Wittgenstein in Cambridge: Letters and Documents 1911 - 1951

by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Brian McGuinness

This volume collects the most substantial correspondence and documents relating to Wittgenstein's long association with Cambridge between the years 1911 and his death in 1951, including the letters he exchanged with his most illustrious Cambridge contemporaries Russell, Keynes, Moore, and Ramsey (and previously published as Cambridge Letters).
Now expanded to include 200 previously unpublished letters and documents, including correspondence between Wittgenstein and the economist Piero Sraffa, and between Wittgenstein and his pupils Includes extensive editorial annotations Provides a fascinating and intimate insight into Wittgenstein's life and thought

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

512 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2008

About the author

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (Ph.D., Trinity College, Cambridge University, 1929) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language.

Described by Bertrand Russell as "the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, and dominating", he helped inspire two of the twentieth century's principal philosophical movements: the Vienna Circle and Oxford ordinary language philosophy. According to an end of the century poll, professional philosophers in Canada and the U.S. rank both his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Philosophical Investigations among the top five most important books in twentieth-century philosophy, the latter standing out as "...the one crossover masterpiece in twentieth-century philosophy, appealing across diverse specializations and philosophical orientations". Wittgenstein's influence has been felt in nearly every field of the humanities and social sciences, yet there are widely diverging interpretations of his thought.

Reviews

[Julio The Fox]

Genius is greatness and pettiness in a weird salad bowl. Ludwig Wittgenstein changed the course of twentieth century philosophy, yet seldom has so picayune a man heaved forth such great thoughts. These letters to distinguished contemporaries, Bertrand Russell, G.E. Moore, John Maynard Keynes, evince both. (The letters to and from his sisters in Austria, and UK friends, Pinsent, Skinner et al, may be found in other collections.) The germ of the TRACTACUS LOGICO-PHILOSOPHICUS is here in letters to Russell. How all logical propositions are tautological, and there is no language outside of pictures of words. Caveat: At times this correspondence is highly technical, and can be skipped by the non-specialist. When one reflects that Wittgenstein wrote many of these letters while still a prisoner of the Italians during World War I they are even more outstanding. The other side of Wittgenstein's genius is his taking even trite written comments for a slight, getting cross with his illustrious correspondents, and threatening to end their friendship. Yet at least with Moore, whose view of objective statements of fact he would challenge, destroy is more like it, in ON CERTAINTY, Wittgenstein is also considerate and caring towards a man nearing his end. Ludwig Wittgenstein was a contradictory civilization unto himself.