Ludwig Wittgenstein

Vienna

Into one of Europe's richest families: Brahms and Mahler were guests in the steel magnate's house.

💡 Did you know? Wittgenstein grew up in Vienna in one of Europe's richest families: he later gave away his entire inheritance.

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Completed as a soldier and prisoner of war in the First World War, published in 1921.

💡 Did you know? The slim „Tractatus“ consists of numbered propositions and, for Wittgenstein, meant to solve all philosophical problems for good.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent

Proposition 7: the book consists of seven numbered main propositions with ramifications.

💡 Did you know? „Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent“: the famous, enigmatic closing line of the Tractatus.

He gave it away

Convinced he had finished philosophy, he became a village schoolteacher in mountain hamlets.

💡 Did you know? Among the artists he supported were Rilke and Trakl.

schoolteacher

Later also a monastery gardener and architect of a house for his sister in Vienna.

💡 Did you know? Convinced he had „finished off“ philosophy, Wittgenstein worked for years as a simple village schoolteacher in Austria.

Bertrand Russell

Russell confessed that in the young Austrian he saw the genius he had been waiting for.

💡 Did you know? Bertrand Russell brought Wittgenstein to Cambridge and thought him the most perfect genius he had ever met.

Philosophical Investigations

Published in 1953: it dismantles his own early work and rethinks language entirely.

💡 Did you know? In the posthumously published „Philosophical Investigations“ Wittgenstein retracted central theses of his own early work.

its use

Speaking is acting within countless 'language games' woven into forms of life.

💡 Did you know? For the later Wittgenstein a word's meaning lies not in some object but in its use in language.

language games

Commanding, describing, joking, thanking: language is a fabric of practices, not a single picture.

💡 Did you know? By „language games“ Wittgenstein means the many rule-governed ways language is actually used in life.

the bewitchment of our intelligence by language

Philosophical problems arise 'when language goes on holiday': therapy rather than theory.

💡 Did you know? „Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language“: one of his most famous sayings.

logical positivism and ordinary language philosophy

The Vienna Circle read the Tractatus like scripture: the Oxford philosophers, the late work.

💡 Did you know? His early work inspired Logical Positivism, his late work „Ordinary Language Philosophy“: two opposing schools.

Tell them I've had a wonderful life

He died of cancer in Cambridge: three of his brothers had died by suicide; his brother Paul won fame as a one-armed pianist.

💡 Did you know? „Tell them I've had a wonderful life“: so ran Wittgenstein's last words in 1951.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ludwig Wittgenstein was an Austrian-British philosopher who revolutionised the philosophy of language twice, with his early and his late work.

💡 Did you know? He came from one of Europe's richest families but gave away his entire inheritance to live simply.