The Big Typescript: TS 213

Wittgenstein's so-called Big Typescript (von Wright Catalog # TS 213) is presented here in an en face English-German edition. In 1933, four years after his return to Cambridge, Wittgenstein set out to dictate a collection of his recent writings to a typist in the form of a book. Based on the ten mansucript volumes he had so far written, The Big Typescript contains a table of contents, and is divided into sections and chapters, which he titles. Even as he was dictating he began revising the text extensively, so that the copy of the typewritten text that survives contains numerous corrections, additions, deletions, alternative words and phrasings, suggestions for moves within the text, and marginal comments, in both handwritten and typed form. This edition includes scholarly indications to help the reader identify these various levels of editing. Long-awaited by the scholarly community, this text provides a fertile source of material for Wittgenstein's subsequent writings, with which it can fruitfully be compared and contrasted.