Peter Winch on the Tractatus and the unity of Wittgenstein’s philosophy

Abstract

Peter Winch rejected the widespread view that Wittgenstein put forwardtwo entirely different philosophies in his early and later work. He took the“two-Wittgenstein” view to be associated with serious misunderstandings ofboth the Tractatus and Wittgenstein’s later thought. In this paper, Winch’sreading of the Tractatus and his criticisms of Norman Malcolm’s interpretationare examined. The paper tries to show that Winch was right in rejecting“mentalist” readings of the Tractatus, but that there are also problemswith Winch’s own reading.