Abstract

Wittgenstein's later efforts to exorcise the attractions of solipsism involve descriptions of the uses of 'I' which may be taken to show that 'I' does not refer in its philosophically most salient uses. This point of "grammar," however, would not by itself provide a direct refutation of solipsism; _Philosophical Investigations, Sections 398-410, of which this paper is a reading, traces a complex dialectic by which Wittgenstein elicits and questions the solipsist's commitments. In challenging the intelligibility of the solipsist's starting points, Wittgenstein raises a forceful demand for an explanation of the motivations behind metaphysical inquiry into the nature of the self