Abstract

According to Michael Dummett, Wittgenstein rejects in the Philosophical Investigations the “realist” approach of the Tractatiu, and replaces it with the idea that meaning is “use”; Wittgenstein, Dummett holds, draws the “metaphysical consequences” of this by subscribing to a form of non-realism. In this paper I defend a version of Dummett's point that the Tractarian semantics is replaced in the Investigations by the notion that meaning is use, but I criticize his contention that Wittgenstein, as a consequence, subscribes to some variety of metaphysical non-realism.