After describing a period in Wittgenstein’s life where he experienced inner feelings of anxiety, guilt and fear – he was always a complicated person – Ray Monk offers the following. Wittgenstein was staying in Norway in 1937 and had trouble working. Monk goes on to note:

 “When, during the following few days, he was able to work again, he thanked God for a gift he did not deserve. He always felt, he wrote, what a truly devout person never feels – that God was responsible for what he was: ‘It was the opposite of piety. Again and again I want to say: “God, if you do not help me, what can I do?”' And although this attitude accords with what the Bible teaches, it is not that of a truly devout man, for such a one would assume responsibility for himself. ‘You must STRIVE,’ he urged himself; ‘never mind God.’”

Two paragraphs later, Monk continues: 

“On the ship to Bergen Wittgenstein wrote of Christ’s Resurrection and of what inclined even him to believe in it. If Christ did not rise from the dead, he reasoned, then he decomposed in the grave like any other man. ‘HE IS DEAD AND DECOMPOSED.’ He had to repeat an underline the thought to appreciate its awfulness. For if that were the case, then Christ was a teacher like any other, ‘and can no longer HELP; and once more we are orphaned and alone. So we have to content ourselves with wisdom and speculation.’  And if that is all we have, then: ‘We are in a sort of hell where we can do nothing but dream, roofed in, as it were, and cut off from heaven.’ If he wanted to be saved, to be redeemed, then wisdom was not enough; he needed faith:

 “And faith is faith in what is needed by my HEART, my SOUL, not my speculative intelligence. For it is my soul with its passions, as it were with its flesh and blood, that has to be saved, not my abstract mind. Perhaps we can only say: Only LOVE can believe in the Resurrection. Or: it is LOVE that believes the Resurrection. We might say: Redeeming love believes even in the Resurrection; holds fast even to Resurrection … 

What combats doubt is, as it were, REDEMPTION. Holding fast to THIS must be holding fast to that belief. …”

[Note: allcaps substitued for italics -- sw]

 Source: Ray Monk, The Duty of Genius, at page 382-383. Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.

Hermine observes the following changes in her brother ...

"Already at that time, a profound transformation was taking place in Ludwig, the results of which were not to be apparent until after the war, and which finally culminated in his decision not to possess any more wealth. ...

His second decision, to choose a completely unpretentious vocation and perhaps to become a country schoolteacher, was at first incomprehensible even to me. Since we, his brothers and sisters, very often communicated with each other in comparisons, I told him … that imagining him with his philosophically-trained mind as an elementary school teacher it was to me as if someone were to use a precision instrument to open crates. Thereupon Ludwig answered with a comparison which silenced me[,] for he said, "You remind me of someone who is looking through a closed window and cannot explain to himself the strange movements of a passer-by. He doesn’t know what kind of a storm is raging outside and that this person is perhaps only with great effort keeping himself on his feet." It was then that I understood his state of mind."

----- Hermine Wittgenstein

 Sources: Rush Rhees, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Personal Recollections, Blackwell 1981 p. 4-5; Michael Nedo, Guy Moreton and Alec Finlay, “Ludwig Wittgenstein, There Where You are Not,” 2005, at p. 39.

Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.

... regarding G. E. M. Anscombe's translation and the need for a new edition, Hacker and Schulte offer the following in the 4th edition of Philosophical Investigations:

"Anscombe's translation was an impressive achievement. She invented an English Equivalent for Wittgenstein's distinctive, often colloquial, style. This was no mean feat. For she had to find not only English analogues of Wittgenstein's stylistic idiosyncracies, but also an English rhythm that would convey the character of Wittgenstein's carefully crafted prose. Her success is indisputable.

Nevertheless, there are errors of different kinds in ... [Philosophic Investigations]. It was because of these that the Wittgenstein editorial advisory committee agreed to the production of a new edition. But, given the excellence of the Anscombe translation, it was resolved that rather than making a completely new one, we should build on Anscombe's achievement and produce a modified translation, rectifying any errors or misjudgements we discerned in hers. It should be emphasized that many of the errors in the ... [older editions of PI] could not have been identified in the 1950s, prior to the availability and extensive study of the Wittgenstein Nachlass, some crucial items of which did not come to light until decades later."   (4th Edition PI, page viii). 

Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.

According to Norman Malcolm, Wittgenstein made the following remark (to Malcolm) in the late summer of 1949 regarding what has become known as Philosophical Investigations:

"... if he had the money, he thought he would have his book (TS 227, the typescript of the Investigations) mimeographed and distributed among his friends. He said that it was not in a completely finished state, but that he did not think that he could give the final polish to it in his lifetime. The plan would have the merit that he could put in parenthesis after a remark, expressions of dissatisfaction, like 'This is not quite right' or 'This is fishy'. He would like to put his book into the hands of his friends, but to take it to a publisher right now was out of the question."

After quoting that passage, Hacker and Schulte in the new (4th) edition go on to say:

"Whatever Wittgenstein's final intentions were, the fact is that the closest he ever came to completing the Philosophical Investigations is the current text consisting of ss 1-693. It is, we believe, this text that should be known as Witgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. What has hitherto been called 'Philosophical Investigations, Part II' was a re-arranged set of remarks written between 1946 and 1949 dealing chiefly with questions in what Wittgenstein called 'philosophy of psychology'. We have named it 'Philosophy of Psychology -- A Fragment.' This is, in effect, a reconstruction of ... typescript 234, based on MS 144 and the printed version in the previous editions of the Investigations."

Sources. Hacker and Schulte, p. xxii-xxiii (revised 4th edition of PI), and Malcolm, Ludwig Wittgenstein -- A Memoir, 2nd Ed., p. 75.   Regards. 

Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.

With regard to the process used to "vet" the new translations of PI, Hacker and Schulte note the following:

1. The idea for a new translation was brought up "at what turned out to be one of the last meetings of the Wittgenstein trustees." (v)

2. "The trustees, with the exception of Anthony Kenny, became members of what is now the Wittgenstein editorial advisory committee" (v)

3. They originally thought the translation would take "a few months," but took much longer (v)

4. When they had a finished draft, they solicited comments from Wittgenstein scholars, including Kenny and Brian McGuinnes, among others. (vi). [Ray Monk is not listed as being included].

5. The discussions were "intense and lengthy" and led to "a great number of changes." (vi)

6. And certain other comments were obtained from other scholars. (vi)

All of this appears in the "Editors' and Translators' Acknowledgements for the Fourth Edition." The point is to give thanks to colleagues and to show the process for vetting the new judgments. (Note: British spelling of acknowledgments).

Regards.

Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.