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Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ludwig Wittgenstein
photograph
Wittgenstein in 1930
Born Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein
(1889-04-26)26 April 1889
Vienna, Austria-Hungary
Died 29 April 1951(1951-04-29) (aged 62)
Cambridge, England
Education Realschule in Linz ()
Alma mater Technische Hochschule, Berlin
(diploma, 1908)
Victoria University of Manchester
(no degree)
Trinity College, Cambridge
(PhD, 1929)
Website The Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen
The Cambridge Wittgenstein Archive
Era 20th century philosophy
School Analytic philosophy
Linguistic turn
Logical atomism
Institutions Trinity College, Cambridge
Main interests
Logic, metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of mind, epistemology
Notable ideas
Picture theory of language
Truth functions
States of affairs
Logical necessity
Meaning is use
Language-games
Private language argument
Family resemblance
Rule following
Forms of life
Wittgensteinian fideism
Anti-realism
Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics
Ordinary language philosophy
Ideal language analysis
Meaning scepticism
Memory scepticism
Semantic externalism
Quietism
Critique of set theory
Signature
Ludwig Wittgenstein signature.svg

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (/ˈvɪtɡənˌstn/;German: [ˈvɪtgənˌʃtaɪn]; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-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. During his lifetime he published just one slim book, the 75-page Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921), one article, one book review and a children's dictionary.His voluminous manuscripts were edited and published posthumously. Philosophical Investigations appeared as a book in 1953, and has since come to be recognised as one of the most important works of philosophy in the twentieth century. His teacher Bertrand Russell described Wittgenstein as "the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived; passionate, profound, intense, and dominating."

Born in Vienna into one of Europe's richest families, he inherited a large fortune from his father in 1913. He gave some considerable sums to poor artists. In a period of severe personal depression after the First World War, he then gave away his entire fortune to his brothers and sisters. Three of his brothers committed suicide, with Wittgenstein contemplating it too. He left academia several times—serving as an officer on the front line during World War I, where he was decorated a number of times for his courage; teaching in schools in remote Austrian villages where he encountered controversy for hitting children when they made mistakes in mathematics; and working as a hospital porter during World War II in London where he told patients not to take the drugs they were prescribed while largely managing to keep secret the fact that he was one of the world's most famous philosophers. He described philosophy as "the only work that gives me real satisfaction."


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