Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (1889 – 1951) is one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century, and regarded by some as the most important since Immanuel Kant.
Wittgenstein was born on April 26, 1889 in Vienna, Austria. He was from a wealthy family and was well-connected to the intellectual and cultural circles of Viennese society. In 1908, he began his studies in aeronautical engineering at Manchester University. His interest in the philosophy of pure mathematics led him to Frege, and from there he developed his famous theory of quantum mechanics. Wittgenstein went to Cambridge in 1911 to study with Bertrand Russell. Russell was a very famous philosopher and he was very interested in learning from him. Wittgenstein talked with some of his friends about philosophy and the basics of logic in the years 1911-13. He had a close relationship with Russell, Moore, and Keynes during these conversations. Himself retreating to a remote location in Norway to ponder deep philosophical questions for months on end, he worked out solutions to these problems.
In 1913, he returned to Austria and in 1914, when World War I began, he joined the Austrian army. He was taken captive in 1918 and spent the remainder of the war in a prison camp. The war was a time when he was able to write his first important work, the “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus”. After the war, the book was published in German and then translated into English – it was also his only published book in his lifetime.
Wittgenstein abandoned his academic career in philosophy in the 1920s to try different occupations. He became a gardener, teacher, and architect, among other things. He returned to Cambridge to resume his philosophical career in 1929 after being influenced by discussions he had with members of the Vienna Circle. This group believed that logic was tautologous, and that philosophy should be concerned with the structure of language. Philosophy changed a lot during Ludwig Wittgenstein’s time in Cambridge. Some of these changes are documented in conversations, lecture notes, and letters. During the “middle Wittgenstein” period, Wittgenstein abandoned ideas that were too rigid and instead looked for ways to be more flexible and open-minded.
In the 1930s and 1940s, Wittgenstein developed some of the ideas he intended to publish in his other work “Philosophical Investigations.” This was when Logical Positivism changed from a formal way of thinking to using everyday language, thinking about psychology and mathematics in a new way, and not believing that philosophy was really important.
In 1945, he completed the final manuscript for the Philosophical Investigations, but he decided to remove it from publication. After working on his philosophical ideas for a few more years, he started to develop them more deeply. This was a big change from when he was first working on them, and it showed in the way he was thinking about them. During this time, he traveled to the United States and Ireland. After returning to Cambridge, he was diagnosed with cancer and died a few years later in 1951.
