Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough

Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough is a collection of Ludwig Wittgenstein's thoughts on James George Frazer's The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. The commentary was initially published in 1967, with an English edition in 1979. Wittgenstein wrote the text in the summer of 1931, which represented his earliest efforts to compose what would eventually become the Philosophical Investigations. An important theme of the Remarks, and one which Wittgenstein would later explore more fully, is the conception of metaphysics as a "kind of magic". The text was edited by Rush Rhees, who published them separately from Wittgenstein's other work, in a possible attempt to avoid alienating Wittgenstein's readership, in light of the sympathy shown to primitive thought and practices. In the Remarks, Wittgenstein famously described Frazer as more savage than those he studied, and was exceptionally critical of Frazer's interpretations of primitive mythology, Christianity, and epistemology.