Abstract

Ludwig Wittgenstein can probably be regarded as the most enigmatic philosopher of this century. His works have now been taken on by the renowned Cambridge Companions series. It is no simple task which editors Hans Sluga and David Stern have set themselves in their attempt to fulfil the goals defined in the cover text — particularly when the subject is Wittgenstein: “to use contributions from an international team of scholars to illuminate the character of the whole body of the work so that students and non-specialists can gain access to him”. This in itself implies the existence of a consensus — with regard at least to the basics — on precisely this character of Wittgenstein’s thinking. The existing multiplicity of Wittgenstein interpretations offers eloquent proof that such is still not the case and in fact a more modest and welcome goal of such a “companion” would be to dispose of all the repeated attempts to claim Wittgenstein for whichever interpretation is in fashion