Abstract

'An “inner process” stands in need of outward criteria' is not a thesis from which philosophical propositions are proved. It is a synopsis of grammatical rules that determine what we call 'the inner'. Although it is not a theoretical term in Wittgenstein's philosophy, the word 'criterion' was the heir to an expression which could, with some justice, be called 'theoretical', one which was embedded in a philosophical account which might be viewed as a theory. Wittgenstein used various metaphors and similes to illuminate the relationship between genuine propositions and hypotheses. One can conceive of genuine propositions as sectional cross‐cuts through the connected structure of a hypothesis. The survey of the similarities and differences between the symptoms/hypothesis relation and criterial relations and of the distinction between criteria and symptoms (in the new sense of the term) has established the rough outlines of Wittgenstein's use of the term 'criterion'.