596 Book reviews

Volker A. Munz and Bernhard Ritter (eds.) Wittgenstein’s Whewell’s Court Lectures: Cambridge, 1938–1941, from the Notes by Yorick Smythies. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2017, 392 pp.; isbn: 978-1-119-16633-7.

Wittgenstein produced philosophy not only in the form of writing (and some- times dictating) but also in the form of teaching, especially lecturing. In fact, he considered his lecturing a form of publication (see Lewy 1976, xi). Conse- quently, a comprehensive, scholarly study of Wittgenstein’s philosophy not only requires the study of the works published during his lifetime or posthu- mously from his Nachlass (von Wright 1969, bee 2000),1 as well as the Nachlass itself, but also a study of his lectures or what we have as documentation thereof. Wittgenstein offered regular courses at the University of Cambridge dur- ing three periods of time: from Lent term 1930 until Easter term 1936, from Lent term 1938 until Lent term 1943 (with Lent term 1939 for the first time as professor and chair of the department), and from Michaelmas term 1944 until Easter term 1947. Yorick Smythies (1917–1980) attended Wittgenstein’s lectures from Michaelmas term 1935 until Easter term 1947. By 1938, Smythies (S.) and Wittgenstein (W.) had become friends. Although W. tended to dislike it when students took notes during his lectures, he permitted S. to do so. Prior to Munz and Ritter’s edition (abbreviated in the following ‘swn’), W.’s lectures and sub- sequent discussion classes had been available as follows:2

Lent term 1930–Easter term 1936

• 1930L-32E—D. Lee (ed.): Wittgenstein’s Lectures: Cambridge, 1930–1932 (lwl, 1980) • 1930L-33E—G.E. Moore (ed.): Wittgenstein’s Lectures in 1930–33 (mwl, 1954– 55; reprinted in po, 1993) • 1930L-33E—D. Stern, B. Rogers, G. Citron (eds.): Wittgenstein: Lectures, Cam- bridge 1930–1933 (mwn, 2016)

1 For a comprehensive bibliography of Wittgenstein’s works and the abbreviations used for them, see http://www.ilwg.eu/files/Wittgenstein_Bibliographie.pdf. Additional titles re- ferred to in this review are listed under References, below. 2 M = Michaelmas term (October-December), L = Lent term (January-March), E = Easter term (April-June). For a quick overview of lectures and publications thereof, see Pichler 1994, 117– 137; for a comprehensive and thoroughly researched account J. Klagge’s “The Wittgenstein Lectures” in ppo 2003, 340–359.

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• 1932M-35E—A. Ambrose (ed.): Wittgenstein’s Lectures: Cambridge, 1932–1935 (awl, 1979; 1933M-1934E are not covered) • 1935M—no edition • 1936L-36E—R. Rhees (ed.): The Language of Sense Data and Private Experi- ence (rsd, 1984; reprinted in po, 1993)

Lent term 1938–Lent term 1943

• 1938L-38E—R. Rhees (ed.): Cause and Effect: Intuitive Awareness (ce, 1976; reprinted in po, 1993) • 1938L-38E—C. Barrett (ed.): Lectures and Conversations (la, 1966) • 1938M—no edition3 • 1939L-39E—C. Diamond (ed.): Wittgenstein’s Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics: Cambridge, 1939 (lfm, 1976) • 1939M-40E—no edition • 1940M—P. Rhees, R. Rhees (eds.): A Lecture on Freedom of the Will (ysf, 1989; improved edition in po, 1993) • 1940–41—M. Iven (ed.): Rand und Wittgenstein: Versuch einer Annäherung (rwn, 2004) • 1941L-43L—no edition

Michaelmas term 1944–Easter term 1947

• 1944M-46E—no edition • 1946M-47E—P. Geach (ed.): Wittgenstein’s Lectures on Philosophical Psychol- ogy 1946–1947 (pgl, 1988)

Now, swn, focusing on the period 1938–41, contains extensive notes from 1938E, 1939M-40M as well as some notes from 1941L. Thus, not only does this new edition of notes complement the documentation of W.’s lectures that were only partly covered by previous editions (some of which already make use of S.’ notes), but it fills in several gaps. swn does not, however, yet contain notes from 1938L, 1938M-39E and 1941E-41M. Readers should also keep in mind that S.’ notes constitute a record of W.’s lectures that is incomplete in the following ways: As S. has pointed out, sometimes “long gaps of no-note-taking occurred during a lecture”; sometimes he “left a particular Wittgenstein lecture before it

3 It is possible that there were no lectures in the 1938 Michaelmas term; see Klagge in ppo 2003, 349.

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598 Book reviews had become completed”; and he omitted, at least in the edited versions of his notes, “all notes relating to Logic and Mathematics” (quoted in Munz 2010, 80f). swn is an exemplary piece of editing work. It lays out its textual sources in a meticulously detailed manner and applies methods of textual criticism to an appropriate degree. Another such exemplary edition of notes on W.’s lectures is the new edition of notes that G. E. Moore took in the years 1930–33 (mwn), edited by David Stern, Brian Rogers and Gabriel Citron.4 swn and mwn re- semble each other in terms of the editorial labour that the respective materials required. However, the S. corpus is even more complicated than the Moore one. The S. corpus contains manuscripts, typescripts and audio cassette tapes. The manuscripts alone amount to ca. 2,000 pages. To begin with, these include the actual notes, which were taken during the lectures: shorthand notes aiming at accurately capturing what W. said but difficult to decipher. S. kept most of these notes in small spiral-bound notebooks, of which he used to fill the right-hand pages first. Then, “sometime during the late 1930s and 1940s” (Munz 2010, 80), S. edited fair copy versions, some of which he kept in the same sort of small spiral- bound notebooks as his original shorthand notes and some in larger ­notebooks. These edited versions of his notes he showed to W. whereupon W. encouraged him to publish his notes (swn, xii). Consequently, S. worked hard on getting his notes published and he even authored an introduction for a possible publica- tion (part of which is quoted in Munz’ preface, p. xi). From the fair copies S. dictated into 23 audio cassette tapes. When producing the fair copies and audio tapes, S. typically rearranged some of the original contents—like Moore had done when editing his notes—so that, in order to establish the original chrono- logical lecture sequence, one must go back to the original lecture notes. At the same time, S. tried hard to stick to W.’s original words even if at times it might have been awkward English (cf. swn, xii). In the 1970s and 1980s, S.—still work- ing on the publication of his notes—had a secretary transpose his tapes into around 30 typescripts, totalling ca. 700 pages. Unfortunately, these typescripts contain a large number of transposition errors. Peg Smythies,5 Rush Rhees and D. Z. Phillips all tried to correct these errors on the basis of S.’ fair manuscript copies, with the aim of producing a new, publishable text.

4 The original, Moore’s own, edition of these notes (mwl) had not so much been an authentic record of what Wittgenstein said in those lectures as a text that had been significantly edited, rephrased and rearranged by Moore. So there are significant differences between Moore’s own 1954–55 publication and the 2016 mwn publication. 5 Peg Smythies was the wife of S.; she is also known as Peg Rhees, since after S.’ death she re- married with Rush Rhees.

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Book reviews 599

Munz and Ritter set themselves the task of preparing a readable text and a comprehensive and accurate edition of this complicated corpus. For this pur- pose, they had to find out how to best move between first notes, fair copies, tapes and typescripts; in particular, they had to learn how to decipher S.’ hand- writing and the abbreviations used in the shorthand notes. Munz and Ritter prepared swn from the original notes taken during the lectures, wherever this was at all possible, and they record significant deviations between these notes (abbreviated ‘N’), the fair copies (abbreviated ‘ms’) and the typescripts (abbre- viated ‘ts’) (see swn, xviii). Dating the lectures posed great challenges because S. never indicates the year of the lecture and only rarely mentions any dates at all. Munz and Ritter were able to establish some dates on the basis of the names of students who contributed to the meetings and who are mentioned in S.’ notes, since for most of Wittgenstein’s students it is well known during which terms they attended his lectures. The book contains twelve chapters. The editors introduce us thoroughly to each and provide detailed information about the sources they have used. They also enrich the text with comments about similar or complementary passages in the Nachlass. The lecture and discussion notes themselves are published in the first eight chapters. Each of these chapters is introduced with a description of the textual sources, a dating of the lectures themselves and thematic con- nections in the Nachlass. Below is a brief overview of the first eight chapters; except for the title of Ch. 2 which is by the editors, all lecture series titles are by S.:

• Ch. 1: Eleven “Lectures on Knowledge” from, as dated by the editors, 1938E. The first lecture and part of the tenth lecture derive from notes by J. C. Taylor. • Ch. 2: Twelve “Lectures on Necessity” from 1938E. Except for the “Lectures on Gödel”, notes of all lectures were amended on the basis of notes by J. C. Taylor. • Ch. 3: Sixteen “Lectures on Similarity” from 1939M. To establish the num- ber, division and dating of the lectures, the editors also used notes by N. Malcolm. • Ch. 4: Eleven “Lectures on Description” from 1940L. To establish the dating of the lectures, the editors also used notes by N. Malcolm, which date the first lecture as January 1940. • Ch. 5: One lecture by W. containing a reply to a paper on “Understanding” / “Mental Processes” given by S. on 2 February 1939 at the Moral Sciences Club; the reply is dated by the editors as 1940L.

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• Ch. 6: Ten “Lectures on Belief” from 1940E. To establish the single dates and topics of the lectures, the editors also used notes by R. Rand (rwn, 2004; see for example “Wittgensteins Vorlesung über den Glauben”). • Ch. 7: Eight “Lectures on Volition” from 1940M. To establish the topics and dating of the lectures, the editors also used notes by R. Rand (rwn, 2004). • Ch. 8: Two (possibly also just one) “Lectures on Freedom of the Will” from, as dated by the editors, 1941L. The dating of this item has so far varied be- tween 1939 and 1945–47; to establish the dating of the lecture(s), the editors also used the notes by R. Rand (rwn, 2004).

The remaining four chapters form an appendix. In chapter 9, the editors re- produce the above mentioned paper by S. on “Understanding”. Ch. 10 consists of notes made by S. in 1945, possibly in connection with lectures by W.; in any case, these notes were not intended to be records of W.’s lectures. Ch. 11 con- tains a piece from 1939 with the amusing title “The King of the Dark Chamber, by Rabindranath Tagore, translated from the English of Rabindranath Tagore into the English used by L. Wittgenstein and Yorick Smythies, by L. Wittgen- stein and Yorick Smythies”. Ch. 12 contains comments by S. on W.’s lectures on volition and freedom of the will, which S. had written on a 1975-typescript of his lecture notes. There is no doubt a great deal to be learnt from this book by anyone with an interest in W.’s philosophy. I would like to ask: What can be learnt from this book from a perspective of Wittgenstein research and editing with a focus on his Nachlass? What are the implications from swn for assessing and working with what is already available in terms of lectures and Nachlass editions? For those lectures for which there already are public records available, we are now in a much better position to assess and work with them; this goes, for example, for the above mentioned summary by Rose Rand of the “Lectures on Belief” (rwn, 2004) for which we now also have S.’ notes. Further, what had earlier been edited by Cyril Barrett as lecture “iii” on “Religous Belief” (la, 65–72) is nothing else than S.’ notes of what in this edition is found as No 16 of the “Lectures on Similarity” (swn, 126–132), dated by the editors with the help of Malcolm’s notes December 11, 1939. I have not noticed any significant differences between the Barrett and the swn edition of this item which is not surprising since they are both based on one and the same textual source. In contrast to this, there are a number of differences between No 9–10 of the “Lectures on Knowledge”, by the editors dated June 1938, in this edition (Ch. 1) and Rhees’ edition of his notes of the very same lectures in Appendix C of Cause and Effect: Intuitive Awareness (ce)—one such difference in a drawing is noted by the editors in swn, 33, footnote 80. It is moreover interesting here

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Book reviews 601 to consider the Nachlass, since we find there in Ms-159 W.’s own preparatory notes for the very same lectures, and thus to study the following sources in parallel:

(1) Wittgenstein Nachlass Ms-159, 31v-32r (31v-32v are published in ce 1993, Appendix C, 422–423); (2) Rhees’ own notes from these lectures (published in ce 1993, 423–426); (3) S.’ notes from these lectures (swn, 33–39).

Both Rhees and S. are fleshing out what W. had sketched in thirty to forty short lines on three small pages. Thus, both give us, in different versions, an account of what W. actually produced in the form of a lecture on the basis of his prepa- ratory notes in Ms-159. Interestingly, Rhees did not include the notes of p. 32v in his edition of Ms-159 in ce, Appendix C and ended the publication before W.’s “Is this thing complex or simple?”—possibly because it didn’t seem to be connected with the discussion of knowing as “fitting a physical fact”. In con- trast, the S. notes, after rendering the discussion of “simple or complex” (swn, 37f) come back to the discussion of fitting and the question “Does knowledge fit physical objects?”. Here one might have expected the editors to make an- other reference to Ms-159,32v. Thus, swn gives significantly more content to W.’s preparatory notes. Furthermore, the new edition can help us to a more precise dating of pages 9vff in Ms-159 which we have not had available hitherto.6 If the editors are right in dating No 9–10 as June 1938, then these pages too are probably from June 1938—since they indeed seem to be notes for the lectures. This means that the following notes in Ms-159 mentioning Sraffa and citizenship (p. 33r) as well as the subsequent pi preface drafts on p. 34rff are most likely also from June 1938. (Let’s not forget that this was the high time of putting together the pi—at that time called “Philosophical Remarks”.) Such a dating is in agreement with the fact that the pi preface drafts of Ms-117, which clearly are based on the Ms-159 drafts, are dated June 27. But dating can be a difficult matter. Rhees’ lecture notes in ce, 407–411 are at least partly notes on the same lecture that in swn is called “Lecture on Knowl- edge 5” (swn, 16–19) and there dated “20 May 1938”. Rhees, however, dated his own lecture notes as also the preparatory notes in Ms-159,9v-12v (published in ce 1993, Appendix A, 406–407), “Lent term, 1938”. Ms-159,9v-12v would thus stem from the Lent term. Similarly, Appendix B (ce, 419–421) equally con- tains—according to Rhees (ce, 419)—notes from a lecture that took place in

6 Ms-159,1r-9r is from the autumn 1937.

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602 Book reviews the 1938 Lent term; their content matches contents of “Lecture on Knowledge 7”. If Rhees is right, then it follows that at least some of the “Lectures on Knowl- edge” are from the Lent rather than the Easter term, and Ms-159,12r-31r would equally be from the Lent term. But Rhees’ dating could be wrong and the swn dating correct.7 I hope that this small exemplification of cross-reading the Nachlass, previ- ous editions and swn demonstrates some of the great scholarly value of this new edition. We can only wish that more such careful editing of notes from W.’s lectures may appear soon and thank the swn editors, especially Volker Munz, who has devoted himself to this editorial project for significantly more than a decade, for their hard work. swn significantly improves our understanding of W.’s philosophy and its making.

Alois Pichler University of Bergen [email protected]

References

Biggs, M. and Pichler, A. Wittgenstein: Two Source Catalogues and a Bibliography. Catalogues of the Published Texts and of the Published Diagrams, each Related to its ­Sources. Working Papers from the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen 7, 1993. Lewy, C. Meaning and Modality. Cambridge University Press 1976. Munz, V. “The Whewell’s Court Lectures: A Sketch of a Project”. In: Wittgenstein after his Nachlass, ed. N. Venturina. Palgrave Macmillan 2010. pp. 78–90. Pichler, A. Untersuchungen zu Wittgensteins Nachlaß. Working Papers from the Witt- genstein Archives at the University of Bergen 8, 1994. Wittgenstein, L. Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, ed. by J.C. Klagge and Alfred Nordmann. Hackett Publishing 1993. [po] Wittgenstein, L. Wittgenstein’s Nachlass: The Bergen Electronic Edition, ed. by the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen under the direction of Claus Huitfeldt. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 2000. [bee] Wittgenstein, L. Public and Private Occasions, ed. by J.C. Klagge and Alfred Nordmann. Rowman and Littlefield 2003. [ppo]

7 J. Klagge goes in the 2010 reprint of po also for S.’ dating: Appendix A is dated there May 20 or 29 (p. 407), Appendix B Easter term (p. 419) and Appendix C June 15 (p. 423).

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Wittgenstein, L. Rand und Wittgenstein: Versuch einer Annäherung, edited by Matthias Iven. Wittgenstein-Studien 9. Peter Lang 2004. [rwn] Wittgenstein, L. Wittgenstein: Lectures, Cambridge 1930–1933, From the Notes of G.E Moore, edited by David Stern, Brian Rogers, and Gabriel Citron. Cambridge Univer- sity Press 2016. [mwn] Wright, G.H. von. “The Wittgenstein papers”. The Philosophical Review 78/4, 1969. pp. 483–503.

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