SOURCE: "'The Darkness of This Time': Wittgenstein and the Modern World," in Wittgenstein Centenary Essays, edited by A. Phillips Griffiths, Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 11-39.

In the following essay, Bouveresse discusses Wittgenstein's philosophy in the context of twentieth-century history and culture, particularly that of Germany.

In the preface to the Philosophical Investigations, written in 1945, Wittgenstein remarks that: 'It is not impossible that it should fall to the lot of this work in its poverty and in the darkness of this time, to bring light into one brain or another—but, of course, it is not likely'. There was quite obviously no question for him of endeavouring to dissipate the darkness of the age itself, but at the most of introducing light into a small number of receptive minds, the existence of which he considered, moreover, as problematical. In a rough draft of the preface to the Philosophical Remarks...