Abstract

An attempt is made to show that Wittgenstein's later philosophy of logic is not the kind of conventionalism which is often ascribed to him. On the contrary, Wittgenstein gives expression to a “mixed” theory which is not only interesting but tends to resolve the perplexities usually associated with the question of the a priori character of logical truth. I try to show that Wittgenstein is better understood not as denying that there are such things as “logical rules” nor as denying that the results of applying such rules are “logically necessary,” but as trying to understand what it is to appeal to a logical rule and what it means to say that the results of applying such a rule are “necessary.” He is not so much overthrowing standard accounts of logical necessity as discovering the limits of the concept.