Therefore, the ''Philosophical Investigations'' can be considered a synthesis of Wittgenstein's mature thought, following his return to philosophy in 1929. Once again, the result of years of gestation was a complex work, devoid of a hierarchical structure and a definitive status unlike the ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'', but equally rich and surprising.
+Although the final version of the first part of the work was only composed between 1943 and 1945, with some marginal rehashes thereafter, it would be flawed to argue that the ''Investigations'' reflect a phase of Wittgenstein's thought whose scope is limited to the early 1940s. As he writes in the Preface, the ideas contained in the book are "the precipitate of philosophical investigations which have occupied me for the last sixteen years". Therefore, the ''Philosophical Investigations'' can be considered a synthesis of Wittgenstein's mature thought, following his return to philosophy in 1929. Once again, the result of years of gestation was a complex work, devoid of a hierarchical structure and a definitive status unlike the ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'', but equally rich and surprising.
 In the 693 numbered paragraphs of the first part of the work, which follow slender and rarely explicit logical threads, Wittgenstein addresses many subjects, as summarized in the Preface: “the concepts of meaning, of understanding, of a proposition and sentence, of logic, the foundations of mathematics, states of consciousness, and other things”, without, however, providing a systematic treatment of them, but rather free remarks or, as the author puts it, “a number of sketches of landscapes which were made in the course of those long and meandering journeys”. This method corresponds to a renewed conception of the nature of the philosophical enterprise, which Wittgenstein presents in paragraphs 109-133: as he had already argued in the ''Tractatus'', the aim is to solve philosophical pseudo-problems by dissolving the confusions that arise in the everyday use of language. However, for the author of the ''Investigations'', this activity of clarification no longer involves a refinement of the linguistic code according to ideal, logical criteria. “Every sentence in our [ordinary] language is in order as it is” ([[Philosophische Untersuchungen#98|§ 98]]): these kind of observations convey the idea that the principles that define the meaningfulness of language reside within language itself, and its intelligibility does not derive from compliance with logical rules, but rather from "grammatical" rules, that is, from the overall evaluation of the diverse uses of signs. Consequently, the philosopher's task does not consist in providing explanations about the nature of language, but rather in offering descriptions of language use, thus elucidating the inconspicuous implications of the linguistic activity that are not immediately recognizable.