Ludwig Wittgenstein
- Ludwig was an Austrian philosopher that developed theories involving logic. He contributed to the philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of the mind. He has had a huge influence on philosophy and is widely accepted as one of the twentieth century’s best philosophers. Wittengenstein published 2 books and both were highly influential in philosophy.
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (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.[1] He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947.[2] In his lifetime, he published just one book review, one article, a children's dictionary, and the 75-page Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921).[3] In 1999, his posthumously published Philosophical Investigations (1953) was ranked as the most important book of 20th-century philosophy by the Baruch Poll , standing out as "...the one crossover masterpiece in twentieth-century philosophy, appealing across diverse specializations and philosophical orientations".[4] Philosopher Bertrand Russell described him as "the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, and dominating".[5]
Born in Vienna into one of Europe's wealthiest families, he gave away his entire inheritance.[6] Three of his brothers committed suicide, with Ludwig contemplating it too.[7] He left academia several times: serving as an officer on the frontline 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 during World War II as a hospital porter in London, where he told patients not to take the drugs they were prescribed, and where no-one knew he was one of the world's most famous philosophers.[8] He described philosophy, however, as "the only work that gives me real satisfaction."[9]
His philosophy is often divided between his early period, exemplified by the Tractatus, and later period, articulated in the Philosophical Investigations. The early Wittgenstein was concerned with the logical relationship between propositions and the world, and believed that by providing an account of the logic underlying this relationship he had solved all philosophical problems. The later Wittgenstein rejected many of the conclusions of the Tractatus, arguing that the meaning of words is constituted by the function they perform within any given language-game.
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. In the words of his friend and colleague Georg Henrik von Wright: "He was of the opinion... that his ideas were generally misunderstood and distorted even by those who professed to be his disciples. He doubted he would be better understood in the future. He once said he felt as though he were writing for people who would think in a different way, breathe a different air of life, from that of present-day men."[10]

Wittgenstein's mother was Leopoldine Kalmus. Her father was CzechJewish and her mother was Austrian-SloveneCatholic—she was Ludwig's maternal grandparent and only non-Jewish grandparent, whose ancestry was Austrian and an aunt of the Nobel Prize laureate Friedrich Hayek on her maternal side.
Ludwig was born at 8:30pm on 26 April 1889 in the so-called "Wittgenstein Palace" at Alleegasse 16, now the Argentinierstrasse, near the Karlskirche. Karl and Poldi, as she was known, had nine children in all. There were four girls: Hermine, Margaret (Gretl), Helene, and a fourth daughter who died as a baby; and five boys: Johannes (Hans), Kurt, Rudolf (Rudi), Paul—who became a concert pianist despite losing an arm in World War I—and Ludwig, who was the youngest of the family.
The children were baptized as Catholics, and raised in an exceptionally intense environment. The family was at the center of Vienna's cultural life; Bruno Walter described the life at the Wittgensteins' palace as an "all-pervading atmosphere of humanity and culture". Karl was a leading patron of the arts, commissioning works by Auguste Rodin and financing the city's exhibition hall and art gallery, the Secession Building. Gustav Klimt painted Wittgenstein's sister for her wedding portrait, and Johannes Brahms and Gustav Mahler gave regular concerts in the family's numerous music rooms.
For Ludwig, who highly valued precision and discipline, contemporary music was never considered acceptable at all. "Music", he said to his friend Drury in 1930, "came to a full stop with Brahms; and even in Brahms I can begin to hear the noise of machinery."[26] Ludwig himself had absolute pitch perception, and his devotion to music remained vitally important to him throughout his life: he made frequent use of musical examples and metaphors in his philosophical writings, and was unusually adept at whistling lengthy and detailed musical passages. He also learnt to play the clarinet in his thirties.[29]

Ray Monk writes that Karl's aim was to turn his sons into captains of industry; they were not sent to school lest they acquire bad habits, but were educated at home to prepare them for work in Karl's industrial empire.
Three of the five brothers would later commit suicide. The Irish psychiatrist Michael Fitzgerald argues that Karl was a harsh perfectionist who lacked empathy, and that Wittgenstein's mother was anxious and insecure, unable to stand up to her husband Johannes Brahms said of the family, whom he visited regularly: "They seemed to act towards one another as if they were at court".
The family appeared to have a strong streak of depression running through it. Anthony Gottlieb tells a story about Paul practicing on one of the seven grand pianos in the Wittgensteins' main family mansion, when he suddenly shouted at Ludwig in the next room: "I cannot play when you are in the house, as I feel your skepticism seeping towards me from under the door!"[33]
The eldest brother, Hans, was hailed as a musical prodigy. At the age of four, Waugh writes, Hans could identify the Doppler effect in a passing siren as a quarter-tone drop in pitch, and at five started crying "Wrong! Wrong!" when two brass bands in a carnival played the same tune in different keys. But he died in mysterious circumstances in May 1902, when he ran away to America and disappeared from a boat in Chesapeake Bay, most likely having committed suicide.[34]
Two years later, aged 22 and studying chemistry at the Berlin Academy, the third eldest brother, Rudi, committed suicide in a Berlin bar. He had asked the pianist to play Thomas Koschat's "Verlassen, verlassen, verlassen bin ich ("Forsaken, forsaken, forsaken am I"),[35] before mixing himself a drink of milk and potassium cyanide. He had left several suicide notes, one to his parents that said he was grieving over the death of a friend, and another that referred to his "perverted disposition". It was reported at the time that he had sought advice from the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, an organization that was campaigning against Paragraph 175 of the German Criminal Code, which from 1871 until 1969 prohibited homosexual sex. His father forbade the family from ever mentioning his name again.[36]
"I won't say "See you tomorrow" because that would be like predicting the future, and I'm pretty sure I can't do that."
— Wittgenstein, 1949[37]

The second eldest brother, Kurt, an officer and company director, shot himself on 27 October 1918 at the end of World War I, when the Austrian troops he was commanding refused to obey his orders and deserted en masse.[30] According to Gottlieb, Hermine had said Kurt seemed to carry "the germ of disgust for life within himself".[38] Paul also considered suicide, as did Ludwig.[33] Later Wittgenstein wrote: "I ought to have... become a star in the sky. Instead of which I have remained stuck on earth."[3
When his father died in 1913 Wittgenstein inherited a fortune, which he quickly gave away. When war broke out the next year, he volunteered for the Austrian army. He continued his philosophical work and won several medals for bravery during the war.