In a lecture in 1933 Wittgenstein gave his students the following picture of his work and of his philosophical method:
There is a truth in Schopenhauer’s view that philosophy is an organism, and that a book on philosophy, with a beginning and end, is a sort of contradiction. ... In philosophy matters are not simple enough for us to say ‘Let’s get a rough idea’, for we do not know the country except by knowing the connections between the roads. So I suggest repetition as a means of surveying the connections.