On the Ketner and Eigsti Edition of Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer’s "The Golden Bough"

• Main Author: Peter K. Westergaard
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Nordic Wittgenstein Society 2015-12-01
• Series: Nordic Wittgenstein Review
• Online Access: http://www.nordicwittgensteinreview.com/article/view/3280

Wittgenstein’s remarks on Frazer’s The Golden Bough were first edited and published in 1967 by Rush Rhees as Wittgenstein’s Bemerkungen über Frazers ‘The Golden Bough’. However, there is another edition, called Ludwig Wittgenstein: Remarks on Frazer’s Anthropology, edited and translated by Kenneth Laine Ketner and James Leroy Eigsti. In this paper I outline at least part of the history of this edition. At the same time, I shall describe some of the characteristic features of the Ketner and Eigsti edition. This presentation takes as its point of departure the correspondence contained in the box “Wittgenstein 143” at the von Wright and Wittgenstein Archives (WWA), consisting of twelve letters that passed between Ketner and Eigsti, G.E.M. Anscombe, Rhees, and G.H. von Wright in 1972 and 1973. The presentation will also indirectly throw light on a number of issues concerning the editorial principles applied in publishing Wittgenstein’s remarks.