Abstract

In this paper, I examine Wittgenstein’s frequent and pervasive of the adjective “complicated.” I begin by comparing and contrasting the adjective’s use in the Tractatus and the much later manuscripts on the philosophy of psychology. While there are a number of important and illuminating affinities between these uses, I argue that these need to be balanced against the wide disparities between them: in contrast to the Tractatus, the later philosophy preserves a sense of “surface” complexity while jettisoning the idea of a deep—but hidden—simplicity that logical analysis promises to reveal. The notion of a surface must thus be reconceived as complicated in terms of its “spread” rather than in relation to what lies “beneath” it. Wittgenstein’s later appeals to what is complicated need to be read in tandem with his critique of the idea of there being an “absolute sense” of “simple.” Doing so prevents our seeing in his later appeals to complexity a new, more substantive notion of complexity that a more adequate philosophical theory must capture or reflect. On the contrary, the appeal to something as complicated plays a recollective and corrective role that challenges the viability of a theoretical-explanatory perspective.