The general form of the proposition and the paradox of explanation:§§65–88

Almost without exception, commentators agree that §65 marks an important turning point, or change of focus, in the Philosophical Investigations. However, the precise character of this turn is more elusive than it seems at first.

Sections 60 to 64 clearly continue the discussion of simples that begins with §39, and §64 explicitly refers back to the language-game of §48, offering yet another problematic language-game for the defender of analysis into ultimate simples. In §64, we are asked to imagine people who have no names for monochrome blocks, but do have names for distinctive combinations of colours, such as the French tricolour. While most people see these flag-like blocks as composed of several colours, Wittgenstein's narrator suggests that those who are used to the alternate system of representation would see things differently. The conviction that we can analyse their blocks into what we regard as the simpler components used in the game of §48 is, he proposes, the product of our taking a familiar way of speaking for granted. ‘We think: If you have only the unanalysed form you miss the analysis; but if you know the analysed form that gives you everything. – But may I not say that an aspect of the matter is lost on you in the latter case as well as the former?’ (§63).