Ludwig Wittgenstein Biography

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) was one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century. Despite his difficulties to socialize in the intellectual circles of his time, his best-known treatises, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus (1921) and Philosophical Investigations (1953), changed the conception of philosophy.

Wittgenstein was born in 1889 in Vienna when the city was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father was an industrialist of great reputation in Austria and it is believed that the harshness of his character and his high expectations were part of the reason why three of his four children committed suicide.

Ludwig grew up in a very distinguished family so he had the luxury of sharing with such illustrious characters as Sigmund Freud, Johannes Brahms, Gustav Mahler and Gustav Klimt.

Wittgenstein began his education at the engineering school in Berlin. Later, in 1908, he continued his studies on aeronautics in Manchester, England.

In Manchester, his interest in mathematics and the philosophy of mathematics emerged and he would travel to Cambridge in 1912, to work with Bertrand Russell for three years. When the horrors of the first world war began, he enlisted in the Austro-Hungarian army. Not much is known about his time in the ranks of the army; what little is known is that it was not easy for him because most of his army partners had little or no interest for the cultural world that Wittgenstein appreciated so deeply, so he remained alone most of the time. In the exercise, he was called “the man with the gospel” because he always carried with him a copy of The Gospel in Brief of Leon Tolstoy that he found in a bookstore.

At the end of the war Wittgenstein was captured by the Italians, so he remained in captivity until 1919, for almost two years. While he was a prisoner his interest in philosophy reappeared and just after being released he resumed communication with Bertrand Russell, whom he wrote about a philosophy book he was writing: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

Wittgenstein was convinced that he had solved the problems of logic and philosophy on which he had reflected in previous years.

The book was published in 1922 with an introduction written by Russell, despite the fact that Wittgenstein considered that Russell had not really understood his views.

After the war, he renounced his inheritance in order to free himself from worldly charges and never tried to recover it, despite having to face economic problems in several moments of his life. Besides he suffered depression as a result of the war.

After getting Tractatus published he decided to devote himself to teach in a primary school between 1920 and 1926. He also wrote a dictionary of lexicography addressed to primary schools.

In 1926, he left the teacher’s job definitively due to an accusation of nature unknown. The investigation made it clear that Wittgenstein was innocent. However, the humiliation of having to go through that legal process was too much. So that year he returned to Vienna where he returned to his family and was in charge of the design and construction of the house of one of

her sisters. During this time he met with a group of philosophical scholars, who in the future would be become the Vienna Circle: Rudolph Carnap, Friedrich Waismann, and Herbert Feigl. The meeting was organized on the initiative of Moritz Schlick (professor at the University of Vienna) and had as a purpose to talk about Tractatus.

In 1929, he returned to Cambridge to get his Ph.D. and get a scholarship from Trinity College that would allow him to write another philosophy work. During this time he wrote Observations

Philosophical (Philosophische Bemerkungen) and Philosophical Grammar (Philosophische Grammatik).

Wittgenstein would continue working in Cambridge for about seventeen years; with a small interruption between 1936 and 1937, during which time he took refuge in a farm in Norway to work in the

 

Philosophical Investigations

In 1939, he became the chair of philosophy. He got the

British nationality and taught a course on the fundamentals of mathematics that ended up published after his death (in 1975) under the title of Wittgenstein’s Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics. With the beginning of World War II, he enlisted to work in a hospital in London and in a Newcastle laboratory. During this period, despite the turmoil that surrounded him, he would finish the first part of the Philosophical Investigations and write what we know as Observations on the foundations of mathematics (1956).

In 1944, he rejoined Cambridge. However, three years later resigned and moved to Ireland to concentrate on the second part of the Investigations. He died in 1951 because of cancer. The Philosophical Investigations was published two years after his death.