Wittgenstein's later philosophy: A prophylaxis against theory

To date, Wittgenstein’s later philosophy has had little if any lasting influence on humanistic disciplines that study the arts. The highly original conception of philosophy he pioneered in his later writings, and his realization of this conception in investigating the manifold uses of language in the stream of human life, are almost entirely unknown to scholars in fields such as film studies, literary studies, history of art and cultural studies. And while there are a few exceptions to this situation, they tend to foster misunderstandings of Wittgenstein due to their over-hasty assimilation of his work to philosophical trends that are currently prevalent in the humanities (most notably, various forms of scepticism). Meanwhile, although his later conception of philosophy is more familiar to Anglo-American aestheticians, it is not widely adhered to by them.