Mark Oliver

Happy Birthday Ludwig Wittgenstein! (26 April 1889). Often considered one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century. In his lifetime, he published just one slim, highly influential and dense book, the 75-page Tractatus Logicus Philosophicus (1921), one article, one book review and a children's dictionary. The equally important Philosophical Investigations was published published posthumously in 1953. Below excerpt — Bertrand Russell concerning his one time close friend Ludwig Wittgenstein. ”He was queer, and his notions seemed to me odd, so that for a whole term I could not make up my mind whether he was a man of genius or merely an eccentric. At the end of his first term at Cambridge he came to me and said: ”Will you please tell me whether I am a complete idiot or not?” I replied, ”My dear fellow, I don't know. Why are you asking me?” He said, ”Because, if I am a complete idiot, I shall become an aeronaut; but, if not, I shall become a philosopher.” I told him to write me something during the vacation on some philosophical subject and I would then tell him whether he was complete idiot or not. At the beginning of the following term he brought me the fulfillment of this suggestion. After reading only one sentence, I said to him: ”No, you must not become an aeronaut.” And he didn't. He was not, however, altogether easy to deal with. He used to come to my rooms at midnight, and for hours he would walk backward and forward like a caged tiger. On arrival, he would announce that when he left my rooms he would commit suicide. So, in spite of getting sleepy, I did not like to turn him out. On one such evening, after an hour or two of dead silence, I said to him, ”Wittgenstein, are you thinking about logic or about your sins?”. ”Both,” he said, and then reverted to silence. However, we did not meet only at night. I used to take him on long walks in the country round Cambridge. On one occasion I induced him to trespass with me in Madingley Wood where, to my surprise, he climbed a tree. When he had got a long way up a gamekeeper with a gun turned up and protested to me about the trespass. I called up to Wittgenstein and said the man had promised not to shoot if Wittgenstein got down within a minute. He believed me, and did so.” Bertrand Russell, Portraits from Memory, Ch: II, Some Philosophical Contacts, p. 23 🪡 From 1929–1947, Wittgenstein taught at the University of Cambridge. Philosopher Bertrand Russell described his friend Ludwig Wittgenstein as ”the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived; passionate, profound, intense, and dominating”. Although Russell was almost twice Wittgenstein’s age, their relationship soon became one of equals, and in his obituary notice in Mind (philosophy journal) forty years later, Russell described his friendship with Wittgenstein as “one of the most exciting intellectual adventures of my life.” Despite the consequent drain on both of their emotional resources, Russell spent much time encouraging the young Wittgenstein, but their early relationship was extremely intense. Russell had to work hard to keep up with Wittgenstein’s radical new ideas about logic, language and the world. In some ways, Wittgenstein was like the younger Russell – he was obsessively interested in the difficult technical questions of philosophy. He felt forced to ask fundamental questions about the nature, identity and function of logic. But, unlike Russell, he never thought that philosophy should be an investigation of perceptual knowledge or “matter”. Wittgenstein’s philosophy centres on the problems of meaning, not knowledge. Russell soon felt intimidated by Wittgenstein – not only was he too volatile and angry for the easy going Russell, and for reasons which were not always clear, he was also contemptuous of most of Russell’s own work and especially his inability to comprehend Wittgenstein’s rather mystical “picture theory” of meaning.