MS 149

C5

General note on C1-8

The so-called C-series of notebooks comprises 8 notebooks. The only reasons why these notebooks were grouped together (not by Wittgenstein himself, but by the trustees of his papers) seem to be the following: they are the same size, they contain the same number of pages (96), and they date back to the same period of Wittgenstein’s work (1933-36). The order (1 to 8) is more or less in accord with the chronological order in which they were written.

            Even though it is tempting to associate “C” with Cambridge, no real reason for this name is known. The association with Cambridge is particularly tempting in view of the fact that several of these notebooks contain material written in preparation of Wittgenstein’s classes or dictations. But there is no evidence whatsoever that the name “C” was used by Wittgenstein himself.

The notes in this manuscript book were almost exclusively written in English. It seems that the majority or a great number of them were written in preparation for lectures given in 1936. See the middle section of the published version “Notes for Lectures on ‘Private Experience’ and ‘Sense Data’”, Philosophical Occasions, pp. 226-272.