‘Is there then no such thing as a mental picture?’ The proper answer to a question thus worded would be // is // : ‘People at times have mental

image
pictures

’. But this doesn't isn't really the sort of answer we wanted. We meant to ask: have we a right, under the circumstances under

which it's normally said that a

man
person

has
sees

a mental image, to say that he has such an image or picture? Have we a right to say that

someone
a man

marie[s|d] money? This may mean did he ‘mar⌊r⌋y money’ or is the expression an appropriate one. Think of the ways ˇin which such a question is decided? – Suppose we ask the question: [do|ar]e people murder⌊e⌋d in tragedies or aren't they? One answer is: In some tragedies some people areˇ murdered& not in others ⌊.⌋ Another answer: ‘people aren't really murdered

on the stage’. they only pretend to murder & to die’. But you may But the use of the word pretend here is again ambigous forc it may be used in the sense in which Edgar pretends to have led Gloucester to the Cliff. // But you may say: oh no! [They|some] people really die in Tragedies e.g. Juliet at the end of the play whereas before she pretended to have died. // ‘Oh no they don't all pretend; Edgar pretends to lead Gloucester to the edge of the cliff Gloucester is really blind.’ //

be a peasant he is really Gl.'s son. // We shall say the word ‘really’ ‘pretend’, ‘die’ etc. are used in a peculiar way when we talk of a play & differently in ordinary life. Or: the criteria for a man d[ie|y]ing in a play arent th[o|e]se same as those of his dieing in reality. But are we justified to say that Lear dies at the end of the play? Why not. And, analogously, that there is no reason for objecting to saying we

see
have

mental

picture does not mean that we that the same criteria which for the existence of a non-mental picture are the same as those for the existence of a mental picture. One may even say that the former & the latter criteria need not even be similar as one may say that the criteria for the death of a person in the play & outside a play are utterly dissimilar though there is of course a connection.

(2015–) Wittgenstein Source Bergen Nachlass Edition (WS-BNE). Edited by the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen under the direction of Alois Pichler. In: Wittgenstein Source, curated by Alois Pichler (2009–) and Joseph Wang-Kathrein (2020–). (N) Bergen: WAB.