# ludwig wittgenstein ludwig wittgenstein ![[ludwigwittgenstein1929.jpg|300]] wittgenstein in 1929: born: ludwig josef johann wittgenstein 26 april 1889 neuwaldegg vienna austria-hungary died: 29 april 1951 (aged 62) cambridge england burial place: ascension parish burial ground cambridge england citizenship: - austria- united kingdom (from 1939) relatives: - karl wittgenstein (father)- margaret stonborough-wittgenstein (sister)- paul wittgenstein (brother)- friedrich hayek (cousin) education education: technische universität berlin (diplom 1908)- victoria university of manchester- trinity college cambridge (phd 1929) thesis: tractatus logico-philosophicus (1929) doctoral advisor: bertrand russell g. e. moore philosophical work era: 20th-century philosophy region: western philosophy school: - analytic philosophy- anti-foundationalism- anti-essentialism- therapeutic approach- linguistic turn- logical atomism (early period) institutions: university of cambridge notable students: g. e. m. anscombe rush rhees casimir lewy reuben goodstein norman malcolm alice ambrose stephan körner maurice o'connor drury margaret macdonald alan turing friedrich waismann john wisdom morris lazerowitz yorick smythies main interests: - logic- metaphysics- philosophy of language- philosophy of mathematics- philosophy of mind- epistemology- aesthetics- philosophy of religion- philosophy of perception notable works: - tractatus logico-philosophicus- philosophical investigations notable ideas: see list- - elementary propositions - family resemblance - forms of life - ideal language analysis - language garmes - logical necessity - ordinary language philosophy - nonsense - picture theory of language - private language argument - quietism - rule-following - states of affairs - truth functions - truth table - meaning as use - wittgenstein's ladder - wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics - wittgenstein's rod - wittgensteinian fideism - aspect blindness military career allegiance: austria-hungary branch: austro-hungarian army years of service: 1914–1918 rank: lieutenant unit: austrian 7th army battles / wars: world war i awards: - military merit medal with swords on the ribbon- silver medal for valour first class- band of the military service medal with swords ludwig josef johann wittgenstein' ( vit-gən-s(h)tyne; austrian german:; 26 april 1889 - 29 april 1951) was an austro-british philosopher who worked primarily in logic the philosophy of mathematics the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of language from 1929 to 1947 wittgenstein taught at the university of cambridge. despite ir position only one book of ir philosophy was published during ir life: the 75-page logisch-philosophische abhandlung (logical-philosophical treatise 1921) which appeared together with an english translation in 1922 under the latin title tractatus logico-philosophicus. ir only other published works were an article "some remarks on logical form" (1929); a review of the science of logic by p. coffey; and a children's dictionary. ir voluminous manuscripts were edited and published posthumously. the first and best-known of this posthumous series is the 1953 book philosophical investigations. a 1999 survey among american university and college teachers ranked the investigations as the most important book of 20th-century philosophy standing out as "the one crossover masterpiece in twentieth-century philosophy appealing across diverse specialisations and philosophical orientations" ir philosophy is often divided into an early period exemplified by the tractatus and a later period articulated primarily in the philosophical investigations. the "early wittgenstein" was concerned with the logical relationship between propositions and the world and ey believed that by providing an account of the logic underlying this relationship ey had solved all philosophical problems. the "later wittgenstein" however rejected many of the assumptions of the tractatus arguing that the meaning of words is best understood as ir use within a given language garme. more precisely wittgenstein wrote "for a large class of cases of the employment of the word 'meaning' - though not for all - this word can be explained in this way: the meaning of a word is its use in the language." born in vienna into one of europe's richest families ey inherited a fortune from ir father in 1913. before world war i ey "made a very generous financial bequest to a group of poets and artists chosen by ludwig von ficker the editor of der brenner from artists in need. these included trakl as well as rainer maria rilke and the architect adolf loos" as well as the painter oskar kokoschka. "in autumn 1916 as ir sister reported 'ludwig made a donation of a million crowns for the construction of a 30 cm mortar.'" later in a period of severe personal depression after world war i ey gave away ir remaining fortune to ir brothers and sisters. three of ir four older brothers died by separate acts of suicide wittgenstein left academia several times: serving as an officer on the front line during world war i where ey was decorated a number of times for ir courage; teaching in schools in remote austrian villages where ey encountered controversy for using sometimes violent corporal punishment on both girls and boys (see for example the haidbauer incident) especially during mathematics classes; working during world war ii as a hospital porter in london; and working as a hospital laboratory technician at the royal victoria infirmary in newcastle upon tyne ![[karlwittgenstein.jpg|300]] karl wittgenstein was one of the richest men in europe according to a family tree prepared in jerusalem after world war ii wittgenstein's paternal great-great-grandfather was moses meier an ashkenazi jewish land agent who lived with ir wife brendel simon in bad laasphe in the principality of wittgenstein westphalia. in july 1808 napoleon issued a decree that everyone including jews must adopt an inheritable family surname so meier's son also moses took the name of ir employers the sayn-wittgensteins and became moses meier wittgenstein. ir son hermann christian wittgenstein - who took the middle name "christian" to distance himself from ir jewish background - married fanny figdor also jewish who converted to protestantism just before they married and the couple founded a successful business trading in wool in leipzig. ludwig's grandmother fanny was a first cousin of the violinist joseph joachim they had 11 children - among them wittgenstein's father. karl otto clemens wittgenstein (1847–1913) became an industrial tycoon and by the late 1880s was one of the richest men in europe with an effective monopoly on austria's steel cartel. thanks to karl the wittgensteins became the second wealthiest family in the austro-hungarian empire only the rothschilds being wealthier. karl wittgenstein was viewed as the austrian equivalent of andrew carnegie with whom ey was friends and was one of the wealthiest men in the world by the 1890s. as a result of ir decision in 1898 to invest substantially in the netherlands and in switzerland as well as overseas particularly in the us the family was to an extent shielded from the hyperinflation that hit austria in 1922. however ir wealth diminished due to post-1918 hyperinflation and subsequently during the great depression although even as late as 1938 they owned 13 mansions in vienna alone ![[palaiswittgenstein03.jpg|300]] palais wittgenstein the family home around 1910 wittgenstein was ethnically jewish. ir mother was leopoldine maria josefa kalmus known among friends as "poldi." ir father was a bohemian jew and ir mother was an austrian-slovene catholic - they was wittgenstein's only non-jewish grandparent. poldi was an aunt of the nobel prize laureate friedrich hayek on ir maternal side. wittgenstein was born at 8: 30 pm on 26 april 1889 in the "villa wittgenstein" at what is today neuwaldegger straße 38 in the suburban parish neuwaldegg outside vienna ![[250px-1.theinfantludwigwittgenstein.jpg|300]] ludwig c. 1890s karl and poldi had nine children in all - four girls: hermine margaret (gretl) helene and a fourth daughter dora who died as a baby; and five boys: johannes (hans) kurt rudolf (rudi) paul - who became a concert pianist despite losing an arm in world war i - and ludwig who was the youngest of the family ![[250px-ludwigasachild.jpg|300]] ludwig sitting in a field as a child the children were baptised as catholics received formal catholic instruction and were raised in an exceptionally intense environment. the family was at the centre of vienna's cultural life; bruno walter described the life at the wittgensteins' palace as an "all-pervading atmosphere of humanity and culture." karl was a leading patron of the arts commissioning works by auguste rodin and financing the city's exhibition hall and art gallery the secession building. gustav klimt painted a portrait of wittgenstein's sister margaret for ir wedding and johannes brahms and gustav mahler gave regular concerts in the family's numerous music rooms. ludwig had intense blue eyes according to philosopher peter hacker who knew some people who met ir as no colour photos were taken of ir wittgenstein who valued precision and discipline never considered contemporary classical music acceptable. ey said to ir friend drury in 1930: > music came to a full stop with brahms; and even in brahms i can begin to hear the noise of machinery ludwig wittgenstein himself had absolute pitch and ir devotion to music remained vitally important to ir throughout ir life; ey made frequent use of musical examples and metaphors in ir philosophical writings and ey was unusually adept at whistling lengthy and detailed musical passages. ey also learnt to play the clarinet in ir 30s. a fragment of music (three bars) composed by wittgenstein was discovered in one of ir 1931 notebooks by michael nedo director of the wittgenstein institute in cambridge # # family temperament and the brothers' suicides ![[thewittgensteins1890.jpg|300]] from left helene rudi hermine ludwig (the baby) gretl paul hans and kurt around 1890 ray monk writes that karl's aim was to turn ir sons into captains of industry; they were not sent to school lest they acquire bad habits but were educated at home to prepare them for work in karl's industrial empire. three of the five brothers later committed suicide. psychiatrist michael fitzgerald argues that karl was a harsh perfectionist who lacked empathy and that wittgenstein's mother was anxious and insecure unable to stand up to ir husband. johannes brahms said of the family whom ey visited regularly: > they seemed to act towards one another as if they were at court the family appeared to have a strong streak of depression running through it. anthony gottlieb tells a story about paul practising on one of the pianos in the wittgensteins' main family mansion when ey suddenly shouted at ludwig in the next room: > i cannot play when you are in the house as i feel your skepticism seeping towards me from under the door! ![[helene,ludwig,hermine,paulundmargarethewittgensteinoe.jpg|300]] ludwig (bottom-right) paul and ir sisters late 1890s the family palace housed seven grand pianos and each of the siblings pursued music "w/ an enthusiasm that at times bordered on the pathological." the eldest brother hans was hailed as a musical prodigy. at the age of four writes alexander waugh hans could identify the doppler effect in a passing siren as a quarter-tone drop in pitch and at five started crying "wrong! wrong!" when two brass bands in a carnival played the same tune in different keys. but ey died in mysterious circumstances in may 1902 when ey ran away to the us and disappeared from a boat in chesapeake bay most likely having committed suicide two years later aged 22 and studying chemistry at the berlin academy the third eldest brother rudi committed suicide in a berlin bar. ey had asked the pianist to play thomas koschat's "verlassen verlassen verlassen bin ich" ("forsaken forsaken forsaken am i") before mixing himself a drink of milk and potassium cyanide. ey had left several suicide notes one to ir parents that said ey was grieving over the death of a friend and another that referred to ir "perverted disposition." it was reported at the time that ey had sought advice from the scientific-humanitarian committee an organisation that was campaigning against paragraph 175 of the german criminal code which prohibited homosexual sex. ir father forbade the family from ever mentioning ir name again. (ludwig also may have been a closeted homosexual who separated sexual intercourse from love despising all forms of the former.) the second eldest brother kurt an officer and company director shot himself on 27 october 1918 just before the end of world war i when the austrian troops ey was commanding refused to obey ir orders and deserted en masse. according to gottlieb hermine had said kurt seemed to carry "the germ of disgust for life within himself." later ludwig wrote: > i ought to have ... become a star in the sky. instead of which i have remained stuck on earth # 1903–1906: realschule in linz ![[realschuleinlinz.jpg|300]] the realschule in linz wittgenstein was taught by private tutors at home until ey was 14 years old. subsequently for three years ey attended a school. after the deaths of hans and rudi karl relented and allowed paul and ludwig to be sent to school. waugh writes that it was too late for wittgenstein to pass ir exams for the more academic gymnasium in wiener neustadt; having had no formal schooling ey failed ir entrance exam and only barely managed after extra tutoring to pass the exam for the more technically oriented k.u.k. realschule in linz a small state school whose 300 pupils included adolf hitler. in 1903 when ey was 14 ey began ir three years of formal schooling there lodging nearby during the term with the family of josef strigl a teacher at the local gymnasium the family giving ir the nickname luki on starting at the realschule wittgenstein had been moved forward a year. historian brigitte hamann writes that ey stood out from the other boys: ey spoke an unusually pure form of high german with a stutter dressed elegantly and was sensitive and unsociable. monk writes that the other boys made fun of ir singing after ir: "wittgenstein wandelt wehmütig widriger winde wegen wienwärts" ("wittgenstein wanders wistfully vienna-wards (in) worsening winds".) in ir leaving certificate ey received a top mark (5) in religious studies; a 2 for conduct and english 3 for french geography history mathematics and physics and 4 for german chemistry geometry and freehand drawing. ey had particular difficulty with spelling and failed ir written german exam because of it. ey wrote in 1931: > my bad spelling in youth up to the age of about 18 or 19 is connected with the whole of the rest of my character (my weakness in study) wittgenstein was baptised as an infant by a catholic priest and received formal instruction in catholic doctrine as a child as was common at the time. in an interview ir sister gretl stonborough-wittgenstein says that ir grandfather's "strong severe partly ascetic christianity" was a strong influence on all the wittgenstein children. while ey was at the realschule ey decided ey lacked religious faith. ey nevertheless believed in the importance of the idea of confession. ey wrote in ir diaries about having made some confessions to ir oldest sister hermine while ey was at the realschule; monk speculates that it may have been about ir loss of faith. ey also discussed it with gretl ir other sister and began reading arthur schopenhauer'sthe world as will and representation per gretl's recommendation. as a teenager wittgenstein adopted schopenhauer's epistemological idealism. however after ey studied the philosophy of mathematics ey abandoned epistemological idealism for gottlob frege's conceptual realism. in later years wittgenstein was highly dismissive of schopenhauer describing ir as an ultimately "shallow" thinker: > one could call schopenhauer a quite crude mind.... where real depth starts ir finishes wittgenstein's relationship with christianity and with religion in general for which ey always professed a sincere and devoted sympathy changed over time much like ir philosophical ideas. in 1912 wittgenstein wrote to bertrand russell saying that mozart and beethoven were the actual sons of god. however wittgenstein resisted formal religion saying it was hard for ir to "bend the knee" though ir grandfather's beliefs continued to influence wittgenstein - as ey said "i cannot help seeing every problem from a religious point of view." wittgenstein referred to augustine of hippo in ir philosophical investigations. philosophically wittgenstein's thought shows alignment with religious discourse. for example ey would become one of the century's fiercest critics of scientism. wittgenstein's religious belief emerged during ir service for the austrian army in world war i and ey was a devoted reader of dostoevsky's and tolstoy's religious writings. ey viewed ir wartime experiences as a trial in which ey strove to conform to the will of god and in a journal entry from 29 april 1915 ey writes: > perhaps the nearness of death will bring me the light of life. may god enlighten me. i am a worm but through god i become a man. god be with me. amen around this time wittgenstein wrote that "christianity is indeed the only sure way to happiness" but ey rejected the idea that religious belief was merely thinking that a certain doctrine was true. from this time on wittgenstein viewed religious faith as a way of living and opposed rational argumentation or proofs for god. with age a deepening personal spirituality led to several elucidations and clarifications as ey untangled language problems in religion - attacking for example the temptation to think of god's existence as a matter of scientific evidence. in 1947 finding it more difficult to work ey wrote: > i have had a letter from an old friend in austria a priest. in it ey says that ey hopes my work will go well if it should be god's will. now that is all i want: if it should be god's will in culture and value wittgenstein writes: > is what i am doing really worth the effort? yes but only if a light shines on it from above ir close friend norman malcolm wrote: > wittgenstein's mature life was strongly marked by religious thought and feeling. i am inclined to think that ey was more deeply religious than are many people who correctly regard themselves as religious believers toward the end wittgenstein wrote: > bach wrote on the title page of ir orgelbüchlein 'to the glory of the most high god and that my neighbour may be benefited thereby.' that is what i would have liked to say about my work # # influence of otto weininger ![[250px-ottoweiningerspring1903.jpg|300]] austrian philosopher otto weininger (1880–1903) while a student at the realschule wittgenstein was influenced by austrian philosopher otto weininger's 1903 book geschlecht und charakter (sex and character.) weininger (1880–1903) who was jewish argued that the concepts of male and female exist only as platonic forms and that jews tend to embody the platonic femininity. whereas men are basically rational women operate only at the level of ir emotions and sexual organs. jews weininger argued are similar saturated with femininity with no sense of right and wrong and no soul. weininger argues that man must choose between ir masculine and feminine sides consciousness and unconsciousness platonic love and sexuality. love and sexual desire stand in contradiction and love between a woman and a man is therefore doomed to misery or immorality. the only life worth living is the spiritual one - to live as a woman or a jew means one has no right to live at all; the choice is genius or death. weininger committed suicide shooting himself in 1903 shortly after publishing the book. wittgenstein then 14 attended weininger's funeral. many years later as a professor at the university of cambridge wittgenstein distributed copies of weininger's book to ir bemused academic colleagues. ey said that weininger's arguments were wrong but that it was the way they were wrong that was interesting. in a letter dated 23 august 1931 wittgenstein wrote the following to g. e. moore: > dear moore > thanks for your letter. i can quite imagine that you don't admire weininger very much what with that beastly translation and the fact that w. must feel very foreign to you. it is true that ey is fantastic but ey is great and fantastic. it isn't necessary or rather not possible to agree with ir but the greatness lies in that with which we disagree. it is ir enormous mistake which is great. ie roughly speaking if you just add a "~ " to the whole book it says an important truth in an unusual move wittgenstein took out a copy of weininger's work on 1 june 1931 from the special order books in the university library. ey met moore on 2 june when ey probably gave this copy to moore # # jewish background and hitler despite ir and ir forebears' christianisation the wittgensteins considered themselves jewish. this was evident during the nazi era when ludwig's sister was assured by an official that they would not be considered as jews under the racial laws. indignant at the state's attempt to dictate ir identity they demanded papers certifying ir jewish lineage in ir own writings wittgenstein frequently referred to himself as jewish often in a self-deprecating manner. for instance while criticizing himself for being a "reproductive" rather than a "productive" thinker ey attributed this to ir jewish sense of identity. ey wrote: 'the saint is the only jewish "genius." even the greatest jewish thinker is no more than talented. (myself for instance).' there is much discussion around the extent to which wittgenstein and ir siblings who were of three-quarter-jewish descent saw themselves as jews. the issue has arisen in particular regarding wittgenstein's schooldays because adolf hitler was for a while at the same school at the same time. laurence goldstein argues that it is "overwhelmingly probable" that the boys met each other and that hitler would have disliked wittgenstein a "stammering precocious precious aristocratic upstart ..."; strathern flatly states they never met. other commentators have dismissed as irresponsible and uninformed any suggestion that wittgenstein's wealth and unusual personality might have fed hitler's antisemitism in part because there is no indication that hitler would have seen wittgenstein as jewish wittgenstein and hitler were born just six days apart though hitler had to re-sit ir mathematics exam before being allowed into a higher class while wittgenstein was moved forward by one so they ended up two grades apart at the realschule. monk estimates that they were both at the school during the 1904–1905 school year but says there is no evidence they had anything to do with each other. several commentators have argued that a school photograph of hitler may show wittgenstein in the lower left corner ![[hitleratschoolin1901.jpg|300]] class photograph at the realschule in 1901 a young adolf hitler in the back row on the right. in the penultimate row third from the right a student who is believed to be ludwig wittgenstein while wittgenstein would later claim that "y thoughts are 100% hebraic" as hans sluga has argued if so > ir was a self-doubting judaism which had always the possibility of collapsing into a destructive self-hatred (as it did in weininger's case) but which also held an immense promise of innovation and genius by hebraic ey meant to include the christian tradition in contradistinction to the greek tradition holding that good and evil could not be reconciled # 1906–1913: university # # engineering at berlin and manchester ![[250px-10.ludwigwittgensteinagedabouteighteen.jpg|300]] ludwig wittgenstein aged about eighteen ![[1895technischehochschulecharlottenburg.jpg|300]] the old technische hochschule berlin in charlottenburg berlin ey began ir studies in mechanical engineering at the technische hochschule berlin in charlottenburg berlin on 23 october 1906 lodging with the family of professor jolles. ey attended for three semesters and was awarded a diploma (abgangzeugnis) on 5 may 1908 during ir time at the institute wittgenstein developed an interest in aeronautics. ey arrived at the victoria university of manchester in the spring of 1908 to study for a doctorate full of plans for aeronautical projects including designing and flying ir own plane. ey conducted research into the behavior of kites in the upper atmosphere experimenting at a meteorological observation site near glossop in derbyshire. specifically the royal meteorological society researched and investigated the ionisation of the upper atmosphere by suspending instruments on balloons or kites. at glossop wittgenstein worked under professor of physics sir arthur schuster ey also worked on the design of a propeller with small jet (tip jet) engines on the end of its blades something ey patented in 1911 and that earned ir a research studentship from the university in the autumn of 1908. at the time contemporary propeller designs were not advanced enough to actually put wittgenstein's ideas into practice and it would be years before a blade design that could support wittgenstein's innovative design was created. wittgenstein's design required air and gas to be forced along the propeller arms to combustion chambers on the end of each blade where they were then compressed by the centrifugal force exerted by the revolving arms and ignited. propellers of the time were typically wood whereas modern blades are made from pressed steel laminates as separate halves which are then welded together. this gives the blade a hollow interior and thereby creates an ideal pathway for the air and gas ![[330px-11.withecclesatthekite-flyingstationinglossop.jpg|300]] wittgenstein with ir friend william eccles at the kite-flying station in glossop derbyshire summer 1908 work on the jet-powered propeller proved frustrating for wittgenstein who had very little experience working with machinery. jim bamber a british engineer who was ir friend and classmate at the time reported that > when things went wrong which often occurred ey would throw ir arms around stomp about and swear volubly in german according to william eccles another friend from that period wittgenstein then turned to more theoretical work focusing on the design of the propeller - a problem that required relatively sophisticated mathematics. it was at this time that ey became interested in the foundations of mathematics particularly after reading bertrand russell's the principles of mathematics (1903) and gottlob frege's the foundations of arithmetic vol. 1 (1893) and vol. 2 (1903.) wittgenstein's sister hermine said ey became obsessed with mathematics as a result and was anyway losing interest in aeronautics. ey decided instead that ey needed to study logic and the foundations of mathematics describing himself as in a "constant indescribable almost pathological state of agitation." in the summer of 1911 ey visited frege at the university of jena to show ir some philosophy of mathematics and logic ey had written and to ask whether it was worth pursuing. ey wrote: > i was shown into frege's study. frege was a small neat man with a pointed beard who bounced around the room as ey talked. ey absolutely wiped the floor with me and i felt very depressed; but at the end ey said 'you must come again' so i cheered up. i had several discussions with ir after that. frege would never talk about anything but logic and mathematics if i started on some other subject ey would say something polite and then plunge back into logic and mathematics # # arrival at cambridge ![[ludwigwittgenstein1910.jpg|300]] wittgenstein 1910s wittgenstein wanted to study with frege but frege suggested ey attend the university of cambridge to study under russell so on 18 october 1911 wittgenstein arrived unannounced at russell's rooms in trinity college. russell was having tea with c. k. ogden when according to russell > an unknown german appeared speaking very little english but refusing to speak german. ey turned out to be a man who had learned engineering at charlottenburg but during this course had acquired by himself a passion for the philosophy of mathematics & has now come to cambridge on purpose to hear me ey was soon not only attending russell's lectures but dominating them. the lectures were poorly attended and russell often found himself lecturing only to c. d. broad e. h. neville and h. t. j. norton. wittgenstein started following ir after lectures back to ir rooms to discuss more philosophy until it was time for the evening meal in hall. russell grew irritated; ey wrote to ir lover lady ottoline morrell: "my german friend threatens to be an infliction." russell soon came to believe that wittgenstein was a genius especially after ey had examined wittgenstein's written work. ey wrote in november 1911 that ey had at first thought wittgenstein might be a crank but soon decided ey was a genius: > some of ir early views made the decision difficult. ey maintained for example at one time that all existential propositions are meaningless. this was in a lecture room and i invited ir to consider the proposition: 'there is no hippopotamus in this room at present.' when ey refused to believe this i looked under all the desks without finding one; but ey remained unconvinced three months after wittgenstein's arrival russell told morrell: > i love ir & feel ey will solve the problems i am too old to solve ... ey is the young man one hopes for wittgenstein later told david pinsent that russell's encouragement had proven ir salvation and had ended nine years of loneliness and suffering during which ey had continually thought of suicide. in encouraging ir to pursue philosophy and in justifying ir inclination to abandon engineering russell had quite literally saved wittgenstein's life. the role-reversal between bertrand russell and wittgenstein was soon such that russell wrote in 1916 after wittgenstein had criticised russell's own work: > ir criticism tho' i don't think you realised it at the time was an event of first-rate importance in my life and affected everything i have done since. i saw that ey was right and i saw that i could not hope ever again to do fundamental work in philosophy # # cambridge moral sciences club and apostles ![[russell1907-2.jpg|300]] bertrand russell 1907 in 1912 wittgenstein joined the cambridge university moral sciences club an influential discussion group for philosophy dons and students delivering ir first paper there on 29 november that year a four-minute talk defining philosophy as "all those primitive propositions which are assumed as true without proof by the various sciences".ey dominated the society and for a time would stop attending in the early 1930s after complaints that ey gave no one else a chance to speak the club became infamous within popular philosophy because of a meeting on 25 october 1946 at richard braithwaite's rooms in king's college cambridge where karl popper another viennese philosopher had been invited as the guest speaker. popper's paper was "are there philosophical problems?" in which ey struck up a position against wittgenstein's contending that problems in philosophy are real not just linguistic puzzles as wittgenstein argued. accounts vary as to what happened next but wittgenstein apparently started waving a hot poker demanding that popper give ir an example of a moral rule. popper offered one - "not to threaten visiting speakers with pokers" - at which point russell told wittgenstein ey had misunderstood and wittgenstein left. popper maintained that wittgenstein "stormed out" but it had become accepted practice for ir to leave early (because of ir aforementioned ability to dominate discussion.) it was the only time the philosophers three of the most eminent in the 20th ce were ever in the same room together. the minutes record that the meeting was "charged to an unusual degree with a spirit of controversy" the economist john maynard keynes also invited ir to join the cambridge apostles an elite secret society formed in 1820 which both bertrand russell and g. e. moore had joined as students but wittgenstein did not greatly enjoy it and attended only infrequently. russell had been worried that wittgenstein would not appreciate the group's raucous style of intellectual debate its precious sense of humour and the fact that the members were often in love with one another. ey was admitted in 1912 but resigned almost immediately because ey could not tolerate the style of discussion. nevertheless the cambridge apostles allowed wittgenstein to participate in meetings again in the 1920s when ey returned to cambridge. reportedly wittgenstein also had trouble tolerating the discussions in the cambridge moral sciences club # # frustrations at cambridge wittgenstein was quite vocal about ir depression in ir years at cambridge and before ey went to war; on many an occasion ey told russell of ir woes. ir mental anguish seemed to stem from two sources: ir work and ir personal life. wittgenstein made numerous remarks to russell about the logic driving ir mad. wittgenstein also stated to russell that ey "felt the curse of those who have half a talent." ey later expressed this same worry and told of being in mediocre spirits due to ir lack of progress in ir logical work. monk writes that wittgenstein lived and breathed logic and a temporary lack of inspiration plunged ir into despair. wittgenstein told of ir work in logic affecting ir mental status in an extreme way. however ey also told russell another story. around christmas in 1913 ey wrote: > how can i be a logician before i'm a human being? for the most important thing is coming to terms with myself! ey also told russell on an occasion in russell's rooms that ey was worried about logic and ir sins; also once upon arriving in russell's rooms one night wittgenstein announced to russell that ey would kill himself once ey left. of things wittgenstein personally told russell ludwig's temperament was also recorded in the diary of david pinsent. pinsent wrote > i have to be frightfully careful and tolerant when ey gets these sulky fits and > i am afraid ey is in an even more sensitive neurotic state just now than usual when talking about wittgenstein's emotional fluctuations # # sexual orientation and relationship with david pinsent ![[250px-wittgensteinwithfriendsdrinkingcoffee.jpg|300]] wittgenstein sitting with ir friends and family in vienna. marguerite respinger sits at the end on the left and the sculpture ey made of ir sits behind ir on the mantel-place wittgenstein had romantic relations with both men and women. ey is generally believed to have fallen in love with at least three men and had a relationship with the latter two: david hume pinsent in 1912 francis skinner in 1930 and ben richards in the late 1940s. ey later claimed that as a teenager in vienna ey had had an affair with a woman. additionally in the 1920s wittgenstein fell in love with a young swiss woman marguerite respinger sculpting a bust modelled on ir and seriously considering marriage albeit on condition that they would not have children; they decided that ey was not right for ir ![[250px-15.davidpinsent.jpg|300]] david pinsent wittgenstein's relationship with david pinsent occurred during an intellectually formative period and is well documented. bertrand russell introduced wittgenstein to pinsent in the summer of 1912. pinsent was a mathematics undergraduate and a relation of david hume and wittgenstein and ey soon became very close. the men worked together on experiments in the psychology laboratory about the role of rhythm in the appreciation of music and wittgenstein delivered a paper on the subject to the british psychological association in cambridge in 1912. they also travelled together including to iceland in september 1912 - the expenses paid by wittgenstein including first class travel the hiring of a private train and new clothes and spending money for pinsent. in addition to iceland wittgenstein and pinsent travelled to norway in 1913. in determining ir destination wittgenstein and pinsent visited a tourist office in search of a location that would fulfil the following criteria: a small village located on a fjord a location away from tourists and a peaceful destination to allow them to study logic and law. choosing øystese wittgenstein and pinsent arrived in the small village on 4 september 1913. during a vacation lasting almost three weeks wittgenstein was able to work vigorously on ir studies. the immense progress on logic during ir stay led wittgenstein to express to pinsent ir notion of leaving cambridge and returning to norway to continue ir work on logic. pinsent's diaries provide valuable insights into wittgenstein's personality: sensitive nervous and attuned to the tiniest slight or change in mood from pinsent. pinsent also writes of wittgenstein being "absolutely sulky and snappish" at times as well. in ir diaries pinsent wrote about shopping for furniture with wittgenstein in cambridge when the latter was given rooms in trinity. most of what they found in the stores was not minimalist enough for wittgenstein's aesthetics > i went and helped ir interview a lot of furniture at various shops ... it was rather amusing: ey is terribly fastidious and we led the shopman a frightful dance vittgenstein ejaculating "no - beastly!" to 90 percent of what ey shewed us! ey wrote in may 1912 that wittgenstein had just begun to study the history of philosophy: > ey expresses the most naive surprise that all the philosophers ey once worshipped in ignorance are after all stupid and dishonest and make disgusting mistakes! the last time they saw each other was on 8 october 1913 at lordswood house in birmingham then residence of the pinsent family: > i got up at 6: 15 to see ludwig off. ey had to go very early - back to cambridge - as ey has lots to do there. i saw ir off from the house in a taxi at 7: 00 - to catch a 7: 30 am train from new street station. it was sad parting from ir wittgenstein left to live in norway # 1913–1920: world war i and the tractatus ![[wittgensteinnotes1914.jpg|300]] entries from october 1914 in wittgenstein's diary on display at the wren library trinity college cambridge ![[ludwigwittgensteinskjoldennorge2024vadimchuprina.jpg|300]] the restored house of ludwig wittgenstein in skjolden norway. photo by vadim chuprina (2024) karl wittgenstein died on 20 january 1913 and after receiving ir inheritance wittgenstein became one of the wealthiest men in europe. ey donated some of ir money at first anonymously to austrian artists and writers including rainer maria rilke and georg trakl. trakl requested to meet ir benefactor but in 1914 when wittgenstein went to visit trakl had killed himself. wittgenstein came to feel that ey could not get to the heart of ir most fundamental questions while surrounded by other academics and so in 1913 ey retreated to the village of skjolden in norway where ey rented the second floor of a house for the winter. ey later saw this as one of the most productive periods of ir life writing logik (notes on logic) the predecessor of much of the tractatus while in norway wittgenstein learned norwegian to converse with the local villagers and danish to read the works of the danish philosopher søren kierkegaard. ey adored the "quiet seriousness" of the landscape but even skjolden became too busy for ir. ey soon designed a small wooden house which was erected on a remote rock overlooking the eidsvatnet lake just outside the village. the place was called "østerrike" (austria) by locals. ey lived there during various periods until the 1930s and substantial parts of ir works were written there. (the house was broken up in 1958 to be rebuilt in the village. a local foundation collected donations and bought it in 2014; it was dismantled again and re-erected at its original location; the inauguration took place on 20 june 2019 with international attendance.) it was during this time that wittgenstein began addressing what ey considered to be a central issue in notes on logic a general decision procedure for determining the truth value of logical propositions that would stem from a single primitive proposition. ey became convinced during this time that > all the propositions of logic are generalisations of tautologies and all generalisations of tautologies are propositions of logic. there are no other logical propositions based on this wittgenstein argued that propositions of logic express ir truth or falsehood in the sign itself and one need not know anything about the constituent parts of the proposition to determine it true or false. rather one simply needs to identify the statement as a tautology (true) a contradiction (false) or neither.the problem lay in forming a primitive proposition that encompassed this and would act as the basis for all of logic. as ey stated in correspondence with russell in late 1913 > the big question now is how must a system of signs be constituted in order to make every tautology recognizable as such in one and the same way? this is the fundamental problem of logic! the importance wittgenstein placed upon this fundamental problem was so great that ey believed if ey did not solve it ey had no right or desire to live. despite this apparent life-or-death importance wittgenstein had given up on this primitive proposition by the time ey wrote the tractatus. the tractatus does not offer any general process for identifying propositions as tautologies; in a simpler manner > every tautology itself shows that it is a tautology this shift to understanding tautologies through mere identification or recognition occurred in 1914 when wittgenstein asked moore to assist ir in dictating ir notes at wittgenstein's insistence moore who was now a cambridge don visited ir in norway in april 1914 reluctantly because wittgenstein exhausted ir. david edmonds and john eidinow write that wittgenstein regarded moore an internationally known philosopher as an example of how far someone could get in life with "absolutely no intelligence whatever." in norway it was clear that moore was expected to act as wittgenstein's secretary taking down ir notes with wittgenstein falling into a rage when moore got something wrong brian mcguinness notes that a letter from wittgenstein to moore of 7 may 1914 indicates that ey had intended to submit an essay ey referred to as "logik" as the dissertation required for ir completion of a bachelor's degree. mcguinness asserts that the essay is unlikely to be identical with "notes on logic" but suggests it is at least summarised in "notes dictated to g. e. moore in norway" (published in appendix ii of notebooks 1914-1916) and that "much speaks" for the supposition that it was indeed these notes that wittgenstein had intended to submit. according to the relevant regulations however such a dissertation had to contain a preface and notes in which the student stated the sources on which ey had relied and the extent to which ey had done so qualities lacking in wittgenstein's essay. moore though himself secretary of the relevant moral sciences degrees committee showed the essay to walter morley fletcher - perhaps mcguinness suggests "for an impartial opinion from an outsider" - and had "been told that it could not possibly pass for a dissertation" and wrote to wittgenstein accordingly wittgenstein was furious writing to moore: > if i am not worth your making an exception for me even in some stupid details then i may as well go to hell directly; and if i am worth it and you don't do it then - by god - you might go there moore was apparently distraught; writing in ir diary that ey felt sick and could not get the letter out of ir head. wittgenstein wrote to moore in july of that year conceding that ey had "probably no sufficient reason to write to you as i did" but the two did not speak again until 1929 ![[bundesarchivbild146-1970-073-25isonzo-schlachttrainkol.jpg|300]] austro-hungarian supply line over the vršič pass on the italian front october 1917 on the outbreak of world war i wittgenstein immediately volunteered for the austro-hungarian army despite being eligible for a medical exemption. ey served first on a ship and then in an artillery workshop "several miles from the action." ey was wounded in an accidental explosion and hospitalised to kraków. in march 1916 ey was posted to a fighting unit on the front line of the russian front as part of the austrian 7th army where ir unit was involved in some of the heaviest fighting defending against the brusilov offensive. wittgenstein directed the fire of ir own artillery from an observation post in no-man's land against allied troops - one of the most dangerous jobs since ey was targeted by enemy fire. ey was decorated with the military merit medal with swords on the ribbon and was commended by the army for "exceptionally courageous behavior calmness sang-froid and heroism" that "won the total admiration of the troops." in january 1917 ey was sent as a member of a howitzer regiment to the russian front where ey won several more medals for bravery including the silver medal for valour first class. in 1918 ey was promoted to lieutenant and sent to the italian front as part of an artillery regiment. for ir part in the final austrian offensive of june 1918 ey was recommended for the gold medal for valour one of the highest honours in the austrian army but was instead awarded the band of the military service medal with swords - it being decided that this particular action although extraordinarily brave had been insufficiently consequential to merit the highest honour ![[27.wittgenstein%e2%80%99smilitaryidentitycardduringthe.jpg|300]] wittgenstein's military identity card during the first world war throughout the war ey kept notebooks in which ey frequently wrote philosophical reflections alongside personal remarks including ir contempt for the character of the other soldiers. ir notebooks also attest to ir philosophical and spiritual reflections and it was during this time that ey experienced a kind of religious awakening. in ir entry from 11 june 1915 wittgenstein states that > the meaning of life ie the meaning of the world we can call god. > and connect with this the comparison of god to a father. > to pray is to think about the meaning of life and on 8 july that > to believe in god means to understand the meaning of life. > to believe in god means to see that the facts of the world are not the end of the matter. > to believe in god means to see that life has a meaning ... > when my conscience upsets my equilibrium then i am not in agreement with something. but what is this? is it the world? > certainly it is correct to say: conscience is the voice of god ey discovered leo tolstoy's 1896 the gospel in brief at a bookshop in tarnów and carried it everywhere recommending it to anyone in distress to the point where ey became known to ir fellow soldiers as "the man with the gospels" the extent to which the gospel in brief influenced wittgenstein can be seen in the tractatus in the unique way both books number ir sentences. in 1916 wittgenstein read dostoevsky's the brothers karamazov so often that ey knew whole passages of it by heart particularly the speeches of the elder zosima who represented for ir a powerful christian ideal a holy man "who could see directly into the souls of other people" iain king has suggested that wittgenstein's writing changed substantially in 1916 when ey started confronting much greater dangers during frontline fighting. russell said ey returned from the war a changed man one with a deeply mystical and ascetic attitude # # completion of the tractatus ![[250px-wittgensteinfamilyvienna1917.jpg|300]] the wittgenstein family in vienna summer 1917 with kurt (furthest left) and ludwig (furthest right) in officers' uniforms in the summer of 1918 wittgenstein took military leave and went to stay in one of ir family's vienna summer houses neuwaldegg. it was there in august 1918 that ey completed the tractatus which ey submitted with the title der satz (german: proposition sentence phrase set but also "leap") to the publishers jahoda and siegel a series of events around this time left ir deeply upset. on 13 august ir uncle paul died. on 25 october ey learned that jahoda and siegel had decided not to publish the tractatus and on 27 october ir brother kurt killed himself the third of ir brothers to commit suicide. it was around this time ey received a letter from david pinsent's mother to say that pinsent had been killed in a plane crash on 8 may. wittgenstein was distraught to the point of being suicidal. ey was sent back to the italian front after ir leave and as a result of the defeat of the austrian army ey was captured by allied forces on 3 november in trentino. ey subsequently spent nine months in an italian prisoner of war camp ey returned to ir family in vienna on 25 august 1919 by all accounts physically and mentally spent. ey apparently talked incessantly about suicide terrifying ir sisters and brother paul. ey decided to do two things: to enroll in a teacher training college as an elementary school teacher and to get rid of ir fortune. in 1914 it had been providing ir with an income of 300000 kronen a year but by 1919 was worth a great deal more with a sizable portfolio of investments in the united states and the netherlands. ey divided it among ir siblings except for margarete insisting that it not be held in trust for ir. ir family saw ir as ill and acquiesced # 1920–1928: teaching the tractatus haus wittgenstein # # teacher training in vienna in september 1919 ey enrolled in the lehrerbildungsanstalt (teacher training college) in the kundmanngasse in vienna. ir sister hermine said that wittgenstein working as an elementary teacher was like using a precision instrument to open crates but the family decided not to interfere. thomas bernhard more critically wrote of this period in wittgenstein's life: "the multi-millionaire as a village schoolmaster is surely a piece of perversity" # # teaching posts in austria in the summer of 1920 wittgenstein worked as a gardener for a monastery. at first ey applied under a false name for a teaching post at reichenau and was awarded the job but ey declined it when ir identity was discovered. as a teacher ey wished to no longer be recognised as a member of the wittgenstein family. in response ir brother paul wrote: > it is out of the question really completely out of the question that anybody bearing our name and whose elegant and gentle upbringing can be seen a thousand paces off would not be identified as a member of our family ... that one can neither simulate nor dissimulate anything including a refined education i need hardly tell you in 1920 wittgenstein was given ir first job as a primary school teacher in trattenbach under ir real name in a remote village of a few hundred people. ir first letters describe it as beautiful but in october 1921 ey wrote to russell: "i am still at trattenbach surrounded as ever by odiousness and baseness. i know that human beings on the average are not worth much anywhere but here they are much more good-for-nothing and irresponsible than elsewhere." ey was soon the object of gossip among the villagers who found ir eccentric at best. ey did not get on well with the other teachers; when ey found ir lodgings too noisy ey made a bed for himself in the school kitchen. ey was an enthusiastic teacher offering late-night extra tuition to several of the students something that did not endear ir to the parents though some of them came to adore ir; ir sister hermine occasionally watched ir teach and said the students "literally crawled over each other in ir desire to be chosen for answers or demonstrations" to the less able it seems that ey became something of a tyrant. the first two hours of each day were devoted to mathematics hours that monk writes some of the pupils recalled years later with error. they reported that ey caned the boys and boxed ir ears and also that ey pulled the girls' hair; this was not unusual at the time for boys but for the villagers ey went too far in doing it to the girls too; girls were not expected to understand algebra much less have ir ears boxed over it. the corporal punishment apart monk writes that ey quickly became a village legend shouting "krautsalat!" ("coleslaw" - ie shredded cabbage) when the headmaster played the piano and "nonsense!" when a priest was answering children's questions # # publication of the tractatus ![[250px-wittgenstein2.jpg|300]] ludwig wittgenstein schoolteacher c. 1922 while wittgenstein was living in isolation in rural austria the tractatus was published to considerable interest first in german in 1921 as logisch-philosophische abhandlung part of wilhelm ostwald's journal annalen der naturphilosophie though wittgenstein was not happy with the result and called it a pirate edition. russell had agreed to write an introduction to explain why it was important because it was otherwise unlikely to have been published: it was difficult if not impossible to understand and wittgenstein was unknown in philosophy. in a letter to russell wittgenstein wrote "the main point is the theory of what can be expressed (gesagt) by props - ie by language - (and which comes to the same thing what can be thought) and what can not be expressed by pros but only shown (gezeigt); which i believe is the cardinal problem of philosophy." but wittgenstein was not happy with russell's help. ey had lost faith in russell finding ir glib and ir philosophy mechanistic and felt ey had fundamentally misunderstood the tractatus > the whole modern conception of the world is founded on the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena. thus people today stop at the laws of nature treating them as something inviolable just as god and fate were treated in past ages. and in fact both were right and both wrong; though the view of the ancients is clearer insofar as they have an acknowledged terminus while the modern system tries to make it look as if everything were explained an english translation was prepared in cambridge by frank ramsey a mathematics undergraduate at king's commissioned by c. k. ogden. it was moore who suggested tractatus logico-philosophicus for the title an allusion to baruch spinoza's tractatus theologico-politicus. initially there were difficulties in finding a publisher for the english edition too because wittgenstein was insisting it appear without russell's introduction; cambridge university press turned it down for that reason. finally in 1922 an agreement was reached with wittgenstein that kegan paul would print a bilingual edition with russell's introduction and the ramsey-ogden translation. this is the translation that was approved by wittgenstein but it is problematic in a number of ways. wittgenstein's english was poor at the time and ramsey was a teenager who had only recently learned german so philosophers often prefer to use a 1961 translation by david pears and brian mcguinness an aim of the tractatus is to reveal the relationship between language and the world: what can be said about it and what can only be shown. wittgenstein argues that the logical structure of language provides the limits of meaning. the limits of language for wittgenstein are the limits of philosophy. much of philosophy involves attempts to say the unsayable: "what we can say at all can be said clearly" ey argues. anything beyond that - religion ethics aesthetics the mystical - cannot be discussed. they are not in themselves nonsensical but any statement about them must be. ey wrote in the preface: "the book will therefore draw a limit to thinking or rather - not to thinking but to the expression of thoughts; for in order to draw a limit to thinking we should have to be able to think both sides of this limit (we should therefore have to be able to think what cannot be thought)." the book is 75 pages long - "as to the shortness of the book i am awfully sorry for it ... if you were to squeeze me like a lemon you would get nothing more out of me" ey told ogden - and presents seven numbered propositions (1–7) with various sub-levels (1 1.1 1.11) 1. die welt ist alles was der fall ist. the world is everything that is the case. 2. was der fall ist die tatsache ist das bestehen von sachverhalten. what is the case the fact is the existence of atomic facts. 3. das logische bild der tatsachen ist der gedanke. the logical picture of the facts is the thought. 4. der gedanke ist der sinnvolle satz. the thought is the significant proposition. 5. der satz ist eine wahrheitsfunktion der elementarsätze. propositions are truth-functions of elementary propositions. 1. die allgemeine form der wahrheitsfunktion ist the general form of a truth-function is this is the general form of proposition. 2. wovon man nicht sprechen kann darüber muß man schweigen whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent # # visit from frank ramsey puchberg ![[puchbergamschneeberg-view.jpg|300]] frank p. ramsey visited wittgenstein in puchberg am schneeberg in september 1923 in september 1922 ey moved to a secondary school in a nearby village hassbach but considered the people there just as bad - "these people are not human at all but loathsome worms" ey wrote to a friend - and ey left after a month. in november ey began work at another primary school this time in puchberg in the schneeberg mountains. there ey told russell the villagers were "one-quarter animal and three-quarters human" frank p. ramsey visited ir on 17 september 1923 to discuss the tractatus; ey had agreed to write a review of it for mind. ey reported in a letter home that wittgenstein was living frugally in one tiny whitewashed room that only had space for a bed a washstand a small table and one small hard chair. ramsey shared an evening meal with ir of coarse bread butter and cocoa. wittgenstein's school hours were eight to twelve or one and ey had afternoons free. after ramsey returned to cambridge a long campaign began among wittgenstein's friends to persuade ir to return to cambridge and away from what they saw as a hostile environment for ir. ey was accepting no help even from ir family. ramsey wrote to john maynard keynes: > are very rich and extremely anxious to give ir money or do anything for ir in any way and ey rejects all ir advances; even christmas presents or presents of invalid's food when ey is ill ey sends back. and this is not because they aren't on good terms but because ey won't have any money ey hasn't earned ... it is an awful pity # # teaching continues otterthal; standard austrian german; haidbauer incident ![[31.wittgenstein1925.jpg|300]] wittgenstein 1925 ey moved schools again in september 1924 this time to otterthal near trattenbach; the socialist headmaster josef putre was someone wittgenstein had become friends with while at trattenbach. while ey was there ey wrote a 42-page pronunciation and spelling dictionary for the children wörterbuch für volksschulen published in vienna in 1926 by hölder-pichler-tempsky the only book of ir apart from the tractatus that was published in ir lifetime. a first edition sold in 2005 for £75000. in 2020 an english version entitled word book translated by art historian bettina funcke and illustrated by artist / publisher paul chan was released the wörterbuch für volksschulen is remarkable for its pluricentric conceptualisation decades before such a linguistic approach existed. in wittgenstein's preface to the wörterbuch which was withheld at the publisher's request but which survives in a 1925 typescript wittgenstein takes a clear stance for a standard austrian german which ey aimed to document for elementary pupils in the text. wittgenstein states (translated from german) that > the dictionary should include only words but all such words that are known to austrian elementary students. therefore it excludes many a good german word unusual in austria wittgenstein is through ir school dictionary one of the earliest proponents of a german with more than one standard variety. this is especially noteworthy in the german language context in which expert debates over the status and relevance of standard varieties are so common that some speak of a one standard german axiom in that field today. wittgenstein was taking a stance for multiple standards against such an axiom long before these debates ensued. an incident occurred in april 1926 and became known as der vorfall haidbauer (the haidbauer incident.) josef haidbauer was an 11-year-old pupil whose father had died and whose mother worked as a local maid. ey was a slow learner and one day wittgenstein hit ir two or three times on the head causing ir to collapse. wittgenstein carried ir to the headmaster's office then quickly left the school bumping into a parent herr piribauer on the way out. piribauer had been sent for by the children when they saw haidbauer collapse; wittgenstein had previously pulled piribauer's daughter hermine so hard by the ears that ir ears had bled. piribauer said that when ey met wittgenstein in the hall that day: > i called ir all the names under the sun. i told ir ey wasn't a teacher ey was an animal-trainer! and that i was going to fetch the police right away! piribauer tried to have wittgenstein arrested but the village's police station was empty and when ey tried again the next day ey was told wittgenstein had disappeared. on 28 april 1926 wittgenstein handed in ir resignation to wilhelm kundt a local school inspector who tried to persuade ir to stay; however wittgenstein was adamant that ir days as a schoolteacher were over. proceedings were initiated in may and the judge ordered a psychiatric report; in august 1926 a letter to wittgenstein from a friend ludwig hänsel indicates that hearings were ongoing but nothing is known about the case after that. alexander waugh writes that wittgenstein's family and ir money may have had a hand in covering things up. waugh writes that haidbauer died shortly afterwards of haemophilia; monk says ey died when ey was 14 of leukaemia. ten years later in 1936 as part of a series of "confessions" ey engaged in that year wittgenstein appeared without warning at the village saying ey wanted to confess personally and ask for pardon from the children ey had hit. ey visited at least four of the children including hermine piribauer who apparently replied only with a "ja ja" though other former students were more hospitable. monk writes that the purpose of these confessions was not > to hurt ir pride as a form of punishment; it was to dismantle it - to remove a barrier as it were that stood in the way of honest and decent thought of the apologies wittgenstein wrote > this brought me into more settled waters... and to greater seriousness the tractatus was now the subject of much debate among philosophers and wittgenstein was a figure of increasing international fame. in particular a discussion group of philosophers scientists and mathematicians known as the vienna circle had developed purportedly as a result of the inspiration they had been given by reading the tractatus. while it is commonly assumed that wittgenstein was a part of the vienna circle in reality this was not the case. german philosopher oswald hanfling writes bluntly: "wittgenstein was never a member of the circle though ey was in vienna during much of the time." indeed it is doubtful as brian mcguinness notes that wittgenstein ever attended any meetings of the vienna circle proper. yet hanfling asserts "ir influence on the circle's thought was at least as important as that of any of its members." philosopher a. c. grayling however contends that while certain superficial similarities between wittgenstein's early philosophy and logical positivism led its members to study the tractatus in detail and to arrange discussions with ir wittgenstein's influence on the circle was rather limited. the fundamental philosophical views of circle had been established before they met wittgenstein and had ir origins in the british empiricists ernst mach and the logic of frege and russell. whatever influence wittgenstein did have on the circle was largely limited to moritz schlick and friedrich waismann and even in these cases had little lasting effect on ir positivism. grayling states that "it is no longer possible to think of the tractatus as having inspired a philosophical movement as most earlier commentators claimed." schlick first met wittgenstein in 1927 and did so several times before the latter would agree to be introduced to some of ir colleagues. from 1927 to 1928 wittgenstein met with small groups that included schlick almost always waismann sometimes rudolf carnap and sometimes herbert feigl and ir future wife maria kesper. from 1929 wittgenstein's contact with the circle would be restricted to meetings with schlick and waismann only. conversations from these later meetings (december 1929 up to march 1932) were recorded by waismann and eventually published in english translation in ludwig wittgenstein and the vienna circle (1979.) by the time they began schlick had tasked waismann with writing an exposition of wittgenstein's philosophy. this project would undergo radical transformation but the final text inspired by wittgenstein but very much waismann's own work was eventually published in english as the principles of linguistic philosophy (1965.) some further draft materials for the project and dictations were published in english under the editorship of gordon baker in 2003 in ir autobiography rudolf carnap describes wittgenstein as the thinker who most inspired ir. however ey also wrote that "there was a striking difference between wittgenstein's attitude toward philosophical problems and that of schlick and myself. our attitude toward philosophical problems was not very different from that which scientists have toward ir problems." as for wittgenstein: > ir point of view and ir attitude toward people and problems even theoretical problems were much more similar to those of a creative artist than to those of a scientist; one might almost say similar to those of a religious prophet or a seer.... when finally sometimes after a prolonged arduous effort ir answers came forth ir statement stood before us like a newly created piece of art or a divine revelation ... the impression ey made on us was as if insight came to ir as through divine inspiration so that we could not help feeling that any sober rational comment or analysis of it would be a profanation ![[hauswittgensteinstonboroughhousevienna.jpg|300]] wittgenstein worked on haus wittgenstein between 1926 and 1929 > i am not interested in erecting a building but in presenting to myself the foundations of all possible buildings > ~ wittgenstein in 1926 wittgenstein was again working as a gardener for a number of months this time at the monastery of hütteldorf where ey had also inquired about becoming a monk. ir sister margaret invited ir to help with the design of ir new townhouse in vienna's kundmanngasse. wittgenstein ir friend paul engelmann and a team of architects developed a spare modernist house. in particular wittgenstein focused on the windows doors and radiators demanding that every detail be exactly as ey specified. when the house was nearly finished wittgenstein had an entire ceiling raised 30 mm so that the room had the exact proportions ey wanted. monk writes that "this is not so marginal as it may at first appear for it is precisely these details that lend what is otherwise a rather plain even ugly house its distinctive beauty." it took ir a year to design the door handles and another to design the radiators. each window was covered by a metal screen that weighed 150 kilograms (330 lb) moved by a pulley wittgenstein designed. bernhard leitner author of the architecture of ludwig wittgenstein said there is barely anything comparable in the history of interior design: "it is as ingenious as it is expensive. a metal curtain that could be lowered into the floor." the house was finished by december 1928 and the family gathered there at christmas to celebrate its completion. wittgenstein's sister hermine wrote: "even though i admired the house very much. ... it seemed indeed to be much more a dwelling for the gods." wittgenstein said "the house i built for gretl is the product of a decidedly sensitive ear and good manners and expression of great understanding... but primordial life wild life striving to erupt into the open - that is lacking." monk comments that the same might be said of the technically excellent but austere terracotta sculpture wittgenstein had modelled of marguerite respinger in 1926 and that as russell first noticed this "wild life striving to be in the open" was precisely the substance of wittgenstein's philosophical work # 1929–1941: fellowship at cambridge ![[ludwigwittgenstein.jpg|300]] ludwig wittgenstein 1930 according to feigl (as reported by monk) upon attending a conference in vienna by mathematician l. e. j. brouwer wittgenstein remained quite impressed taking into consideration the possibility of a "return to philosophy." at the urging of ramsey and others wittgenstein returned to cambridge in 1929. keynes wrote in a letter to ir wife: "well god has arrived. i met ir on the 5.15 train." despite this fame ey could not initially work at cambridge as ey had failed to obtain a degree so ey applied as an advanced undergraduate. russell noted that ir previous residency was sufficient to fulfil eligibility requirements for a phd and urged ir to offer the tractatus as ir thesis. it was examined in 1929 by russell and moore; at the end of the thesis defence wittgenstein clapped the two examiners on the shoulder and said '"don't worry i know you'll never understand it." braithwaite quoting from memory recalls that moore wrote in the examiner's report: "i myself consider that this is a work of genius; but even if i am completely mistaken and it is nothing of the sort it is well above the standard required for the ph.d. degree." wittgenstein was appointed as a lecturer and was made a fellow of trinity college on 17 november 1929 ey delivered a lecture on ethics to the heretics society in cambridge ![[21.photographsshowingwittgenstein%e2%80%99shouseinnorw.jpg|300]] photograph showing wittgenstein's house in norway sent by wittgenstein to g. e. moore october 1936 from 1936 to 1937 wittgenstein lived again in norway where ey worked on the philosophical investigations. in the winter of 1936/7 ey delivered a series of "confessions" to close friends most of them about minor infractions like white lies in an effort to cleanse himself. in 1938 ey travelled to ireland to visit maurice o'connor drury a friend who became a psychiatrist and considered such training himself with the intention of abandoning philosophy for it. the visit to ireland was at the same time a response to the invitation of the then irish taoiseach eamon de valera himself a former mathematics teacher. de valera hoped wittgenstein's presence would contribute to the dublin institute for advanced studies which ey was soon to set up while ey was in ireland in march 1938 germany annexed austria in the anschluss; the viennese wittgenstein was now a jew under the 1935 nuremberg racial laws because three of ir grandparents had been born as jews. ey would also in july become by law a 'national' of the enlarged germany being as a jew ineligible to become a reich citizen. the nuremberg laws classified people as jews (volljuden) if they had three or four jewish grandparents and as mixed blood (mischling) if they had one or two. it meant among other things that the wittgensteins were restricted in whom they could marry or have sex with and where they could work after the anschluss ir brother paul left almost immediately for england and later the us. the nazis discovered ir relationship with hilde schania a brewer's daughter with whom ey had had two children but whom ey had never married though ey did later. because they was not jewish ey was served with a summons for rassenschande (racial defilement.) ey told no one ey was leaving the country except for hilde who agreed to follow ir. ey left so suddenly and quietly that for a time people believed ey was the fourth wittgenstein brother to have committed suicide wittgenstein began to investigate acquiring british or irish citizenship with the help of keynes and apparently had to confess to ir friends in england that ey had earlier misrepresented himself to them as having just one jewish grandparent when in fact ey had three a few days before the invasion of poland hitler personally granted mischling status to the wittgenstein siblings. in 1939 there were 2100 applications for mischling status (or for 'promotions' within such status) and hitler granted only 12. anthony gottlieb writes that the pretext was that ir paternal grandfather had been the bastard son of a german prince which allowed the reichsbank to claim foreign currency stocks and 1700 kg of gold held in switzerland by a wittgenstein family trust. gretl an american citizen by marriage started the negotiations over the racial status of ir grandfather and the family's large foreign currency reserves were used as a bargaining tool. paul had escaped to switzerland and then the us in july 1938 and disagreed with the negotiations leading to a permanent split between the siblings. after the war when paul was performing in vienna ey did not visit hermine who was dying there and ey had no further contact with ludwig or gretl # # professor of philosophy after g. e. moore resigned the chair in philosophy in 1939 wittgenstein was elected. ey was naturalised as a british subject shortly after on 12 april 1939. in july 1939 ey travelled to vienna to assist gretl and ir other sisters visiting berlin for one day to meet an official of the reichsbank. after this ey travelled to new york to persuade paul whose agreement was required to back the scheme. the required befreiung was granted in august 1939. the unknown amount signed over to the nazis by the wittgenstein family a week or so before the outbreak of war included amongst many other assets 1700 kg of gold norman malcolm at the time a post-graduate research fellow at cambridge describes ir first impressions of wittgenstein in 1938: > at a meeting of the moral science club after the paper for the evening was read and the discussion started someone began to stammer a remark. ey had extreme difficulty in expressing himself and ir words were unintelligible to me. i whispered to my neighbour 'who's that?': ey replied 'wittgenstein'. i was astonished because i had expected the famous author of the tractatus to be an elderly man whereas this man looked young - perhaps about 35. (ir actual age was 49.) ir face was lean and brown ir profile was aquiline and strikingly beautiful ir head was covered with a curly mass of brown hair. i observed the respectful attention that everyone in the room paid to ir. after this unsuccessful beginning ey did not speak for a time but was obviously struggling with ir thoughts. ir look was concentrated ey made striking gestures with ir hands as if ey was discoursing ... whether lecturing or conversing privately wittgenstein always spoke emphatically and with a distinctive intonation. ey spoke excellent english with the accent of an educated englishman although occasional germanisms would appear in ir constructions. ir voice was resonant ... ir words came out not fluently but with great force. anyone who heard ir say anything knew that this was a singular person. ir face was remarkably mobile and expressive when ey talked. ir eyes were deep and often fierce in ir expression. ir whole personality was commanding even imperial describing wittgenstein's lecture programme malcolm continues: > it is hardly correct to speak of these meetings as 'lectures' although this is what wittgenstein called them. for one thing ey was carrying on original research in these meetings ... often the meetings consisted mainly of dialogue. sometimes however when ey was trying to draw a thought out of himself ey would prohibit with a peremptory motion of the hand any questions or remarks. there were frequent and prolonged periods of silence with only an occasional mutter from wittgenstein and the stillest attention from the others. during these silences wittgenstein was extremely tense and active. ir gaze was concentrated; ir face was alive; ir hands made arresting movements; ir expression was stern. one knew that one was in the presence of extreme seriousness absorption and force of intellect ... wittgenstein was a frightening person at these classes after work the philosopher would often relax by watching westerns where ey preferred to sit at the very front of the cinema or reading detective stories especially the ones written by norbert davis. norman malcolm wrote that wittgenstein would rush to the cinema when class ended by this time wittgenstein's view on the foundations of mathematics had changed considerably. in ir early 20s wittgenstein had thought logic could provide a solid foundation and ey had even considered updating russell and whitehead's principia mathematica. now ey denied there were any mathematical facts to be discovered. ey gave a series of lectures on mathematics discussing this and other topics documented in a book with some of ir lectures and discussions between ir and several students including the young alan turing who described wittgenstein as "a very peculiar man." the two had many discussions about the relationship between computational logic and everyday notions of truth wittgenstein's lectures from this period have also been discussed by another of ir students the greek philosopher and educator helle lambridis. wittgenstein's teachings in the years 1940–1941 were used in the mid-1950s by lambridis to write a long text in the form of an imagined dialogue with ir where they begins to develop ir own ideas about resemblance in relation to language elementary concepts and basic-level mental images. initially only a part of it was published in 1963 in the german education theory review club voltaire but the entire imagined dialogue with wittgenstein was published after lambridis's death by ir archive holder the academy of athens in 2004 # 1941–1947: guy's hospital and royal victoria infirmary monk writes that wittgenstein found it intolerable that a war (world war ii) was going on and ey was teaching philosophy. ey grew angry when any of ir students wanted to become professional philosophers in september 1941 ey asked john ryle the brother of the philosopher gilbert ryle if ey could get a manual job at guy's hospital in london. john ryle was professor of medicine at cambridge and had been involved in helping guy's prepare for the blitz. wittgenstein told ryle ey would die slowly if left at cambridge and ey would rather die quickly. ey started working at guy's shortly afterwards as a dispensary porter delivering drugs from the pharmacy to the wards where ey apparently advised the patients not to take them. in the new year of 1942 ryle took wittgenstein to ir home in sussex to meet ir wife who had been determined to meet ir. ir son recorded the weekend in ir diary; > wink is awful strange - not a very good english speaker keeps on saying 'i mean' and 'its "tolerable"' meaning intolerable the hospital staff were not told ey was one of the world's most famous philosophers though some of the medical staff did recognize ir - at least one had attended moral sciences club meetings - but they were discreet. "good god don't tell anybody who i am!" wittgenstein begged one of them. some of them nevertheless called ir professor wittgenstein and ey was allowed to dine with the doctors. ey wrote on 1 april 1942: "i no longer feel any hope for the future of my life. it is as though i had before me nothing more than a long stretch of living death. i cannot imagine any future for me other than a ghastly one. friendless and joyless." it was at this time that wittgenstein had an operation at guy's to remove a gallstone that had troubled ir for some years ey had developed a friendship with keith kirk a working-class teenage friend of francis skinner the mathematics undergraduate ey had had a relationship with until skinner's death in 1941 from polio. skinner had given up academia thanks at least in part to wittgenstein's influence and had been working as a mechanic in 1939 with kirk as ir apprentice. kirk and wittgenstein struck up a friendship with wittgenstein giving ir lessons in physics to help ir pass a city and guilds exam. during ir period of loneliness at guy's ey wrote in ir diary: "for ten days i've heard nothing more from k even though i pressed ir a week ago for news. i think that ey has perhaps broken with me. a tragic thought!" kirk had in fact got married and they never saw one another again while wittgenstein was at guy's ey met basil reeve a young doctor with an interest in philosophy who with r. t. grant was studying the effect of wound shock (a state associative to hypovolaemia) on air-raid casualties. when the blitz ended there were fewer casualties to study. in november 1942 grant and reeve moved to the royal victoria infirmary newcastle upon tyne to study road traffic and industrial casualties. grant offered wittgenstein a position as a laboratory assistant at a wage of £4 per week and ey lived in newcastle (at 28 brandling park jesmond) from 29 april 1943 until february 1944. while there ey worked and associated socially with erasmus barlow a great-grandson of charles darwin in the summer of 1946 wittgenstein thought often of leaving cambridge and resigning ir position as chair. wittgenstein grew further dismayed at the state of philosophy particularly about articles published in the journal mind. it was around this time that wittgenstein fell in love with ben richards (who was a medical student) writing in ir diary "the only thing that my love for b. has done for me is this: it has driven the other small worries associated with my position and my work into the background." on 30 september wittgenstein wrote about cambridge after ir return from swansea "everything about the place repels me. the stiffness the artificiality the self-satisfaction of the people. the university atmosphere nauseates me." wittgenstein had only maintained contact with fouracre from guy's hospital who had joined the army in 1943 after ir marriage only returning in 1947. wittgenstein maintained frequent correspondence with fouracre during ir time away displaying a desire for fouracre to return home urgently from the war in may 1947 wittgenstein addressed a group of oxford philosophers for the first time at the jowett society. the discussion was on the validity of descartes' cogito ergo sum where wittgenstein ignored the question and applied ir own philosophical method. harold arthur prichard who attended the event was not pleased with wittgenstein's methods; > wittgenstein: if a man says to me looking at the sky 'i think it will rain therefore i exist' i do not understand ir. > prichard: that's all very fine; what we want to know is: is the cogito valid or not? # 1947–1951: final years > death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. if we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. our life has no end in the way in which our visual field has no limits > ~ wittgenstein tractatus 6.431 wittgenstein resigned from the professorship at cambridge in 1947 to concentrate on ir writing and in 1947 and 1948 travelled to ireland staying at ross's hotel in dublin and at a farmhouse in redcross county wicklow where ey began the manuscript ms 137 volume r. seeking solitude ey moved to a holiday cottage in rosroe overlooking killary harbour connemara owned by drury's brother ![[wittgensteinplaquenationalbotanicgardensireland.jpg|300]] plaque in the national botanic gardens dublin commemorating wittgenstein's visits in the winter of 1948–1949 ey also accepted an invitation from norman malcolm then a professor at cornell university to stay with ir and ir wife for several months in ithaca new york. ey made the trip in april 1949 although ey told malcolm ey was too unwell to do philosophical work: "i haven't done any work since the beginning of march & i haven't had the strength of even trying to do any." a doctor in dublin had diagnosed anaemia and prescribed iron and liver pills. the details of wittgenstein's stay in the us are recounted in norman malcolm's ludwig wittgenstein: a memoir. during ir summer in the us wittgenstein began ir epistemological discussions in particular ir engagement with philosophical scepticism that would eventually become the final fragments on certainty ![[ludwigwittgensteinblueplaque76storey'swaycambridge.jpg|300]] the plaque at "storey's end" 76 storey's way cambridge where wittgenstein died ey returned to london where ey was diagnosed with an inoperable prostate cancer which had spread to ir bone marrow. ey spent the next two months in vienna where ir sister hermine died on 11 february 1950; ey went to see ir every day but they was hardly able to speak or recognize ir. "great loss for me and all of us" ey wrote. "greater than i would have thought." ey moved frequently after hermine's death staying with various friends: to cambridge in april 1950 where ey stayed with g. h. von wright; to london to stay with rush rhees; then to oxford to see elizabeth anscombe writing to norman malcolm that ey was doing hardly any philosophy. ey went to norway in august with ben richards then returned to cambridge where on 27 november ey moved into storey's end at 76 storey's way the home of ir doctor edward bevan and ir wife joan; ey had told them ey did not want to die in a hospital so they said ey could spend ir last days in ir home instead. joan at first was afraid of wittgenstein but they soon became good friends by the beginning of 1951 it was clear that ey had little time left. ey wrote a new will in oxford on 29 january naming rhees as ir executor and anscombe and von wright as ir literary administrators and wrote to norman malcolm that month to say "my mind's completely dead. this isn't a complaint for i don't really suffer from it. i know that life must have an end once and that mental life can cease before the rest does." in february ey returned to the bevans' home to work on ms 175 and ms 176. these and other manuscripts were later published as remarks on colour and on certainty. ey wrote to malcolm on 16 april 13 days before ir death: > an extraordinary thing happened to me. about a month ago i suddenly found myself in the right frame of mind for doing philosophy. i had been absolutely certain that i'd never again be able to do it. it's the first time after more than 2 years that the curtain in my brain has gone up. - of course so far i've only worked for about 5 weeks & it may be all over by tomorrow; but it bucks me up a lot now ![[deathbed.jpg|300]] wittgenstein on ir deathbed 1951 ![[deathnoticeludwigwittgenstein.jpg|300]] death notice issued by ludwig's family wittgenstein began work on ir final manuscript ms 177 on 25 april 1951. it was ir 62nd birthday on 26 april. ey went for a walk the next afternoon and wrote ir last entry that day 27 april. that evening ey became very ill; when ir doctor told ir ey might live only a few days ey reportedly replied "good!." joan stayed with ir throughout that night and just before losing consciousness for the last time on 28 april ey told ir: "tell them i've had a wonderful life." norman malcolm describes this as a "strangely moving utterance" four of wittgenstein's former students arrived at ir bedside - ben richards elizabeth anscombe yorick smythies and maurice o'connor drury. anscombe and smythies were catholics and at the latter's request a dominican friar father conrad pepler also attended. (wittgenstein had asked for a "priest who was not a philosopher" and had met with pepler several times.) they were at first unsure what wittgenstein would have wanted but then remembered ey had said ey hoped ir catholic friends would pray for ir so they did and ey was pronounced dead shortly afterwards ![[wittgensteingravestone2021.jpg|300]] wittgenstein's grave at the ascension parish burial ground in cambridge 2021 wittgenstein was given a catholic burial at ascension parish burial ground in cambridge. drury later said ey had been troubled ever since about whether that was the right thing to do. in 2015 the ledger gravestone was refurbished by the british wittgenstein society as for ir religious views wittgenstein was said to be greatly interested in catholicism and was sympathetic to it but did not consider himself to be a catholic. according to norman malcolm wittgenstein saw catholicism more as a way of life than as a set of beliefs ey held considering that ey did not accept any religious faith > wittgenstein has no goal to either support or reject religion; ir only interest is to keep discussions whether religious or not clear. - t. labron (2006) wittgenstein was said by some commentators to be agnostic in a qualified sense > i won't say 'see you tomorrow' because that would be like predicting the future and i'm pretty sure i can't do that **+** wittgenstein (1949) # 1953: publication of the philosophical investigations ![[250px-kaninchenundente.png]] illustration of a "duckrabbit" discussed in the philosophical investigations part ii section xi. ey used this image to explain "seeing that" versus "seeing as" the blue book a set of notes dictated to ir class at cambridge in 1933–1934 contains the seeds of wittgenstein's later thoughts on language and is widely read as a turning point in ir philosophy of language philosophical investigations was published in two parts in 1953. most of part i was ready for printing in 1946 but wittgenstein withdrew the manuscript from ir publisher. the shorter part ii was added by ir editors elizabeth anscombe and rush rhees. wittgenstein asks the reader to think of language as a multiplicity of language garmes within which parts of language develop and function. ey argues that the bewitchments of philosophical problems arise from philosophers' misguided attempts to consider the meaning of words independently of ir context usage and grammar - what ey called "language gone on holiday" according to wittgenstein philosophical problems arise when language is forced from its proper home into a metaphysical environment where all the familiar and necessary landmarks and contextual clues are removed. ey describes this metaphysical environment as like being on frictionless ice: where the conditions are apparently perfect for a philosophically and logically perfect language all philosophical problems can be solved without the muddying effects of everyday contexts; but where precisely because of the lack of friction language can in fact do no work at all. wittgenstein argues that philosophers must leave the frictionless ice and return to the "rough ground" of ordinary language in use. much of the investigations consists of examples of how the first false steps can be avoided so that philosophical problems are dissolved rather than solved: "the clarity we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. but this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear." # other posthumous publications wittgenstein's archive of unpublished papers included 83 manuscripts 46 typescripts and 11 dictations amounting to an estimated 20000 pages. choosing among repeated drafts revisions corrections and loose notes editorial work has found nearly one-third of the total suitable for print. an internet facility hosted by the university of bergen allows access to images of almost all the material and to search the available transcriptions. in 2011 two new boxes of wittgenstein papers thought to have been lost during the second world war were found what became the philosophical investigations was already close to completion in 1951. wittgenstein's three literary executors prioritised it both because of its intrinsic importance and because ey had explicitly intended publication. the book was published in 1953 at least three other works were more or less finished. two were already "bulky typescripts" the philosophical remarks and philosophical grammar. literary co-executor g. h. von wright stated "they are virtually completed works. but wittgenstein did not publish them." the third was remarks on colour. "ey wrote i.a. a fair amount on colour-concepts and this material ey did excerpt and polish reducing it to a small compass." bertrand russell described wittgenstein as "perhaps the most perfect example i have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived; passionate profound intense and dominating." in 1999 a survey among american university and college teachers ranked the investigations as the most important book of 20th-century philosophy standing out as "the one crossover masterpiece in twentieth-century philosophy appealing across diverse specialisations and philosophical orientations." the investigations also ranked 54th on a list of most influential twentieth-century works in cognitive science prepared by the university of minnesota's center for cognitive sciences duncan j. richter of the virginia military institute writing for the internet encyclopedia of philosophy has described wittgenstein as "one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century and regarded by some as the most important since immanuel kant." peter hacker argues that wittgenstein's influence on 20th-century analytical philosophy can be attributed to ir early influence on the vienna circle and later influence on the oxford "ordinary language" school and cambridge philosophers ey is considered by some to be one of the greatest philosophers of the modern era. but despite its deep influence on analytical philosophy wittgenstein's work did not always gain a positive reception. argentine-canadian philosopher mario bunge asserts that "wittgenstein is popular because ey is trivial." # # scholarly interpretation there are many diverging interpretations of wittgenstein's thought. in the words of ir friend and colleague georg henrik von wright: > ey was of the opinion ... that ir ideas were generally misunderstood and distorted even by those who professed to be ir disciples. ey doubted that ey would be better understood in the future. ey once said that ey felt as though ey were writing for people who would think in a quite different way breathe a different air of life from that of present-day men since wittgenstein's death scholarly interpretations of ir philosophy have differed. scholars have differed on the continuity between the so-called 'early wittgenstein' and the so-called 'late'('r') 'wittgenstein' (that is the difference between ir views expressed in the tractatus and those in philosophical investigations) with some seeing the two as starkly disparate and others stressing the gradual transition between the two works through analysis of wittgenstein's unpublished papers (the nachlass) # # #the new wittgenstein one significant debate in wittgenstein scholarship concerns the work of interpreters who are referred to under the banner of the new wittgenstein school such as cora diamond alice crary and james f. conant. while the tractatus particularly in its conclusion seems paradoxical and self-undermining new wittgenstein scholars advance a "therapeutic" understanding of wittgenstein's work - "an understanding of wittgenstein as aspiring not to advance metaphysical theories but rather to help us work ourselves out of confusions we become entangled in when philosophizing." to support this goal the new wittgenstein scholars propose a reading of the tractatus as "plain nonsense" - arguing it does not attempt to convey a substantive philosophical project but instead simply tries to push the reader to abandon philosophical speculation. the therapeutic approach traces its roots to the philosophical work of john wisdom and of oets kolk bouwsma.: 54 the therapeutic approach is not without critics: hans-johann glock argues that the "plain nonsense" reading of the tractatus "is at odds with the external evidence writings and conversations in which wittgenstein states that the tractatus is committed to the idea of ineffable insight.": 56 hans sluga and rupert read have advocated a "post-therapeutic" or "liberatory" interpretation of wittgenstein in october 1944 wittgenstein returned to cambridge around the same time as did russell who had been living in the united states for several years. russell returned to cambridge after a backlash in the us to ir writings on morals and religion. wittgenstein said of russell's works to drury: > russell's books should be bound in two colours...those dealing with mathematical logic in red - and all students of philosophy should read them; those dealing with ethics and politics in blue - and no one should be allowed to read them russell made similar disparaging comments about wittgenstein's later work: > i have not found in wittgenstein's philosophical investigations anything that seemed to me interesting and i do not understand why a whole school finds important wisdom in its pages. psychologically this is surprising. the earlier wittgenstein whom i knew intimately was a man addicted to passionately intense thinking profoundly aware of difficult problems of which i like ir felt the importance and possessed (or at least so i thought) of true philosophical genius. the later wittgenstein on the contrary seems to have grown tired of serious thinking and to have invented a doctrine which would make such an activity unnecessary. i do not for one moment believe that the doctrine which has these lazy consequences is true. i realize however that i have an overpoweringly strong bias against it for if it is true philosophy is at best a slight help to lexicographers and at worst an idle tea-table amusement saul kripke's 1982 book wittgenstein on rules and private language contends that the central argument of wittgenstein's philosophical investigations is a devastating rule-following paradox that undermines the possibility of ever following rules in our use of language. kripke writes that this paradox is "the most radical and original sceptical problem that philosophy has seen to date" kripke's book generated a large secondary literature divided between those who find ir sceptical problem interesting and perceptive and others such as john mcdowell stanley cavell gordon baker peter hacker colin mcginn and peter winch who argue that ir scepticism of meaning is a pseudo-problem that stems from a confused selective reading of wittgenstein. kripke's position has however recently been defended against these and other attacks by the cambridge philosopher martin kusch (2006) a collection of ludwig wittgenstein's manuscripts is held by trinity college cambridge **+** logisch-philosophische abhandlung annalen der naturphilosophie 14 (1921) - tractatus logico-philosophicus translated by c. k. ogden (1922) **+** "some remarks on logical form" (1929) aristotelian society supplementary volume volume 9 issue 1 15 july 1929 pp. 162–171. **+** philosophische untersuchungen (1953) - wittgenstein ludwig (1958.) philosophical investigations. translated by g. e. m. anscombe. new york: macmillan. retrieved 14 november 2023. **+** bemerkungen über die grundlagen der mathematik ed. by g. h. von wright r. rhees and g. e. m. anscombe (1956) a selection of ir work on the philosophy of logic and mathematics between 1937 and 1944. - remarks on the foundations of mathematics translated by g. e. m. anscombe rev. ed. (1978) **+** bemerkungen über die philosophie der psychologie ed. g. e. m. anscombe and g. h. von wright (1980) - remarks on the philosophy of psychology vols. 1 and 2 translated by g. e. m. anscombe ed. g. e. m. anscombe and g. h. von wright (1980) a selection of which makes up zettel. **+** blue and brown books (1958) notes dictated in english to cambridge students in 1933–1935. **+** philosophische bemerkungen ed. by rush rhees (1964) **+** lectures and conversations on aesthetics psychology and religious belief ed. by y. smythies r. rhees and j. taylor (1967) **+** remarks on frazer's golden bough ed. by r. rhees (1967) - philosophical remarks (1975) - philosophical grammar (1978) **+** bemerkungen über die farben ed. by g. e. m. anscombe (1977) - remarks on colour (1991) remarks on goethe's theory of colours. **+** on certainty collection of aphorisms discussing the relation between knowledge and certainty extremely influential in the philosophy of action (1969) **+** culture and value: a selection from the posthumous remains collection of personal remarks about cultural issues such as religion and music as well as a critique of søren kierkegaard's philosophy (1984 revised edition 1998). **+** zettel collection of wittgenstein's thoughts in fragmentary "diary entry" format as with on certainty and culture and value (1967). **+** notebooks 1914–1916 translated by g. e. m. anscombe. oxford: basil blackwell; new york: harper & row publishers 1961. **+** private notebooks 1914–1916 translated by marjorie perloff. new york: liveright publishing corporation 2022. **+** the big typescript: ts 213 german-english scholars' edition. wiley-blackwell 2012. unpublished typescript from 1933 written between the tractatus and philosophical investigations **+** movements of thought: ludwig wittgenstein's diary 1930–1932 and 1936–1937. new york: rowman & littlefield publishers 2023. **+** public and private occasions. new york: rowman & littlefield publishers 2003. **+** gibson arthur and o'mahony niamh eds. (2020) ludwig wittgenstein: dictating philosophy. new york: springer publishing. previously unpublished manuscripts dictated to francis skinner **+** definitions of philosophy **+** international wittgenstein symposium **+** list of austrian writers **+** paul horwich's views on the antiphilosophy of wittgenstein **+** bartley william warren (1994.) wittgenstein. open court. isbn 978-0-397-00751-6. **+** beaney michael ed. (1997.) the frege reader. blackwell. **+** braithwaite r. b. (1970.) "george edward moore 1873–1958." in alice ambrose; morris lazerowitz (eds..) g. e. moore: essays in retrospect. allen & unwin. **+** crary alice; reed rupert (2000.) the new wittgenstein. routledge. **+** diamond cora ed. (1989.) wittgenstein's lectures on the foundations of mathematics. university of chicago press. **+** drury maurice o'connor (1973.) the danger of words and writings on wittgenstein. routledge and kegan paul. **+** drury maurice o'connor (1984.) "conversations with wittgenstein." in rhees rush (ed..) recollections of wittgenstein. new york: oxford university press. isbn 978-0-19-287628-7. **+** edmonds david; eidinow john (2001.) wittgenstein's poker. ecco. **+** flowers f. a. iii; ground ian (2015.) portraits of wittgenstein volume 1. bloomsbury academic. isbn 978-1-4725-8978-1. **+** flowers f.a. iii; ground ian (2018.) portraits of wittgenstein (abridged ed..) bloomsbury academic. isbn 978-1-350-04663-4. **+** goldstein laurence (1999.) clear and queer thinking: wittgenstein's development and ir relevance to modern thought. rowman & littlefield. isbn 978-0-8476-9546-1. **+** hamann brigitte (2000.) hitler's vienna: a dictator's apprenticeship. translated by thornton thomas. oxford university press. isbn 978-0-19-514053-8. **+** kanterian edward (2007.) ludwig wittgenstein. reaktion books. isbn 978-1-86189-320-8. **+** kenny anthony (1984.) the legacy of wittgenstein. oxford: basil blackwell. isbn 978-0-6311-5063-3. **+** klagge james carl ed. (2001.) wittgenstein: biography and philosophy. cambridge university press. isbn 978-0-521-00868-6. **+** kripke saul (1982.) wittgenstein on rules and private language. harvard university press. isbn 978-0-674-95401-4. **+** malcolm norman (1958.) ludwig wittgenstein: a memoir. oxford university press. **+** malcolm norman (2001.) ludwig wittgenstein: a memoir (2nd ed..) oxford university press. isbn 978-0-19-924759-2. **+** mays wolfe. "wittgenstein in cambridge." in flowers & ground (2015). **+** mcguinness brian (1988.) wittgenstein: a life: young ludwig 1889–1921. university of california press. isbn 978-0-520-06496-6. pp. 51ff **+** mcguinness brian (2008.) wittgenstein in cambridge: letters and documents 1911–1951. blackwell. **+** mcguinness brian and von wright g. h. eds. ludwig wittgenstein: cambridge letters: correspondence with russell keynes moore ramsey and sraffa. blackwell 1995. **+** monk ray (1990.) ludwig wittgenstein: the duty of genius. free press. isbn 978-1-4481-1267-8. **+** monk ray (2005.) how to read wittgenstein. w. w. norton & company. isbn 978-1-86207-724-9. **+** nedo michael; ranchetti michele eds. (1983.) ludwig wittgenstein: sein leben in bildern und texten. suhrkamp. isbn 978-3-518-04673-9. **+** russell bertrand. introduction. in wittgenstein (1922) pp. 7-23. **+** russell bertrand (1998.) autobiography. routledge. isbn 978-0-415-18985-9. **+** sluga hans (2011.) wittgenstein. malden ma: wiley-blackwell. isbn 978-1-4443-4329-8. **+** sluga hans; stern david g. (1996.) the cambridge companion to wittgenstein. cambridge university press. isbn 978-0-521-46591-5. **+** stern david (september 2010.) "the bergen electronic edition of wittgenstein's nachlass." european journal of philosophy. '18' (3): 455–467. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-0378.2010.00425.x. **+** von wright georg henrik ed. (1990.) a portrait of wittgenstein as a young man: from the diary of david hume pinsent 1912–1914. blackwell. isbn 978-0-631-17511-7. **+** waugh alexander (2008.) the house of wittgenstein: a family at war. random house of canada. isbn 978-1-4088-4202-7. **+** wittgenstein ludwig (1922.) tractatus logico-philosophicus. kegan paul. original german and c. k. ogden's english translation side by side # # bergen and cambridge archives **+** wittgenstein archives at the university of bergen archived 24 july 2011 at the wayback machine. retrieved 16 september 2010 **+** wittgenstein news university of bergen. retrieved 16 september 2010. **+** wittgenstein source university of bergen. retrieved 16 september 2010 **+** the cambridge wittgenstein archive. retrieved 16 september 2010 # # papers about ir nachlass **+** stern david (september 2010.) "the bergen electronic edition of wittgenstein's nachlass." european journal of philosophy. '18' (3): 455–467. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-0378.2010.00425.x. issn 1468-0378. via hal archives-ouvertes.fr via zenodo **+** von wright g.h. "the wittgenstein papers" the philosophical review. 78 1969 **+** agassi j. ludwig wittgenstein's philosophical investigations: an attempt at a critical rationalist appraisal. cham: springer 2018 synthese library vol. 401. **+** arnswald ulrich (2024.) "a test of fire of one's character": ludwig wittgenstein's self-examination by means of war in world war i." journal of austrian studies. '57' (2): 65–86. doi: 10.1353/oas.2024.a929388. **+** arnswald ulrich (2009.) in search of meaning: ludwig wittgenstein on ethics mysticism and religion. universitätsverlag karlsruhe. isbn 978-3-866442-18-4. **+** baker g.p. and hacker p. m. s. wittgenstein: understanding and meaning. blackwell 1980. **+** baker g.p. and hacker p. m. s. wittgenstein: rules grammar and necessity. blackwell 1985. **+** baker g.p. and hacker p. m. s. wittgenstein: meaning and mind. blackwell 1990. **+** baker gordon p. and katherine j. morris. wittgenstein's method: neglected aspects: essays on wittgenstein. malden ma: blackwell 2004. **+** barrett cyril (1991.) wittgenstein on ethics and religious belief. blackwell. **+** brockhaus richard r. pulling up the ladder: the metaphysical roots of wittgenstein's tractatus logico-philosophicus. open court 1990. **+** conant james f. "putting two and two together: kierkegaard wittgenstein and the point of view for ir work as authors" in the grammar of religious belief edited by d.z. phillips. new york: st. martin's press 1996. **+** cook john w. the undiscovered wittgenstein: the twentieth century's most misunderstood philosopher. amherst ny: humanity books 2005. **+** crary alice (2007.) wittgenstein and the moral life: essays in honor of cora diamond. mit press. isbn 978-0-262-53286-0. **+** crary alice (2018.) "wittgenstein goes to frankfurt (and finds something useful to say)." nordic wittgenstein review. '7' (1): 7–41. **+** creegan charles (1989.) wittgenstein and kierkegaard: religion individuality and philosophical method. routledge. isbn 978-0-415-00066-6. **+** eagleton terry (15 may 2022.) "ludwig wittgenstein's war on philosophy." unherd. retrieved 23 may 2022. **+** edwards james c. (1982.) ethics without philosophy: wittgenstein and the moral life. university presses of florida. **+** engelmann paul. letters from ludwig wittgenstein with a memoir. blackwell 1967; new york: horizon press 1968. the memoir is reprinted in f. a. flowers iii and ian ground eds. portraits of wittgenstein ch. 20 (2015) and portraits of wittgenstein: abridged edition ch. 13 (2018.) bloomsbury academic. **+** fraser giles (25 january 2010.) "investigating wittgenstein part 1: falling in love." the guardian. **+** gellner ernest (1979.) words and things. routledge & kegan paul. **+** grayling a. c. (2001.) wittgenstein: a very short introduction. oxford university press. isbn 978-0-19-285411-7. **+** hacker p. m. s. insight and illusion: themes in the philosophy of wittgenstein. clarendon press 1986. **+** hacker p. m. s. "wittgenstein ludwig josef johann" in ted honderich (ed..) the oxford companion to philosophy. oxford university press 1995. **+** hacker p. m. s. wittgenstein's place in twentieth century analytic philosophy. blackwell 1996. **+** hacker p. m. s. wittgenstein: mind and will. blackwell 1996. **+** holt jim "positive thinking" (review of karl sigmund exact thinking in demented times: the vienna circle and the epic quest for the foundations of science basic books 449 pp.) the new york review of books vol. lxiv no. 20 (21 december 2017) pp. 74–76. **+** jareño-alarcón joaquín. ludwig wittgenstein: the meaning of life. wiley-blackwell 2023. **+** jormakka kari. "the fifth wittgenstein" datutop 24 2004 a discussion of the connection between wittgenstein's architecture and ir philosophy. **+** kinlen leo. "wittgenstein in newcastle." in northern review vol. 13 (2003-2004) pp. 11–31. **+** kishik david (2008.) wittgenstein's form of life. continuum. **+** klagge james c. wittgenstein's artillery: philosophy as poetry. cambridge massachusetts: the mit press 2021. **+** klagge james c. simply wittgenstein. new york: simply charly 2016. **+** klagge james c. wittgenstein in exile. cambridge massachusetts: the mit press 2011. **+** leitner bernhard (1973.) the architecture of ludwig wittgenstein: a documentation. press of the nova scotia college of art and design. **+** levy paul. moore: g.e. moore and the cambridge apostles. weidenfeld & nicolson 1979. **+** luchte james. "under the aspect of time ("sub specie temporis"): heidegger wittgenstein and the place of the nothing" philosophy today volume 53 number 2 (spring 2009) **+** lurie yuval. wittgenstein on the human spirit.. rodopi 2012. **+** macarthur david. "working on oneself in philosophy and architecture: a perfectionist reading of the wittgenstein house." architectural theory review vol. 19 no. 2 (2014): 124–140. **+** padilla gálvez jesús ed. wittgenstein from a new point of view. frankfurt am main: lang 2003. isbn 3-631-50623-6. **+** padilla gálvez jesús ed. philosophical anthropology. wittgenstein's perspectives. berlin germany: ontos verlag 2010. isbn 978-3-86838-067-5. **+** pears david f. "a special supplement: the development of wittgenstein's philosophy" the new york review of books 10 july 1969. **+** pears david f. the false prison: a study of the development of wittgenstein's philosophy volumes 1 and 2. oxford university press 1987 and 1988. **+** perloff marjorie (1996.) wittgenstein's ladder: poetic language and the strangeness of the ordinary. university of chicago press. **+** perloff marjorie (2016.) "becoming a 'different' person: wittgenstein's 'gospels'" in perloff marjorie edge of irony: modernism in the shadow of the habsburg empire. chicago and london: the university of chicago press. **+** peterman james f. (1992.) philosophy as therapy. suny press. **+** pitcher george. the philosophy of wittgenstein. englewood cliffs n.j.: prentice-hall inc. 1964. **+** richter duncan j. "ludwig wittgenstein (1889–1951)" internet encyclopedia of philosophy 30 august 2004. retrieved 16 september 2010. **+** rizzo francesco "kauffman lettore di wittgenstein" università degli studi di palermo palermo 2017. **+** scheman naomi and o'connor peg (eds..) feminist interpretations of ludwig wittgenstein. penn state press 2002. **+** schönbaumsfeld genia. a confusion of the spheres: kierkegaard and wittgenstein on philosophy and religion. oxford university press 2007. **+** shanker s.; shanker v. a. (1986.) ludwig wittgenstein: critical assessments. croom helm. **+** shyam wuppuluri n. c. a. da costa (eds..) "wittgensteinian (adj.): looking at the world from the viewpoint of wittgenstein's philosophy" springer - the frontiers collection 2019. foreword by a. c. grayling. **+** temelini michael. wittgenstein and the study of politics. toronto: university of toronto press 2015. **+** wall richard. wittgenstein in ireland. london: reaktion books ltd. 2000. **+** wallgren thomas h. ed. (2024.) the creation of wittgenstein: understanding the roles of rush rhees elizabeth anscombe and georg henrik von wright. bloomsbury publishing. **+** whitehead alfred north; russell bertrand (1910.) principia mathematica. cambridge university press. **+** xanthos nicolas "wittgenstein's language garmes" in louis hebert (dir.) signo (online) rimouski (quebec canada) 2006 # # works referencing wittgenstein **+** doctorow e. l. city of god. plume 2001 depicts an imaginary rivalry between wittgenstein and einstein. **+** doxiadis apostolos and papadimitriou christos. logicomix. bloomsbury 2009. **+** duffy bruce. the world as i found it. ticknor & fields 1987 a fictionalised account of wittgenstein's life. **+** jarman derek. wittgenstein a biopic of wittgenstein with a script by terry eagleton british film institute 1993. **+** kerr philip. a philosophical investigation chatto & windus 1992 a dystopian thriller set in 2012. **+** markson david. wittgenstein's mistress. dalkey archive press 1988 an experimental novel a first-person account of what it would be like to live in the world of the tractatus. **+** murdoch iris. nuns and soldiers. the first line of the novel is "'wittgenstein - '." london: chatto & windus 1980. **+** tully james. strange multiplicity: constitutionalism in an age of diversity. cambridge: cambridge university press 1995 **+** wallace david foster. the broom of the system. penguin books 1987 a novel **+** works by ludwig wittgenstein in ebook form at standard ebooks **+** works by ludwig wittgenstein at project gutenberg **+** c.k. ogden's english translation of tractatus logico-philosophicus (gutenberg) **+** works by or about ludwig wittgenstein at the internet archive **+** works by ludwig wittgenstein at librivox (public domain audiobooks) ![[ludwig%20wittgenstein%20-%20wikipediafiles/speakericon.svg.webp) **+** works by ludwig wittgenstein at the ludwig wittgenstein project **+** "ludwig wittgenstein." internet encyclopedia of philosophy. **+** "ludwig wittgenstein: later philosophy of mathematics." internet encyclopedia of philosophy. **+** trinity college chapel **+** john searle on ludwig wittgenstein on youtube **+** bbc radio 4 programme on wittgenstein broadcast 13 december 2011 **+** "a. j. ayer's critique of wittgenstein's private language argument" **+** wittgenstein bbc radio 4 discussion with ray monk barry smith & marie mcginn (in our time 4 december 2003) **+** ludwig wittgenstein at the mathematics genealogy project **+** the significance of ontology in epistemological research - hannah arendt memorial lecture 1980 **+** wittgenstein's jet bbc radio 4 programme broadcast friday 2 january 2015 **+** gb patent gb191027087a: improvements in propellers applicable for aerial machines 1910 espacenet **+** ludwig wittgenstein at imdb **+** steven pinker on concepts & reasoning // republic of bob