Ludwig Wittgenstein:
Life and Work
Jakub Mácha
Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

Family background
§Born on 26 April 1889 in Vienna.
§His family was of mixed Jewish, Protestant and Catholic origin. §His father Karl Wittgenstein was
one of the richest businessmen in Austria. An owner of an iron and steel industry complex (Poldi
Kladno). §Their family house hosted the most distinguished artists of the time: Johannes Brahms,
Franz Grillparzer, Felix Mendelssohn, Gustav Mahler, Gustav Klimt. §LW has four brothers and three
sisters. Two brothers committed suicide.
§
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Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations / Jakub Mácha / Masaryk University, Brno,
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School years
§LW visited the second-rate Realschule in Linz. Adolf Hitler was one of his schoolmates.
§His earliest influences are
§Karl Kraus, his satirical journal Die Fackel (“The Torch”)
§Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation
§Otto Weininger, Sex and Character, his conception of genius, the duty to think clearly as a duty
to oneself)
§Heinrich Hertz, Principles of Mechanics, his method of dissolving conceptual problems
§Ludwig Bolzmann
§
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Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations / Jakub Mácha / Masaryk University, Brno,
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Univerasity years, Berlin, Manchester
§LW studied mechanical engineering in Berlin and aeronautics in Manchester.
§He conducted his own research leading a patent of a jet rotor (for a helicopter).
§At that time, he read
§Bertrand Russell’s The Principles of Mathematics
§Gottlob Frege’s Grundgesetze der Arithmetik
§He suggested a solution of Russell’s paradox.
§
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Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations / Jakub Mácha / Masaryk University, Brno,
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Cambridge
§On 18 October 1911, he appeared in Russell’s office. This date marks the begin of their fruitful
collaboration.
§ In 1913 he dictated his earliest text that survived: the Notes on Logic.
§Logic is the basis of philosophy.
§Distrust of grammar: surface grammar can lead us astray
§In 1914 he dictated notes to G.E. Moore which weren’t accepted as a BA thesis.
§the distinction between what can be said and what has to be shown.
§
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Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations / Jakub Mácha / Masaryk University, Brno,
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The great war
§In 1914 LW got rid of his inheritance in favor of Austrian artists without means. Rainer Maria
Rilke and Georg Trakl were among them. §He was enlisted as a volunteer into Austrian army and sent
to the Eastern front.
§Reading Leo Tolstoy’s Gospel in Brief.
§Often thinking of suicide and the meaning of life (“The meaning of life … we can call God”)
§Awarded for bravery and valor.
§Finally, in 1918, he was transferred to the Italian front and ended up in a prisoners of war camp.
§
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Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations / Jakub Mácha / Masaryk University, Brno,
macha@mail.muni.cz Handout: https://goo.gl/miKrJD https://muni.academia.edu/jakubmacha

The Tractatus
§During the war years, Wittgenstein wrote his first main work Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.
§The manuscript was rejected by two publishers.
§Eventually published with a help of Bertrand Russell and with his introduction (which according to
Wittgenstein misinterprets the main idea of the book).
§
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Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations / Jakub Mácha / Masaryk University, Brno,
macha@mail.muni.cz Handout: https://goo.gl/miKrJD https://muni.academia.edu/jakubmacha

Out of academia, teacher, gardener, architect
§In 1920 Wittgenstein began his unsuccessful career as primary schoolteacher in rural Austria.
§From 1926 to 1928 he worked as an architect designing a modernist house for his sister. §In 1929
he returned to Cambridge and obtained his PhD for the Tractatus. §Since the end of the 1920s, he
was regularly meeting with the members of the Vienna Circle, esp. with Moritz Schlick and Friedrich
Waismann.
§
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Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations / Jakub Mácha / Masaryk University, Brno,
macha@mail.muni.cz Handout: https://goo.gl/miKrJD https://muni.academia.edu/jakubmacha

Later years
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Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations / Jakub Mácha / Masaryk University, Brno,
macha@mail.muni.cz Handout: https://goo.gl/miKrJD https://muni.academia.edu/jakubmacha
§Wittgenstein spent his academic career as a lecturer and later as a professor in Cambridge.
§Often visiting his family in Vienna and his hut in Norway.
§In 1935 he investigated a possibility of moving to the Soviet Union. §During the Second World War,
he worked as a porter in a hospital and a technician for a medical research. §He didn’t manage to
publish anything (save one paper) during his Cambridge years. He avoided academic journals and
conferences.
§In 1947 he resigned his professorship.
§He died in 1951, writing his remarks to his last days.
§

Further reading
§Monk, R. (1990). Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. Jonathan Cape. §McGuinness, B. (1988).
Wittgenstein. A Life (Vol. 1): Young Ludwig 1988–1921. Duckworth.
§
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Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations / Jakub Mácha / Masaryk University, Brno,
macha@mail.muni.cz Handout: https://goo.gl/miKrJD https://muni.academia.edu/jakubmacha