Wittgenstein and Cambridge Family Resemblances

Wittgenstein and Cambridge
Family Resemblances
A presentation by Michael Nedo
Clare Hall
Herschel Road
Cambridge
CB3 9AL

Wittgenstein and Cambridge
Family Resemblances
An Exhibition at Clare Hall Cambridge
31 March to 4 May 2011
by Michael Nedo © 2011
supported by the AUSTRIAN CULTURAL FORUM London
Michael Nedo, Wittgenstein Archive Cambridge
Exhibition and Catalogue in Cooperation with
Andrea Baczynski, Photo-Artist, Vienna – Cambridge
Philip Ball, PandIS, Cambridge University and
Bruce Godfrey, Cambridge University Computing Service Print Room
The Paolozzi Composites of Wittgenstein were donated by the artist
to Michael Nedo, Director of the Wittgenstein Archive Cambridge
Typeset in
Baskerville and Gill Sans by Berthold

Ludwig Wittgenstein
born in Vienna 26 April 1889 died in Cambridge 29 April 1951
In the autumn of 1911 Wittgenstein came to Cambridge, following the advice of Gottlob
Frege, to study philosophy under Bertrand Russell. Before that, Wittgenstein had
studied aeronautical engineering in Berlin and subsequently, on the advice of his father,
in Manchester, where he invented an aeroplane engine for which he received a patent
– an engine still in use today. But his main interests had always been philosophical: he
had intended to study physics – in particular its epistemological aspects – under Ludwig
Boltzmann in Vienna, but Boltzmann committed suicide in 1906, when Wittgenstein
was leaving school.
In February 1912 Wittgenstein became an undergraduate at Trinity College,
later an advanced student. He studied logic and the foundations of mathematics under
Bertrand Russell and psychology under G.E. Moore; he became friends with Russell,
John Maynard Keynes and G.H. Hardy and with David Pinsent, a mathematics student
in Trinity. It was not long before the student Wittgenstein became the teacher of his
teachers and they developed great expectations regarding his work. Thus Russell
mentioned in 1912 to Wittgenstein’s sister Hermine: “ We expect the next big step
in philosophy to be taken by your brother.” and later in Mind: “Getting to know
Wittgenstein was one of the most exciting intellectual adventures of my life.”
In collaboration with Moore, Wittgenstein reformed the Cambridge University
Moral Sciences Club, establishing rules that still apply today.
In October 1913 Wittgenstein moved to Norway – to Skjolden, a small village
north-east of Bergen – to concentrate on his work. There, before his 25 th birthday, he
made groundbreaking discoveries in logic, for instance a new symbolism for ‘truthfunctions’,
which explains logical truth as ‘tautologies’.
At the beginning of the Great War Wittgenstein joined the Austrian army.
While on leave from the front, in August 1918, he finished his first book, the Logisch-
Philosophische Abhandlung, published in Germany in 1921 and in London in 1922 in a
bilingual edition under the title of the English translation Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.
Wittgenstein was convinced that with the completion of his book he had exhausted
his means to do philosophy. After the war he found a new vocation: he qualified as a
teacher and taught in small villages in Lower Austria. Frank Ramsey, who translated
his book into English visited Wittgenstein and together with Keynes, tried to persuade
him to return to Cambridge and to philosophy – but Wittgenstein remained in Austria.
From 1926 he was building a house for his sister Margarethe Stoneborough, which he
completed in the autumn of 1928.
On the 18 th of January 1929 Wittgenstein was back in Cambridge. On 2 nd
February he started work on his first manuscript volume, and on 20 th January of the
following year he started teaching. Wittgenstein’s election to a research fellowship
of Trinity College was based on a summary of his work (published posthumously as
Philosophical Remarks), evaluated by the Trinity mathematicians Hardy and Littlewood,
and by Russell, who reported to the College Council: “The theories contained in the
work of Wittgenstein are novel, very original and indubitably important. Whether they
are true, I do not know. As a logician who likes simplicity, I should wish to think that
they are not […]”
During the summer of 1930 Wittgenstein started working on a publication of his
new ideas. He failed with his first attempt, the so-called ‘Big Typescript’, as he found
his thoughts distorted and his thinking paralysed by the linear discourse required by a
traditional book. His second attempt was an organic, multidimensional representation
of his work, which he described in August 1938 in a preface to the book:
1
2
3

I begin this publication with the fragment of my last attempt to arrange my
thoughts in a linear form. This fragment has perhaps the advantage of giving
comparatively easily an idea of my method. I intent to follow up this fragment
with a mass of remarks more or less loosely arranged; and I shall explain the
connections between these remarks, where the arrangement does not itself make
them apparent, by a system of cross-references thus: each remark should have a
current number and besides this the numbers of those remarks which stand to it
in important relations.
This book, for which he had a contract with Cambridge University Press, would have
been published as a bilingual publication under the title ‘Philosophical Remarks’. It
failed in consequence of the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany. Wittgenstein no
longer had access to the manuscripts he had been writing since 1929, the manuscripts
on which he was working for his book in Vienna.
In February 1939 Wittgenstein was elected by Cambridge University to the
Chair of Philosophy as successor to G.E. Moore; in April he received British citizenship.
Wishing to contribute to Britain’s war effort, Wittgenstein worked as a volunteer
at Guy’s Hospital in London, first as a dispenser and laboratory assistant, later as a
technician with a research group studying the phenomenon of ‘wound shock’, where
he developed apparatuses for the continuous measurement of pulse, blood pressure,
breathing frequency and volume. At the beginning of 1944 he was called back to
Cambridge to continue his research and his teaching.
Wittgenstein’s last attempt to publish his work, his ‘Philosophical Investigations’,
alongside his earlier book, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, failed, because the
publisher of the Tractatus, Kegan Paul in London, refused a licence to Cambridge
University Press. Wittgenstein withdrew from all further publication attempts and
instead prepared his literary estate as a form of publication.
At the beginning of the Michaelmas Term 1947, he resigned his chair to
concentrate on his writing; he travelled to Ireland, to Austria, to the US, back to
Ireland and then to Norway. At the end of 1949 his doctor, Edward Bevan, diagnosed
cancer of the prostate. In 1950 he moved back to Cambridge, into Dr Bevan’s house,
Storey’s End in Storey’s Way. In 1951 he wrote his will, making Rush Rhees, Elizabeth
Anscombe and G.H. von Wright the heirs of his literary estate.
On April 25 th , 1951 he began his last piece of writing. The last entry is from
April 27 th . On April 28 th he lost consciousness, dying on the morning of the 29 th of
April 1951.
Wittgenstein’s Philosophy
The reception of Wittgenstein’s Philosophy was already controversial while he was
teaching at Cambridge University from 1930 to 1947. The establishment in the
departments of philosophy in universities throughout England was on the whole
hostile towards Wittgenstein – certainly those in Oxford and Cambridge where he
was described as a charlatan. At the same time there was, in particular in Cambridge
and Oxford, no essay, talk or dissertation in philosophy, which was not influenced by
Wittgenstein.
After Wittgenstein’s death, self declared ‘apostles’ were teaching the ‘true
gospel’ of Wittgenstein. To counter those problematic teachings, Wittgenstein’s literary
heirs, Rush Rhees, Elizabeth Anscombe and G.H. von Wright, began publishing his
manuscripts. Not an easy task if one keeps in mind Wittgenstein’s own difficulties in
publishing his writings and not surprisingly, the results are problematic. They represent
in the first instance the understanding of Wittgenstein’s work by his pupils and heirs
4

and as practically all of Wittgenstein’s manuscripts are fragments (with the exception
of Part I of the posthumously published Philosophical Investigations), many of these
publications are selections from manuscripts, often under misleading titles. The editions
by Wittgenstein’s heirs represent about 20% of Nachlaß, a literary estate from which,
with the exception of the corpus of the so-called ‘Big Typescript’, Wittgenstein had
removed everything that he did not regard essential to his work.
Judging from his manuscripts and from his teachings Wittgenstein’s plan
was to write a trilogy. Part one, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus together with the
‘Philosophical Investigations’ under the Title ‘Philosophical Investigations juxtaposed
with Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus’ presents his philosophical method. Part two would
have had the title ‘Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology’; this part would have
incorporated what is now published as ‘Part II’ of the Philosophical Investigations. Part
three Wittgenstein would have called ‘Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics’ as
he argues at the end of the posthumously published Investigations:
An investigation is possible in connexion with mathematics which is entirely
analogous to our investigation of psychology. It is just as little a mathematical
investigation as the other is a psychological one. It will not contain calculations,
so it is not for example logistic. It might deserve the name of an investigation of
the ‘foundations of mathematics’.
In an entry in the Chambers Encyclopaedia from 1950, Wittgenstein says about his work:
His researches since 1929 (unpublished) bear chiefly on the philosophy of
psychology and mathematics.
Wittgenstein’s work on the foundations of mathematics and the foundations of science
in general has, until today, hardly been studied. This is in part the result of a rather
problematic publication of this material by his heirs: The posthumous publication,
Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics is, according to its preface, a selection made by
the editors from a large number of manuscripts which span a period of ostensibly seven,
but actually closer to 15 years. No wonder it is described in the secondary literature
as ‘disorganised, lacking structure’ and ‘failing to work out what looks like a very
promising approach’.
In the essay and the talk at Clare Hall on 13 April, ‘Wittgenstein’s Philosophy
or a Reorientation of Science’ I attempt to show in his words the importance of his
philosophy to the foundations of mathematics and of sciences. It will, I hope, give a
sense of the importance of Wittgenstein’s philosophy to the understanding and possibly
to resolution of problems we are having today with and within our world.
1 Hermine Wittgenstein, ‘Familienerinnerungen’ p. 108
2 Russell, Mind, 60, 1951
3 Wittgenstein in Cambridge, Oxford 2008, Letter 129
4 MS 225, p. II
5 Philosophical Investigations, Part II, xiv, Oxford 1976, p. 232
6 Chambers Encylopedia, new edn, vol 14, London 1950
7 Crispin Wright Wittgenstein on the Foundations of Mathematics, London 1980
8 Virginia Klenk Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Mathematics, Den Haag 1976
5
6
7, 8

Russell to Ottoline Morell,
18 October 1911
He turned out to be a man who had learned engineering at Charlottenburg, but during his course
had acquired, by himself, a passion for the philosophy of math’s, and has now come to Cambridge
on purpose to hear me.
19 October 1911
My German friend threatens to be an infliction, he came back with me after my lecture and argued
till dinner-time – obstinate and perverse, but I think not stupid.
1 November 1911
My German engineer very argumentative and tiresome.
2 November 1911
My German engineer, I think is a fool. He thinks nothing empirical is knowable – I asked him to
admit that there was not a rhinoceros in the room, but he wouldn’t.
13 November 1911
[M]y German ex-engineer, as usual, maintained his thesis that there is nothing in the world except
asserted propositions, but at last I told him it was too large a theme […]
16 November 1911
My ferocious German came and argued at me after my lecture, […] He is armour-plated against all
assaults of reasoning – it is really rather a waste of time talking with him.
27 November 1911
My German is hesitating between philosophy and aviation; he asked me today whether I thought he
was utterly hopeless at philosophy, and I told him I didn’t know but I thought not.
29 November 1911
I am getting to like him, he is literary, very musical, pleasant-mannered (being an Austrian) and I
think really intelligent.
Russell in his Autobiography, 1959
He was perhaps the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived,
passionate, profound, intense, and dominating.
Wittgenstein to Russell, Skjolden,
29 October 1913
Identity is the very Devil and immensely important; very much more so than I thought. It hangs – like
everything else – directly together with the most fundamental questions, especially with the questions
concerning the occurrence of the same argument in different places of a function. I have all sorts of
ideas for a solution of the problem but could not yet arrive at anything definite. However I don’t lose
courage and go on thinking. –
November 1913
Lieber Russell!
I intended to write this letter in German, but it struck me that I did not know whether to call you
„Sie“ or „Du“ so I am reduced to my beastly English jargon! –
In his answer Russell offered Wittgenstein to call him „Du“. The following letter Wittgenstein wrote
already in German, Russell answered as always in English. This continued until Wittgenstein was taken
prisoner in Italy after the Great War. From there he wrote in English, as well as his last two letters to
Russell from 1935.

Russell to Wittgenstein’s mother
Dear Mrs. Wittgenstein,
I have heard from your son which was a great happiness to me, as I have a profound affection and
respect for him. I am writing now to ask whether you would do me a great kindness. If anything
happens to him, would you let me know? I only ask because the anxiety is trying. Apart from
affection it is to him that I look for the next real important advance in philosophy.
Yours sincerely, Betrand Russell
Russell to Wittgenstein, Cambridge, 5 February 1915
It was a very great happiness to hear from you – I had been thinking of you constantly and longing
for news. I am amazed that you have been able to write a MS. on logic since the war began. I cannot
tell you how great a joy it will be to see you again after the war, if all goes well. If only your MSS
come to me, I will do my utmost to understand them and make others understand them; but without
your help it will be difficult. Please remember me to your mother, and tell her that you are constantly
in my mind with anxious affection.
Russell to Ottoline Morrell, 1916
Do you remember […] I wrote a lot of stuff about Theory of Knowledge, which Wittgenstein
criticized with the greatest severity? His criticism, tho’ I don’t think you realized it at the time, was
an event of first-rate importance in my life, and affected everything I have done since. I saw he was
right, and I saw I could not hope ever again to do fundamental work in philosophy. My impulse was
shattered, like a wave dashed to pieces against a breakwater.
Wittgenstein to Russell, 10 March 1919
I’ve written a book which will be published as soon as I get home. I think I have solved our
problems finally. Write to me often. It will shorten my prison. God bless you.
Russell to Ottoline Morrell, Den Haag, 20 December 1919
I have much to tell you that is of interest. I leave here today, after a fortnight’s stay, during a week
of which Wittgenstein was here, and we discussed his book every day. I came to think even better of
it than I had done; I feel sure it is a really great book, though I do not feel sure it is right. I told him
I could not refute it, and that I was sure it was either all right or all wrong, which I considered the
mark of a good book; but it would take me years to decide this. This of course didn’t satisfy him, but
I couldn’t say more.
Russell to Moore, 27 May1929
I think […] that unless Wittgenstein has changed his opinions of me, he will not much like to have
me as an Examiner. The last time we met he was so much pained by the fact of my not being a
Christian that he has avoided me ever since; I do not know whether pain on this account has grown
less, but he must still dislike me, as he has never communicated with me since. I do not want him to
run out of the room in the middle of the Viva, which I feel is the sort of thing he might do.
Rush Rhees, Personal Recollections of Wittgenstein
As Wittgenstein came to be examined by Russell and Moore, Russell said smiling: “I have never
known anything so absurd in my life” –
Ronald Clark, The Life of Bertrand Russell
Moore and Russell first chatted informally to Wittgenstein as old friends rather than as examiners
and examinee. Then Russell turned to Moore. “Go on”, he said, “you’ve got to ask him some
questions – you’re the Professor”. There was a short discussion. Russell made a brief attempt to argue
that Wittgenstein was inconsistent in stating that little could be said about philosophy and that it was
possible to reach unassailable truth. Then the Viva ended unexpectedly with Wittgenstein clapping
each of his examiners on the shoulder and exclaiming, “Don’t worry, I know you’ll never understand
it.” –

Moore to Russell, 9 March 1930
The Council of Trinity made a grant to Wittgenstein last June to enable him to carry on his
researches on the foundations of Mathematics. There is now a question of making him a further
grant; and they wish, before they decide, to have expert reports on the work he has done since the
last grant was made. They have authorised me to ask you to make such a report for them. I’m afraid
it will involve a good deal of trouble. Wittgenstein has written a great deal; but he says it would be
absolutely necessary for him to explain it to you in conversation, if you are to understand it. I think
he would be very glad to have an opportunity of doing this, but it would no doubt take up a good
deal of your time. I hope very much that you will nevertheless be willing to do it; for there seems
to be no other way of ensuring him a sufficient income to continue his work, unless the Council do
make him a grant; and I am afraid there is a very little chance that they will do so, unless they can
get favourable reports from experts in the subject: and you are, of course, by far the most competent
person to make one. They would, of course, pay a fee for the report. There would be no need for
you to come here to see Wittgenstein. He would arrange to see you, when and where it suited you
best.
Russell to Moore, 11 March 1930
I do not see how I can refuse to read Wittgenstein’s work and make a report on it. At the same time,
since it involves arguing with him, you are right that it will require a great deal of work. I do not
know anything more fatiguing than disagreeing with him in argument. Obviously the best plan for
me would be to read the manuscript carefully first; and see him afterwards. How soon could you let
me have his stuff?
Moore to Russell, 13 March 1930
Wittgenstein says that he has nothing written which it would be worth while to let you see: all that
he has written is at present in too confused a state. I am sorry that I had not clearly understood this
when I wrote to you before. What he wants is merely to have a chance of explaining to you some
of the results which he has arrived at, so that you might be able to report to the Council whether,
even if you thought them mistaken, you thought them important and such that he ought to be given
a chance of going on working on the same lines; and I hope that a report of this kind would be
sufficient for the Council. And I should think 3 days would be ample for this, and that it wouldn’t be
necessary for you to argue with him much.
Russell to Moore, 5 May 1930
I had a second visit from Wittgenstein, but it only lasted thirty-six hours, and it did not by any means
suffice for him to give me a synopsis of all that he has done. He left me a large quantity of typescript,
which I am to forward to Littlewood as soon as I have read it. Unfortunately I have been ill and
have therefore been unable to get on with it as fast as I hoped. I think however, that in the course of
conversation with him I got a fairly good idea of what he is at […]
His theories are certainly important and certainly very original. Whether they are true, I do not
know; I devoutly hope they are not, as they make mathematics and logic almost incredibly difficult
[…]
I am quite sure that Wittgenstein ought to be given an opportunity to pursue his work.
Wittgenstein to Russell, Autumn 1935
Two years ago, or so, I promised to send you a M.S. of mine. Now the one I’m sending you today
isn’t that M.S. I’m still pottering about with it and God knows whether I will ever publish it, or any of
it. But two years ago I held some lectures in Cambridge and dictated some notes to my pupils so that
they might have something to carry home with them, in their hands if not in their brains. And I had
these notes duplicated. I have just now been correcting misprints and other mistakes in some of the
copies and the idea came into my mind whether you might not like to have a copy. So I’m sending
you one. I don’t wish to suggest that you should read the lectures; but if you should have nothing
better to do and if you should get some mild enjoyment out of them I would be very pleased indeed.
(I think it’s very difficult to understand them, as so many points are just hinted at. They are meant
only for the people who heard the lectures). As I say, if you don’t read them, it doesn’t matter at all.

G.E. Moore to F.A. Hayek
[At] the beginning of the October term 1912, he came again to some of my psychology lectures; but
he was very displeased with them, because I was spending a great deal of time in discussing Ward’s
view that psychology did not differ from the Natural Sciences in subject-matter but only in point of
view. He told me these lectures were very bad – that what I ought to do was to say what I thought,
not to discuss what other people had thought; and he came no more to my lectures. But this did not
prevent him from seeing a great deal of me. He was very anxious at the beginning of this year to
improve the discussion of our philosophical society, which is called the Moral Science Club; and he
actually persuaded the Club, with the help of the Secretary and me, to adopt a new set of rules and
to appoint me as Chairman. He himself took a great part in these discussions. In this year both he
and I were still attending Russell’s Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics; but W. used also to
go for hours to Russell’s rooms in the evening to discuss Logic with him. Wittgenstein arranged to be
coached in Logic by W.E. Johnson; but Johnson soon found that W. spent so much time in explaining
his own views that he ( Johnson) felt that it was more like being coached by W. than W. being
coached by him; and Johnson therefore soon put an end to the arrangement.
Wittgenstein to Moore, Skjolden
19 November 1913
Dear Moore,
Many thanks for your P.C. I am very sorry that you feel so miserably at times about your work.
I think, the cause of it is, that you don’t regularely discuss your stuff with anybody who is not yet
stale and is really interested in the subject. And I believe that at present there is no such person
up at Cambridge. Even Russell – who is of course most extraordinarily fresh for his age – is no
more pliable enough for this purpose. Don’t you think it would be a good thing if we had regular
discussions when you come to me at Easter? Not – of course – that I am any good at the subject!
But I am not yet stale and care for it very much. I can’t help thinking that this would make you lose
your feeling of sterility. I think you ought to think about your problems with the view to discussing
them with me at Easter. Now don’t you think that I am arrogant in saying this! I don’t for a moment
believe that I could get as clear about your questions as you can, but – as I said before – I am not yet
wasted and am very interested in the stuff. Do think this over. – let me hear from you soon.
March 1914
Why on earth won’t you do your paper here? You shall have a sitting-room with a splendid view
all by yourself and I shall leave you alone as much as you like (in fact the whole day, if necessary).
On the other hand we could see one another whenever both of us should like to. And we could even
talk over your bussines (which might be fun). Or do you want so many books? You see – I have
plenty to do myself, so I shan’t disturb you a bit. Do take the Boat that leaves Newcastle on 17th
arriving in Bergen on the 19th and do your work here (I might even have a good influence upon it
by preventing too many repetitions). I think, now, that Logic must be very nearly done if it is not
already. – So do think over what I’ve said!!
Yours, etc., etc.
L.W.
P.S. Oh – Do buy the „Schicksalslied“ by Brahms in an arrangement for 4 hands and bring it with
you. And, please, send a telegram if you come on the 19th. I hope you will.
G.E. Moore to F.A. Hayek
I arrived late on March 26 th , 1914, and found W. there to meet me. We spent two nights at Bergen,
and then went on by train, sledge, steamer and motor-boat to Skjolden, where Wittgenstein was
staying, spending one night on the way at Flaam, at a hotel which was mostly shut up, because it was
out of season; W. had arranged beforehand that we should be able to sleep there, but we were the
only guests. I was with him at Skjolden only 15 days. He dictated to me there some notes on Logic,
which I still have. He also took me to a site where he proposed to build a house; but the house
which he afterwards actually built near Skjolden was on a different site. At the end of the 15 days he
accompanied me back to Bergen, and we again spent one night together at Flaam, and one night at
Bergen.

Skjolden, 7 May 1914
Dear Moore,
Your letter annoyed me. When I wrote Logik I didn’t consult the Regulations, and therefore I think it
would only be fair if you gave me my degree without consulting them so much either! As to a
Preface and Notes; I think my examiners will easily see how much I have cribbed from Bosanquet.
– If I’m not worth your making an exception for me even in some stupid details then I may as well go
to Hell directly; and if I am worth it and you don’t do it then – by God – you might go there.
The whole business is too stupid and too beastly to go on writing about it so –
L.W.
Wittgenstein left Cambridge University without a degree. Logik, his B.A. dissertation no longer exists.
How this work, written in German, relates to his Tractatus Logiko-Philosophics is not known.
Wien XVII
Neuwaldeggerstraße 38
July 3 rd , ’14
Dear Moore,
Upon clearing up some papers before leaving Skjolden I popped upon your letter which had made
me so wild. And upon reading it over again I found that I had probably no sufficient reason to write
to you as I did. (Not that I like your letter a bit now.) But at any rate my wrath has cooled down and
I’d rather be friends with you again than otherwise. I consider I have strained myself enough now for
I would not have written this to many people and if you don’t answer this I shan’t write to you again.
Yours, etc., etc.
L. W.
Moore did not answer. The friendship is renewed on the day of Wittgenstein’s return to Cambridge,
when, on the 28 th of January, they accidetally meet in the train from London to Cambridge.
Diary of G.E. Moore, 12 October 1915
Dream of Wittgenstein, he looks at me as if to ask if it is all right, and I can’t help smiling as
if it was, though I know it isn’t; then he is swimming in the sea; finally he is trying to escape arrest as
an enemy alien.
Wittgenstein to Moore,
March - April 1930
I am in Vienna now, doing the most loathsome work of dictating a synopsis from my manuscripts.
It is a terrible bit of work and I feel wretched doing it. I saw Russell the other day at Petersfield and,
against my original intention, started to explain to him Philosophy. Of course we couldn’t get very far
in two days but he seemed to understand a little bit of it. My plan is to go and see him in Cornwall
on the 22 nd or 23 rd of April and to give him the synopsis and a few explanations.
23 August 1931
I’ve had a very busy time since I left Cambridge and have done a fair amount of work. Now I want
you to do me a favour: I don’t intend to give any formal lectures this term as I think I must reserve
all my strength for my own work.
Maurice O’Connor Drury, Recollections 1938
G.E. Moore was retiring from the Professorship of Philosophy at Cambridge. Wittgenstein was
debating whether he would apply for the chair.
Wittgenstein: “I would never be elected. I am now only a ‘has been’. Nobody wants a ‘has been’.
One of the electors is Collingwood of Oxford. Can you imagine him voting for me?”
After his election, Wittgenstein told me that Broad had said: “To refuse the chair to Wittgenstein
would be like refusing Einstein a chair of Physics.” Wittgenstein knew how antipathetic Broad was to
anyone of Wittgenstein’s temperament, and he appreciated this tribute.

Wittgenstein to O.K. Bouwsma during his trip to the US, 11 October 1949
Moore is a man who is full of questions but he has no talent for disentangling things. It is one thing
when you have a tangle of thread to lay it down that some threads run so: = and some: || and some:
//, but it is quite another thing to take an end and follow it through, pulling it out, and looping it on,
etc. Moore could not do this. He was barren. Now Russell was different in his good days. He was
wonderful.
Wittgenstein to Moore
Ross’s Hotel, Parkgate Street, Dublin, Eire
16 December 48
Dear Moore,
The enclosed card is to wish you as much happiness and as little unhappiness as possible. But I’m
also writing you this note: for two reasons. I had a letter and Christmas card from Malcolm, and
he says that he hasn’t yet heard from you. When I read this I thought of your telling me that you’d
write to him; that was in October in your room when I mentioned the fact that he had complained
to me about not hearing from you. And at the same time I thought of something else you promised
me then, i.e., putting it into your will that my typescripts, now in your possession, should, after your
death, go to my executors, or to me if I should then be alive. – This letter is to remind you of both
matters, in case you have forgotten. You are in a position to give a great deal of pleasure (in the first
case) and to avert a great deal of distress (in the second) by comparatively simple means.
Rhees is coming here for 10 days next week. I am well and working pretty hard. May you be well,
too!
Forgive me this lengthy letter.
Yours
Ludwig Wittgenstein
31 December 1948
Dear Moore,
Thanks for your letter and for having fulfilled both promises. My executors are Rhees and Burnaby of
Trinity.
I wish you all good luck!
Yours
L. Wittgenstein
Wittgenstein to Norman Malcolm, 18 February 1949
Now as to Moore: I don’t really understand Moore, and therefore, what I’ll say may be quite wrong.
But this is what I’m inclined to say: – That Moore is in some sense extraordinarily childlike is
obvious, and the remark you quoted (about vanity) is certainly an example of that childlikeness. There
is also a certain innocence about Moore; he is, e.g., completely unvain. As to it’s being to his “credit”
to be childlike, – I can’t understand that; unless it’s also to a child’s credit. For you aren’t talking of
the innocence of a man who has fought for, but of an innocence which comes from a natural absence
of a temptation. – I believe that all you wanted to say was that you liked, or even loved, Moore’s
childlikeness. And that I can understand. – I think that our discrepancy here is not so much one of
thoughts as of feelings. I like and greatly respect Moore, but that’s all. He doesn’t warm my heart (or
very little), because what warms my heart most is human kindness, and Moore – just like a child – is
not kind. He is kindly and can be charming and nice to those he likes and he has a great depth. –
That’s how it seems to me. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. –

Russell to Keynes on Wittgenstein‘s election to the Apostles, 11 November 1912
All the difficulties I anticipated have arisen with Wittgenstein. I persuaded him at last to come to the
first meeting and see how he could stand it. Obviously from his point of view the Society is a mere
waste of time. But perhaps from a philosophical point of view he might be made to feel it worth
going on with. I feel, on reflection, very doubtful whether I did well to persuade him to come next
Saturday, as I feel sure he will retire in disgust. But I feel it is the business of the active brethren to
settle this before next Saturday. If he is going to retire, it would be better it should be before election.
Keynes to Wittgenstein, 10 January 1915
I am astonished to have got a letter from you. Do you think it proves that you existed within a short
time of my getting it? I think so. I hope you have been safely taken prisoner by now.
Russell and I have given up philosophy for the present – I to give my services to the Govt for
financial business, he to agitate for peace. But Moore and Johnson go on just as usual.
Ramsey to Keynes, Vienna, 24 March 1924
With regard to Wittgenstein I do not think it is any good at all trying to get him to live any pleasanter
a life, or stop the ridiculous waste of his energy and brain. I only see this clearly now because I have
got to know one of his sisters and met the rest of the family.
They are very rich and extremely anxious to give him money or do anything for him in any way,
and he rejects all their advances; even Christmas presents or presents of invalid’s food, when he is ill,
he sends back. And this is not because they aren’t on good terms but because he won’t have money
he hasn’t earned except for some very specific purpose like to come and see you again. I think he
teaches to earn money and would only stop teaching if he had some other way of earning money
which was preferable. And it would have to be really earning, he wouldn’t accept any job which
seemed in the least to be wangled for him.
Wittgenstein to Keynes,
18 October 1925
My dear Keynes,
Thanks so much for your letter! I am still teacher and don’t want any money at present. I have
decided to remain teacher, as long as I feel that the troubles into which I get that way, may do me
any good. If one has toothache it is good to put a hot-water bottle on your face, but it will only be
effective, as long as the heat of the bottle gives you some pain. I will chuck the bottle when I find
that it no longer gives me the particular kind of pain which will do my character any good. That
is, if people here don’t turn me out before that time. If I leave off teaching I will probably come to
England and look for a job there, because I am convinced that I cannot find anything at all possible
in this country. In this case I will want your help.
Summer 1927
It’s ages since you have heard from me. […] I won’t try to explain my long silence: there were lots
of reasons for it. I had a great many troubles one overlapping the other and postponed writing until
they would be all over. But now I have interrupted my troubles by a short holiday and this is the
occasion to write to you. I have given up teaching long ago (about 14 months)* and have taken to
architecture. I’m building a house in Vienna. This gives me heaps of troubles and I’m not even sure
that I’m not going to make a mess of it. However I believe it will be finished about November and
then I might take a trip to England if anybody there should care to see me. I should very much like
to see you again and meanwhile to get a line from you.
About your book I forgot to say that I liked it. It shows that you know that there are more things
between heaven and earth etc.
Please remember me to your wife.
Yours ever
Ludwig
* I couldn’t stand the hot bottle any longer.

Wittgenstein to Keynes, October/November 1928
I’ve just finished my house that has kept me entirely busy these last two years. Now however I will
have some holidays and naturally want to see you again as soon as possible. The question is, would
you mind seeing me. If not, write a line. I could come to England in the first days of December but
not before, as I must first set to rights part of my anatomy. Enclosed you will find a few photos of my
house and hope you won’t be too much disgusted by its simplicity.
Keynes to his wife Lydia Lopokova, 18 November 1928
A letter from Ludwig. He has finished his house and sends photographs of it – à la Corbusier; and
wants to come to stay with me here in about a fortnight. Am I strong enough? Perhaps if I do not
work between now and then, I shall be.
Wittgenstein to Keynes, December 1928
I had to postpone my trip, as my health was not quite strong enough in the first days of this month.
But I am nearly well now and want to come to England in the beginning of January. Please write a
line letting me know if I can see you then.
Keynes to his wife,
18 January 1929
My dearest sweet, Well, God has arrived. I met him on the 5.15 train. He has a plan to stay in
Cambridge permanently. Meanwhile we have had tea and now I retire to my study to write to you. I
see that the fatigue is going to be crushing. But I must not let him talk to me for more than two or
three hours a day.
25 February 1929
Last night Ludwig came to dinner. He was much more ‘normal’ in every way than I have ever
known him. One woman at last has succeeded in soothing the fierceness of the savage hunter –
Lettice Ramsey, under whose roof he stayed in the end for nearly a fortnight, before moving to Mrs.
Dobbs
19 January1930
Frank Ramsey died last night. We are all very much overwhelmed by feelings about it. All yesterday
the news seemed desperate. He was in his way the greatest genius in the College and such a dear
creature besides. Poor Lettice and her two babies …
Wittgenstein to Keynes,
6 July 1935
I want to speak to officials at two institutions; one is the ‘Institute of the North’ in Leningrad, the
other the ‘Institute of National Minorities’ in Moscow. These Institutes, as I am told, deal with people
who want to go to the ‘colonies’ the newly colonized parts at the periphery of the U.S.S.R. I want to
get information and possibly help from people in these Institutes.
30 June 1935
I’m sorry I must trouble you with my affairs again. There are two things I want to ask you:
(a) I thought the other day when we talked in your room you were not disinclined to give me
some sort of introduction to Maisky the Ambassador. I then said I thought he would not be the man
who would give me the advice I wanted. But I’ve been told since that if he were inclined to give me
a letter of introduction to some officials in Russia it would help me a lot. Therefore my first question
is, would you be willing to give me an introduction to Maisky so as to make it possible for me to
have a conversation with him, as the result of which he might give me an introduction?
(b) I have now more or less decided to go to Russia as a Tourist in September and see whether
it is possible for me to get a suitable job there. If I find (which, I’m afraid is quite likely) that I
can’t find such a job, or get permission to work in Russia, then I should want to return to England
and if possible study Medicine. Now when you told me that you would finance me during my
medical training you did not know, I think, that I wanted to go to Russia and that I would try to get

permission to practise medicine in Russia. I know that you are not in favour of my going there (and
I think I understand you). Therefore I must ask you whether, under these circumstances, you would
still be prepared to help me. I don’t like to ask you this question, not because I risk a “No”, but
because I hate asking any questions about this matter.
If you reply please just write on a P.C.: (a) No or (a) Yes, etc. (b) No, etc. as the case may be. I
shall not think it the least unkind of you if you answer both a and b negatively.
I left your room the other day with a sad feeling. It is only too natural that you shouldn’t entirely
understand what makes me do what I am doing, nor how hard it is for me.
Keynes’ introduction to Maisky, 10 July 1935
I must leave it to him to tell you his reasons for wanting to go to Russia. He is not a member of the
Communist Party, but has strong sympathies with the way of life which he believes the new régime
in Russia stands for.
Wittgenstein to Keynes, 18 March 1938
I want to describe to you my present situation and ask you whether you can by any chance, in some
way not too difficult for you, give me some advice or help. You know that by the annexation of
Austria by Germany I have become a German citizen and, by the German laws, a German Jew (as
three of my grandparents were baptised only as adults). The same, of course, applies to my brother
and sisters (not to their children, they count as aryans). As my people in Vienna are almost all retiring
and very respected people who have always felt and behaved patriotically it is, on the whole, unlikely
that they are at present in any danger. I have not yet heard from them since the invasion and there
hasn’t been time as they would wait in any case with giving me news until things had settled down
a bit. I wrote to them a week ago saying that if they needed me I would come home any time. But I
believe that they aren’t going to call me and also that I couldn’t at present do anything for them, except
possibly cheering them up a little. – If however I went to Vienna now the consequences would be
a) that my passport, being an Austrian one, would be taken away from me and b) that, in all
likelihood, no passport would be given to me; as passports, except in very special cases, are not, I
gather, issued to German Jews. I could therefore c) not leave Austria again and d) never again get a job.
My people, who were rich before the war, are still wealthyish and will probably, even when a lot
will be taken away from them, still have enough money to keep me (and they would gladly do so) but
I needn’t say this would be the last thing that I’ld wish to happen.
I also must say that the idea of becoming (or being) a German citizen, even apart from all the nasty
consequences, is appalling to me. (This may be foolish, but it just is so.)
For all these reasons I have now decided to try 1) to get a University job at Cambridge, 2) to
acquire British citizenship.
The thought of acquiring British citizenship had occurred to me before; but I have always rejected
it on the ground: that I do not wish to become a sham-Englishman (I think you will understand what
I mean). The situation has however entirely changed for me now. For now I have to choose between
two new nationalities, one of which deprives me of everything, while the other, at least, would allow me
to work in a country in which I have spent on and off the greater part of my adult life, have made my
greatest friends and have done my best work.
Now if I wish to try to become naturalised here I’m afraid I have to make haste; one of the reasons
being that (as Sraffa pointed out to me) it would be easier as long as I hold an Austrian passport. And
this I might have to give up before so very long.
As to getting a job at Cambridge you may remember that I was an assistant faculty lecturer for 5
years, and that the regulations don’t allow one to hold this job for more than 5 years. When my 5
years had expired the faculty allowed me to go on lecturing as before and they went on paying me as
before. Now it is for this that I shall apply, for there is no other job vacant. I had, in fact, thought of
doing so anyway; though not now, but perhaps next autumn. But it would be important now for me to
get a job as quickly as possible; for a) it would help me in becoming naturalised and b) if I failed in this
and had to become a German I would have more chance to be allowed out of Austria again on visiting
my people if I had a Job in England. […]
I want to add that I’m in no sort of financial difficulties. I shall have about 300 or 400 £ and can
therefore hold out for another year or so.

Wittgenstein to Ramsey, Summer 1923
I’ve got a letter from Mr. Ogden the other day saying that you may possibly come to Vienna in
one of these next months. Now as you have so excellently translated the Tractatus into English I’ve
no doubt you will be able to translate a letter too and therefore I’m going to write the rest of this in
German.
Minutes of Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club, 26 January 1923
The basis of Wittgenstein’s logic is his theory of symbolism. His main concern is to express the
conditions under which a proposition can express a fact. The reader held that in Wittgenstein’s
analysis there is only what he calls sentence – no third entity, the proposition – the sentence is not a
name for the proposition but they are equivalent. A series of words, to express a proposition, must
have the logical form of the fact. The sentence has logical structure only if the proposition is true.
The world consists of facts. Facts may contain parts which are other facts. The analysis of these parts
yields finally the constituents which may be called ‘singles’ or ‘objects’, from which all complex
entities are built up. An interesting point which was not revived in the later discussion dealt with
Wittgenstein’s denial of the causal nexus. He seems here to be denying two different things and
incidentally to remove the possibility for holding the propositions of the natural science, which he yet
seems to wish to retain. The reader of the paper raised among others three questions for discussion
1) Is the picture theory expungable?
2) Assuming it to be true what does it rule out?
3) What are the ‘simples’?
The discussion however turned largely on the question of the identification of sentence and
proposition – a position which was attacked by the chairman (Moore). A great many difficulties on
this and other points were revealed, but not resolved by the discussion which terminated at 11.30 p.m.
Ramsey to his mother,
Velden am Wörther See, 22 July 1924
We really live in a great time for thinking, with Einstein Freud and Wittgenstein all alive(, and all in
Germany or Austria those foes of civilisation!)
Puchberg am Schneeberg, 20 September 1923
Wittgenstein is a teacher in the Village school. He is very poor, at least he lives very economically.
He has one tiny room whitewashed, containing a bed, washstand, small table and one hard chair and
that is all there is room for. His evening meal which I shared last night is rather unpleasant coarse
bread, butter and cocoa. His school hours are 8 to 12 or 1 and he seems to be free all the afternoon.
He looks younger than he can possibly be; but he says he has bad eyes and a cold. But his general
appearance is athlethic. In explaining his philosophy he is excited and makes vigorous gestures but
relieves the tension by a charming laugh. He has blue eyes.
Ramsey to Wittgenstein, 20 February 1924
Thanks for your letter; except that I think you might enjoy it, I [all underlining by Wittgenstein]
no longer want you to come here this summer, because I am coming to Vienna, for some and perhaps the
whole of it! I can’t say exactly when or for how long, but very likely, next month, so I shall hope to
see you quite soon now.
This is for various reasons: I hope to settle permanently in Cambridge, but as I have always lived
here, I want to go away for a time first, and have the chance now for six months. And if I live in
Vienna I can learn German, and come and see you often, (unless you object) and discuss my work
with you, which would be most helpful. Also I have been very depressed and done little work, and have
symptoms so closely resembling some of those described by Freud that I shall probably try to be psychoanalysed,
for which Vienna would be very convenient, and which would make me stay there the whole six months.
But I’m afraid you won’t agree with this.
Keynes still means to write to you; it really is a disease – his procrastination; but he doesn’t (unlike
me) take such disabilities so seriously as to go to Freud! He very much hopes you will come and see
him.

I haven’t seen Johnson for a long time but I am going to tea with his sister soon, and unless he is ill
I will give him your love (last time I went there he was ill). The third part of his Logic is to be published
soon. It deals with Causation.
I am so sorry you are using up all your strength struggling with your surroundings; it must be terribly
difficult with the other teachers. Are you staying on in Puchberg? When I saw you, you had some idea of
leaving if it got too impossible, and becoming a gardener.
I can’t write about work, it is such an effort when my ideas are so vague, and I’m going to see you
soon. Anyhow I have done little except, I think, made out the proper solution rather in detail of some
of the contradictions which made Russell’s Theory of Types unnecessarily complicated, and made him put
in the Axiom of Reducibility. I went to see Russell a few weeks ago, and am reading the manuscript of
the new stuff he is putting into the Principia. You are quite right that it is of no importance; all it really
amounts to is a clever proof of mathematical induction without using the axiom of reducibility. There are no
fundamental changes, identity just as it used to be. I felt he was too old: he seemed to understand and say
“yes” to each separate thing, but it made no impression so that 3 minutes afterwards he talked on his old
lines. Of all your work he seems now to accept only this: that it is nonsense to put an adjective where a substantive
ought to be which helps in his theory of types.
He indignantly denied ever having said that vagueness is a characteristic of the physical world.
He has 2 children now and is very devoted to them. I liked him very much. […]
I had a long discussion with Moore the other day, who has grasped more of your work than I should have
expected.
I’m sorry I’m not getting on better with the foundations of mathematics; I have got several ideas
but they are still dim.
I hope you are well, and as happy as you can be under the circumstances. It gives me great
pleasure that probably I shall see you soon.
Ramsey to Keynes, Vienna, 24 March 1924
With regard to Wittgenstein I do not think it is any good at all trying to get him to live any pleasanter
a life, or stop the ridiculous waste of his energy and brain. I only see this clearly now because I have
got to know one of his sisters and met the rest of the family.
They are very rich and extremely anxious to give him money or do anything for him in any way,
and he rejects all their advances; even Christmas presents or presents of invalid’s food, when he is ill,
he sends back. And this is not because they aren’t on good terms but because he won’t have money he
hasn’t earned except for some very specific purpose like to come and see you again. I think he teaches
to earn money and would only stop teaching if he had some other way of earning money which was
preferable. And it would have to be really earning, he wouldn’t accept any job which seemed in the
least to be wangled for him. It is an awful pity; it seems to be the result of a terribly strict upbringing.
Three of his brothers committed suicide they were made to work so hard by their father: at one time
the eight children had twenty-six private tutors; and their mother took no interest in them.
Ramsey to his mother, Puchberg am Schneeberg, 20 September1923
He is prepared to give 4 or 5 hours a day to explaining his book. I have had two days and got through
7 (+ incidental forwards references) out of 80 pages. And when the book is done I shall try to pump
him for ideas for its further development which I shall attempt. He says he himself will do nothing
more, not because he is bored, but because his mind is no longer flexible. He says no one can do
more than 5 or 10 years work at philosophy. (His book took 7.) And he is sure Russell will do nothing
more important. His idea of his book is not that anyone by reading it will understand his ideas, but
that some day someone will think them out again for himself, and will derive great pleasure from
finding in this book their exact expressions. I think he exaggerates his own verbal inspiration, it is
much more careful than I supposed but I think it reflects the way the ideas came to him which might
not be the same with another man.
He has already answered my chief difficulty which I have puzzled over for a year and given up in
despair myself and decided he had not seen. (It is not in the 1st 7 pages but arose by the way.) He is
great. I used to think Moore a great man but beside W!
He says I shall forget everything he explains in a few days; Moore in Norway said he understood
W completely and when he got back to England was no wiser than when he started.

It’s terrible when he says “Is that clear” and I say “no” and he says “Damn it’s horrid to go through
that again”. Sometimes he says I can’t see that now we must leave it. He often forgot the meaning of
what he wrote within 5 minutes, and then remembered it later. Some of his sentences are intentionally
ambiguous having an ordinary meaning and a more difficult meaning which he also believes.
He is, I can see, a little annoyed that Russell is doing a new edition of Principia because he thought
he had shown R that it was so wrong that a new edition would be futile. It must be done altogether
afresh. He had a week with Russell 4 years ago.
Wittgenstein to his sister Hermine, September 1923
Auch ich konnte jetzt ein paar Tage kaum reden, weil ich in der letzten Zeit den ganzen Tag reden
mußte. Vormittags in der Schule und nachmittags mit Ramsey aus Cambridge der beinahe 14 Tage
hier geblieben ist. Es war ein Vergnügen auch für mich, wenn auch eine sehr große Anstrengung. –
Ramsey wird mir in einiger Zeit ein Exemplar der Abhandlung schicken und das kannst Du dann
haben.
For a few days, I too could hardly speak as I have had to talk the whole day. Mornings at school
and in the afternoon with Ramsey from Cambridge, who has stayed here for nearly a fortnight. It
was a pleasure for me too, but at the same time a huge effort. – Ramsey will send me a copy of the
Tractatus, which then you can have.
Frank Ramsey to G.E. Moore, 14 July 1929
In my opinion Mr Wittgenstein is a philosophic genius of a different order from anyone else I
know. This is partly owing to his great gift for seeing what is essential in a problem and partly to his
overwhelming intellectual vigour, to the intensity of thought with which he pursues a question to the
bottom and never rests content with a mere possible hypothesis. From his work more than that of
any other man I hope for a solution of the difficulties that perplex me both in philosophy generally
and in the foundation of Mathematics in particular. It seems to me, therefore, peculiarly fortunate that
he should have returned to research. During the last two terms I have been in close touch with his
work and he seems to me to have made remarkable progress. He began with certain questions in the
analysis of propositions which have now led him to problems about infinity which lie at the root of
current controversies on the foundations of Mathematics. At first I was afraid that lack of mathematical
knowledge and facility would prove a serious handicap to his working in this field. But the progress he
had made has already convinced me that this is not so, and that here too he will probably do work of
the first importance. He is now working very hard and, so far as I can judge he is getting on well. For
him to be interrupted by lack of money would be a great misfortune for philosophy. –
F.R. Leavis, Memoirs of Wittgenstein
[A]s midnight approached I said, as if suddenly recalling the fact: “Didn’t you tell me that you were
reading a paper to the Aristotelian Society at Nottingham tomorrow?” I added, by way of reinforcing
the stimulus: “lt’s nearly twelve”. He exclaimed: “I’m a bloody fool! – Walk back with me.” […]
Arrived at the front door, I knocked, and said to Wittgenstein: “You’ll go to bed at once, won’t you?”
He answered, with the inertness of exhaustion: “You don’t understand. When I’m engaged on a piece
of work I’m always afraid I shall die before I’ve finished it. So I make a fair copy of the day’s work,
and give it to Frank Ramsey for safe-keeping. I haven’t made today’s copy.”
[…]
I was walking once with Wittgenstein when I was moved, by something he said, to remark, with
a suggestion of innocent inquiry in my tone: “You don’t think much of most other philosophers,
Wittgenstein?” – “No. Those I have my use for you could divide into two classes. Suppose I was
directing someone of the first to Emmanuel” – it was then my college – “I should say: ‘You see that
steeple over there? Emmanuel is three hundred and fifty yards to the west-southwest of it’. That man,
the first class, would get there. Hm! very rare – in fact I’ve never met him. To the second I should
say: ‘You go a hundred yards straight ahead, turn half-left and go forty’ . . . and so on. That man
would ultimately get there. Very rare too; in fact I don’t know that I’ve met him.” Thereupon I asked,
referring to the well-known young Cambridge genius (who was to die while still young): “What about
Frank Ramsey?” – “Ramsey? He can see the next step if you point it out.”

Ein beßrer Pädagog muß kommen, und dem Kinde das
erschöpfte Elementarbuch aus den Händen reißen.–
Lessing Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts
A better teacher must come and tear the primer from the
child that has outgrown it.
Lessing Education of Mankind
Wittgenstein’s Philosophy
or a Reorientation of Science
Wittgenstein’s Philosophy
In Ludwig Wittgenstein’s own view, his work was primarily concerned with the
foundations of mathematics, the language of science.
Der Philosoph spürt Wechsel im Stil einer Ableitung, an denen der
Mathematiker von heute, mit seinem stumpfen Gesicht ruhig vorübergeht. —
Eine höhere Sensibilität ist es eigentlich, was den Mathematiker der Zukunft von
dem heutigen unterscheiden wird; und die wird die Mathematik – gleichsam –
stutzen; weil man dann mehr auf die absolute Klarheit als auf ein/das/ Erfinden
neuer Spiele bedacht sein wird.
A philosopher feels changes in the style of a derivation which a contemporary
mathematician passes over calmly with a blank face. — What will actually
distinguish the mathematician of the future from those of today will be a greater
sensitivity, and that will – as it were – prune mathematics; since people will then
be more intent on absolute clarity than on the invention of new games.
Die philosophische Klarheit wird auf das Wachstum der Mathematik den
gleichen Einfluß haben, wie das Sonnenlicht auf das Wachsen der Kartoffeltriebe.
(Im dunkeln Keller wachsen sie meterlang.)
Philosophical clarity will have the same effect on the growth of mathematics as
the sun has on the growth of potato sprouts. (In a dark cellar they grow metres
long.)
Scientists, who divide the world into disciplines assigned to specialists, argue that
Wittgenstein was mistaken about himself in the same way as Goethe, who considered
himself more of a naturalist than a poet. Not surprisingly, Wittgenstein’s work on the
foundations of mathematics is largely ignored. It is considered unworthy of the author of
the Tractatus and the Philosophical Investigations.
This is clearly an important problem for anyone studying Wittgenstein: Only
a genius like Frank Ramsey, who to this day exerts a major influence on mathematics,
was able to correctly assess Wittgenstein’s work in mathematics and its impact on his
philosophy. In 1929 Ramsey wrote to G.E. Moore: “In my opinion Mr Wittgenstein is a
1
2
3
4

philosophical genius of a different order from anyone else I know. […] From his work
more than that of any other man I hope for a solution of the difficulties that perplex me
both in philosophy generally and in the foundation of mathematics in particular.“
The investigation of the foundations of intellectual edifices – not only those of
mathematics – is the hub of Wittgenstein’s work. His whole work shows an enormous
and continuous effort to attain clarity and truth, and above all the separation of what is
real from what is fantastic.
In the preface to his first book, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, in 1918,
Wittgenstein writes that the philosophical problems that he is grappling with are
largely the problems (and the expectations) of Russell and Whitehead in Principia
Mathematica, and those of similar intellectual frameworks. He goes on to say that
through his work he has resolved these problems, which in his opinion are caused by
a misunderstanding of the logic of language.
Ich bin also der Meinung, die Probleme im Wesentlichen endgültig gelöst zu
haben. Und wenn ich mich hierin nicht irre, so besteht nun der Wert dieser
Arbeit zweitens darin, daß sie zeigt, wie wenig damit getan ist, daß diese
Probleme gelöst sind.
I am, therefore, of the opinion that the problems have in essential been finally
solved. And if I am not mistaken in this, then the value of this work secondly
consists in the fact that it shows how little has been done when these problems
have been solved.
In the autumn of 1919 Wittgenstein advised Ludwig Ficker, whom he approached as
a potential publisher of his book, „das Vorwort und den Schluß zu lesen, da diese den
Sinn am unmittelbarsten zum Ausdruck bringen“. “to read the preface and the end
since they express the meaning in the most immediate fashion“.
The penultimate sentence of the Tractatus shows how Wittgenstein overcame, with
the propositions of his book, the problems caused by misunderstanding the logic of
language:
Meine Sätze erläutern dadurch, daß sie der, welcher mich versteht, am Ende als
unsinnig erkennt, wenn er durch sie – auf ihnen – über sie hinausgestiegen ist.
(Er muß sozusagen die Leiter wegwerfen, nachdem er auf ihr hinaufgestiegen
ist.)
Er muß diese Sätze überwinden, dann sieht er die Welt richtig.
My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally
recognizes them as senseless [in the sense of direction or use], when he has
climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw
away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.)
He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly.
After completing his Tractatus, Wittgenstein was convinced to have exhausted his
capacity for philosophy — he was looking for a new vocation. After the Great War
he remained in Austria for ten years, working as a gardener, and, for six years, as a
primary school teacher, later as an architect, building a house for his sister Margarete
Stonborough. However, on his return to philosophy in 1927 and to Cambridge 1929,
he resumed the central idea of hisTractatus in the second manuscript volume of his
‘Philosophical Remarks’:
Warum ist die Philosophie so kompliziert? Sie sollte doch ganz einfach sein?
Die Philosophie löst Knoten in unserem Denken auf die wir unsinnigerweise
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6
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8

hinein gemacht haben; dazu muß sie aber ebenso komplizierte Bewegungen
machen wie diese Knoten sind. Obwohl also das Resultat der Philosophie
einfach ist kann es nicht ihre Methode sein dazu zu gelangen. In der
Wissenschaft ist ein Resultat so einfach oder so kompliziert wie die Methode
durch die wir dazu gelangen. Die Kompliziertheit der Philosophie ist nicht die
ihrer Materie sondern die unseres verknoteten Verstandes.
Why is philosophy so complicated? It ought to be entirely simple. Philosophy
unties the knots in our thinking that we have, stupidly, put there. To do this it
must make movements that are just as complicated as these knots. Although
the result of philosophy is simple, its method cannot be simple if it is to succeed.
The complexity of philosophy is not a complexity of its subject matter, but of
our knotted mind.
In the following year, in a draft preface for a publication of his current thoughts,
he described his striving for clarity, and the significance of his investigations of the
foundations, that is to say, on the foundations of the intellectual structures of our time:
Unsere Zivilisation ist durch das Wort Fortschritt charakterisiert. Der Fortschritt
ist ihre Form, nicht eine ihrer Eigenschaften daß sie fortschreitet. Sie ist
typisch aufbauend. Ihre Tätigkeit ist es ein immer komplizierteres Gebilde zu
konstruieren. Und auch die Klarheit dient doch nur wieder diesem Zweck und
ist nicht Selbstzweck.
Mir dagegen ist die Klarheit die Durchsichtigkeit Selbstzweck.
Es interessiert mich nicht ein Gebäude aufzuführen, sondern die
Grundlagen der möglichen Gebäude durchsichtig vor mir zu haben.
Mein Ziel ist also ein anderes als das der Wissenschaftler und meine
Denkbewegung von der ihrigen verschieden.
Our civilization is characterized by the word progress. Progress is its form,
not one of the properties that allow it to make progress. Typically, it builds. Its
activity is to build a more and more complex structure. And clarity, again, is only
a means to this end and not an end in itself.
For me however, clarity and transparency, are ends in themselves.
I am not interested in erecting a building but in having the foundations of
possible buildings transparently before me.
So my aim is different from that of the scientists and my thoughts move
differently from theirs.
Wittgenstein’s last manuscript entry, made two days before his death, on the 27 th of
April 1951, and just before losing consciousness, refers to the distinction between the
real and the fantastic, be it in the form of belief and superstition, or education and
misinformation.
Wenn Einer glaubt, vor wenigen Tagen von Amerika nach England geflogen zu
sein, so glaube ich, daß er sich darin nicht irren kann.
Ebenso, wenn Einer sagt, er sitze jetzt am Tisch und schreibe.
„Aber wenn ich mich auch in solchen Fällen nicht irren kann, – ist
es nicht möglich, daß ich in der Narkose bin?“ Wenn ich es bin und wenn
die Narkose mir das Bewußtsein raubt, dann rede und denke ich jetzt nicht
wirklich. Ich kann nicht im Ernst annehmen ich träume jetzt. Wer träumend sagt
„Ich träume“, auch wenn er dabei hörbar redete, hat so wenig recht, wie wenn
er im Traum sagt „Es regnet“, während es tatsächlich regnet. Auch wenn sein
Traum wirklich mit dem Geräusch des Regens zusammenhängt.
If someone believes he flew from America to England a few days ago, then, I
believe, he cannot be making a mistake.
Just as someone who says that he is at this moment sitting at a table,
writing.
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10

“But even if in such cases I cannot be wrong, isn’t it possible that I
am under anaesthesia?” If I am and if the anaesthesia has robbed me of my
consciousness, than I am not now really talking and thinking. I cannot seriously
assume that I am at this moment dreaming. The dreamer who says ”I am
dreaming”, even if he speaks audibly, is no more right than if he said in his
dream “it is raining”, while it was in fact raining. Even if his dream were actually
connected with the noise of the rain.
Wittgenstein’s philosophical method
In November 1931, in his eighth manuscript volume ‘Bemerkungen zur
philosophischen Grammatik’, Wittgenstein contrasts his philosophical method with
the intellectual habits and with thinkers of his time, in particular in contrast to his
friend Frank Ramsey, who had died, aged 26, in January 1930:
Ramsey war ein bürgerlicher Denker. D.h. seine Gedanken hatten den Zweck
die Dinge in einer gegebenen Gemeinde zu ordnen. Er dachte nicht über das
Wesen des Staates nach – oder doch nicht gerne – sondern darüber wie man
diesen Staat vernünftig einrichten könne. Der Gedanke daß dieser Staat nicht
der einzig mögliche sei beunruhigte ihn teils, teils langweilte er ihn. Er wollte
so geschwind als möglich dahin kommen über die Grundlagen – dieses Staates
nachzudenken. Hier lag seine Fähigkeit und sein eigentliches Interesse; während
die eigentlich(e) philosophische Überlegung ihn beunruhigte bis er ihr Resultat
(wenn sie ein’s hatte) als trivial zur Seite schob.
Ramsey was a bourgeois thinker, i.e. his thinking aimed at clearing up things in
some particular community. He did not reflect on the very nature of the state
– or at least he did not like doing so – but on how this state might reasonably
be organized. The idea that this state might not be the only possible one partly
unsettled and partly bored him. He wanted to get down as quickly as possible to
reflecting on the foundations – of this state. This was what he was good at and
what really interested him; whereas real philosophical reflection unsettled him
until he put its result (if it had one) on one side as trivial.
Die Unruhe in der Philosophie entsteht dadurch/kommt daher/, daß die
Philosophen die Philosophie falsch ansehen, oder falsch sehen, nämlich
gleichsam in (unendliche) Längsstreifen zerlegt statt in (endliche) Querstreifen.
Diese Umstellung der Auffassung macht die größte Schwierigkeit. Sie wollen also
gleichsam den Unendlichen Streifen erfassen und klagen daß es/dies/ nicht Stück
für Stück möglich ist. Freilich nicht wenn man unter einem Stück einen endlosen
Längsstreifen versteht. Wohl aber wenn man einen Quersteifen als Stück/ganzes
definitives Stück/ sieht. — Aber dann kommen wir ja mit unserer Aufgabe/
Arbeit/ nie zu Ende! Gewiß/Freilich/ nicht, denn sie hat ja auch keins.
The disquiet in philosophy arises/comes about because philosophers view or
see philosophy in the wrong way, as if it were dissected into (infinite)longitudinal
strips rather than into (finite) cross-sections. This change of perception causes
the greatest difficulties. They want to grab the infinite strip and then lament the
fact that this cannot be done piece by piece. It is indeed impossible, if one thinks
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of a piece as an infinite longitudinal strip, but possible if a cross-section is seen as
a piece/a complete, definitive piece. — But then we never come to an end with
our task. Quite so, since there is no end to it.
Der Philosoph ist nicht Bürger einer Denkgemeinde. Das ist, was ihn zum
Philosophen macht.
The philosopher is not a citizen of any community of ideas. That is what makes
him a philosopher.
In that same year, in a draft for a lecture, he explains to his students the significance of
his philosophy for science: how to ask the right questions, that is the right way to look
at philosophical problems, and how to dissolve the knots in our language and in our
thinking:
What I should like to get you to do is not to agree with me in particular opinions
but to investigate the matter in the right way. To notice the interesting kind of
things (i.e. the things which will serve as keys if you use them properly).
What different people expect to get from religion is what they expect to
get from philosophy.
I don’t want to give you a Definition of Philosophy but I should like you
to have a very lively idea as to the characters of philosophical problems. If you
had, by the way, I could stop/start/ lecturing at once.
To tackle the philosophical problem is difficult as we are caught in the
meshes of language. „Has the universe an end/beginning/ in Time“ (Einstein)
You would perhaps give up Philosophy if you knew what it is. You want
explanations instead of wanting descriptions. And you are therefore looking for
the wrong kind of thing. Philosophical questions, as soon as you boil them down
to . . . . change their aspect entirely. What evaporates is what the intellect cannot
tackle.
Wittgenstein and science
Wittgenstein’s critique of modern science becomes particularly clear after the dropping
of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 6 th and on the 9 th of August
1945. In fact, it is quite similar to that of Bertolt Brecht.
On the occasion of the second performance of his historical drama “The Life of
Galileo“, on the 30 th of July 1947 in Beverly Hills, Brecht extends the moral argument of
his didactic play by accusing Galileo of the betrayal of science: „G gab den eigentlichen
Fortschritt preis, als er widerrief, er ließ das Volk im Stich, die Astronomie wurde
wieder ein Fach, Domäne der Gelehrten, unpolitisch, isoliert.“ “G abandoned real
progress when he retracted, he abandoned the people, astronomy became a discipline
again, a domain of the academics – apolitical, isolated.“ That is, Galilei relegated science
from a means for everyone to understand the world better and – with it – themselves,
back into a domain for specialists. And it is only in the context of specialization that a
development such as that of the atom bomb was possible; the world and everything
that exists on it does not need it. When Albert Einstein, whom Brecht deeply
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espected, warned that the atom bomb must not be released to other powers, least of all
to Russia, Brecht’s comment was: „Das brilliante Fachgehirn, eingesetzt in einen schlechten
Violinspieler und ewigen Gymnasiasten mit einer Schwäche für Generalisierungen in der
Politik.“ “A brilliant expert’s brain inside a bad violin player and eternal grammar-school
boy with a weakness for generalizations in politics.“
Wittgenstein’s view is very similar. In a comment about Einstein and the scientists
of his day he writes on the 1 st of August 1946:
Je weniger sich Einer selbst kennt und versteht um so weniger groß ist er, wie groß
auch sein Talent sein mag. Darum sind unsre Wissenschaftler nicht groß. Darum
sind Freud, Spengler, Kraus, Einstein nicht groß.
The less well someone knows and understands himself the less great he is,
however great his talent. For this reason our scientists are not great. For this
reason Freud, Spengler, Kraus, Einstein are not great.
But the atom bomb represented for Wittgenstein also a ray of hope. The hope, that its
very existence, not its use, might herald the end of a science perverted by its specialization
and its association with industry. This is how he describes it on the 19 th of August 1946:
Die hysterische Angst, die die Öffentlichkeit jetzt vor der Atom-Bombe hat, oder
doch ausdrückt, ist beinahe ein Zeichen, daß hier einmal wirklich eine heilsame
Erfindung gemacht worden ist. Wenigstens macht die Furcht den Eindruck der,
vor einer wirklich wirksamen bitteren Medizin. Ich kann mich des Gedanken
nicht erwehren: wenn hier nicht etwas Gutes vorläge, würden die Philister kein
Geschrei anheben. Aber vielleicht ist auch das ein kindischer Gedanke. Denn,
was ich meinen kann, ist doch nur, daß die Bombe das Ende, die Zerstörung eines
gräßlichen Übels, der ekelhaften, seifenwässrigen Wissenschaft, in Aussicht stellt.
Und das ist freilich kein unangenehmer Gedanke; aber wer sagt, was auf eine
solche Zerstörung folgen würde? Die Leute, die heute gegen die Erzeugung der
Bombe reden, sind freilich der Auswurf der Intelligenz, aber auch das beweist
nicht unbedingt, daß das zu preisen ist, was sie verabscheuen.
The hysterical fear of the atom bomb the public now has, or at least expresses,
is almost a sign that here, for once, a really salutary discovery has been made.
At least the fear gives the impression of being fear in the face of a really
effective bitter medicine. I cannot rid myself of the thought that, if there were
not something good here, the philistines would not be making an outcry. But
perhaps this too is a childish idea. For all I can mean really is that the bomb
creates a prospect of the end, the destruction of a ghastly evil, the disgusting dishwater
science and certainly that is not an unpleasant thought; but who is to say
what would follow such destruction? The people now making speeches against
producing the bomb are undoubtedly the dregs of the intelligentsia, but even that
does not prove beyond question that what they abominate is to be praised.
However, twelve months later, he has given up this hope, realizing that the kind of science
that he so detests has associated itself ever closer with industry – a development that has
not only persisted into the present time, but has gained speed. On the 14 th of July 1947 he
writes:
Es könnte sein, daß die Wissenschaft und Industrie, und ihr Fortschritt, das
Bleibendste der heutigen Welt ist. Daß jede Mutmaßung eines Zusammenbruchs
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17
18
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der Wissenschaft und Industrie einstweilen, und auf lange Zeit, ein bloßer Traum
sei/ist/, und Wissenschaft und Industrie noch und mit unendlichem Jammer die
Welt einigen werden, ich meine, sie zu einem Reich zusammenfassen werden, in
dem/welchem/ dann freilich alles eher als der Friede wohnen wird.
Denn die Wissenschaft und Industrie entscheiden doch die Kriege, oder so
scheint es.
It may be that science and industry, and their progress, are the most enduring thing
in the world today. That any conjecture of a collapse of science and industry for
now and for a long time to come, is simply a dream, and that science and industry
will unite the world causing infinite misery, merging it into one single realm, in which
however anything but peace will reign.
For it is science and industry that decide wars, or so it seems.
In the meantime, however, industry and politics have “appeased“ us: They have made
us believe that the atom bomb is, after all, a good thing that has granted us more than
50 years of peace; that without nuclear power, the earth would warm up even more
quickly and a large part of the inhabited world would be submerged under water; and
that without the further development of the neurotoxins, invented during the wars to
kill people, into so-called agrochemicals, a large part of humanity would be starving,
etc. etc.
Wittgenstein believes, like Lessing, that science needs to re-define itself: It must
free itself from the orthodox primer, from orthodox elementary thinking, where, as
Lessing writes, the enforcement of rules and laws is ensured by penalties and rewards,
where questions about the rules are not allowed. Results achieved by this method are
either correct or wrong. They are free from ethical or moral “ballast”. If this opens up
possibilities that cause conflicts with our world (like when Edward Teller argued that his
hydrogen bomb was merely the result of a strict application of the laws of nature) society
steps in with orders and interdictions. A science, on the other hand, that acts responsibly
is not in need of an “ethics commission” that keeps it in check. Moral and ethical criteria
have to derive directly from science itself, only that way will they be effective. Remarks 107,
108 and 116 of the Philosophical Investigations explain how we, and science, need to change
our way of looking at the world:
Je genauer wir die tatsächliche Sprache betrachten, desto stärker wird der
Widerstreit zwischen ihr und unserer Forderung. (Die Kristallreinheit der Logik
[das Ideal einer Orthodoxie] hatte sich mir ja nicht ergeben; sondern sie war eine
Forderung.)
The more narrowly we view actual language, the sharper becomes the conflict
between it and our requirement. (For crytalline purity of logic [the ideal of an
orthodoxy] was, of course, not a result of investigation: it was a requirement.)
Das Vorurteil der Kristallreinheit kann nur so beseitigt werden, daß wir unsere
ganze Betrachtung drehen. (Man könnte sagen: Die Betrachtung muß gedreht
werden, aber um unser eigentliches Bedürfnis als Angelpunkt.)
The prejudice of crystalline clarity can only be removed by turning our whole view
round. (One might say: the view must be rotated, but on the pivot of our actual
need.)
Wenn die Philosophen ein Wort gebrauchen – „Wissen“, „sein“, „Gegenstand“,
„ich“, „Satz“, „Name“ – und das Wesen des Dings zu erfassen trachten, muß man
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sich immer fragen: Wird denn dieses Wort in der Sprache, in der es seine
Heimat hat, je so gebraucht? —
Wir führen die Wörter von ihrer metaphysischen, wieder auf ihre
alltägliche Verwendung zurück.
When philosophers use a word – “knowledge”, “being”, “object”, “I”,
“proposition”, “name” – and try to grasp the essence of the thing, one must
always ask oneself: is the word ever actually used in this way in the language in
which it has its home? —
We take words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.
When speaking of “our need” Wittgenstein does not mean the needs of stakeholders,
of industry, of specialists, of politicians, but the needs of the world in general, and of
everything that exists on it, not of mankind in particular.
During the Great War, on the 2 nd of September 1916, while serving as a soldier at
the front in Galicia, Wittgenstein described how he sees the significance and the role
of man in the world:
Das philosophische Ich ist nicht der Mensch, nicht der Menschliche Körper oder
die Menschliche Seele mit den Psychologischen Eigenschaften, sondern das
Metaphysische Subjekt, die Grenze (nicht ein Teil) der Welt. Der Menschliche
Körper aber, mein Körper insbesondere, ist ein Teil der Welt unter anderen Teilen
der Welt, unter Tieren, Pflanzen, Steinen etc. etc.
Wer das einsieht, wird seinem Körper oder dem Menschlichen Körper nicht
eine bevorzugte Stelle in der Welt einräumen wollen.
Er wird Menschen und Tiere ganz naiv als ähnliche und zusammengehörige
Dinge betrachten.
The philosophical I is not the human being, not the human body or the human soul
with its psychological properties, but the metaphysical subject, the boundary (not a
part) of the world. The human body, however, my body in particular, is part of the
world among others, among animals, plants, stones etc., etc.
Those who realize this will not want to assign to their own or the human body
in general a privileged place in the world.
They will regard humans and animals quite naïvely as similar objects that belong
together.
23

References
1 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts, Werke, Bd 7,
Theologiekritische Schriften I und II, München 1970 ff., Paragraph 53, p. 488.
2 WA5.23.1 Wiener Ausgabe (Vienna Edition), Wien – New York 1993 ff.:
(quoted as: WAVolume.Page.Remark)
3 WA5.123.3
4 G.E. Moore Philosophical Papers, London 1951, p. 254
5 Wittgenstein Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung, London 1922, p. 28
6 Wittgenstein Briefe an Ludwig von Ficker, Salzburg, p. 97
7 Wittgenstein Logisch Philosophische Abhandlung, London 1922, p. 188
8 WA1.157.6
9 WA3.112.2
10 Wittgenstein Über Gewißheit, Frankfurt 1984, paragraph 675 f.
11 WA4.172.7
12 WA4.163.6
13 WA4.173.7
14 WA3.VII
15 Bertold Brecht, Leben des Gallei (1955/56), Stücke 5, Frankfurt 1988, p. 342
16 ibid. p. 346
17 Wittgenstein Culture and Value, Oxford 1998, p. 516
18 ibid. p. 518-519
19 ibid. p. 538-539
20 Wittgenstein Philosophische Untersuchungen, Frankfurt 1963, paragraph 107
21 ibid. section 108
22 ibid. section 116
23 Wittgenstein Tagebücher, Frankfurt 1984, p. 177

Wittgenstein’s composite photograph, based on
Galton’s composite-photography. Wittgenstein
made this experiment in the 1920s with the help of
his friend, the photographer Moritz Nähr. It shows
how Wittgenstein’s practical work is connected to
his philosophy, and further, that during his time as a
schoolmaster, gardener and architect, Wittgenstein
was indeed concerned with philosophy.
Lecture on Ethics, given to the Cambridge Heretics
17 November 1929
My subject, as you know, is Ethics and I will adopt
the explanation of that term which Professor Moore
has given in his book Principia Ethica. He says:
“Ethics is the general enquiry into what is good”.
Now I am going to use the term Ethics in a slightly
wider sense, in a sense in fact which includes what
I believe to be the most essential part of what is
generally called Aesthetics. And to make you see
as clearly as possible what I take to be the subject
matter of Ethics I will put before you a number of
more or less synonymous expressions each of which
could be substituted for the above definition, and
by enumerating them I want to produce the same
sort of effect which Galton produced when he took
a number of photos of different faces on the same
photographic plate in order to get the picture of the
typical features they all had in common. And as by
showing to you such a collective photo I could make
you see what is the typical – say – Chinese face; so if
you look through the row of synonyms which I will
put before you, you will, I hope, be able to see the
characteristic features they all have in common and
these are the characteristic features of Ethics.
The composite photo marks the beginning of
the development of the central terms of his
Philosophical Investigations: “Spiel” (games)
and “Familienähnlichkeit”, (family resemblance)
66. Consider for example the proceedings that we
call “games”. I mean board-games, card-games,
ball-games, Olympic-games, and so on. What
is common to them all? – Don’t say: “There
must be something common, or they would not
be called games” – but look and see whether
there is anything common to all, but similarities,
relationships, and a whole series of them at that.
To repeat: don’t think, but look! — […]
And the result of this examination is: we see a
complicated network of similarities overlapping
and criss-crossing: sometimes overall similarities,
sometimes similarities in detail.
67. I can think of no better expression to
characterize these similarities than “family
resemblances”; for the various resemblances
between members of a family: build, features,
colour of eyes, gait, temperament, etc. etc.
overlap and criss-cross in the same way. – And
I shall say: ‘games’ form a family.
71. One might say that the concept ‘game’ is a
concept with blurred edges. – “But is a blurred
concept a concept at all?” – Is an indistinct
photograph a picture of a person at all? Is it even
always an advantage to replace an indistinct
picture by a sharp one? Isn’t the indistinct one
often exactly what we need?

Components of Wittgenstein‘s composite photo from his photo album (not exactly the ones used for the
composite photo, but from the same series of portraits): Wittgenstein’s sisters Gretl and Hermine, below his
sister Helene and Ludwig Wittgenstein. The components can be identified by the background, shown only
in the photo of his sister Gretl and further by the necklaces and dresses of his sisters as well as by Ludwig
Wittgenstein’s tweed jacket and his open collar.