Subjectivity in the Second Wittgenstein

Abstract

This writing contains the criticisms of traditional notions of subjectivity made by the thus called Second Wittgenstein, whose thought expresses mainly in the Philosophical Investigations. As Wittgenstein himself recommends, the parts of his second thought will be faced up to his first formulations about the “subject”, that had close relation with the notion of subject in Schopenhauer. After we approach briefly Tractatus’s conception of subject, we will present three aspects of Wittgensteinian critique of subjectivity since his Investigations. After that, we will comment two attempts to extract a positive formulation of subjectivity in Wittgenstein, made by Chantal Bax and Søren Overgaard. Beyond exposing the negative, or critical, aspecto f Wittgenstein’s formulations about subjectivity, we intend to answer if the subject and subjectivity, for the Second Wittgenstein, can be known, and if it is possible to extract a positive formulation of subjectivity of wittgensteinian writings.