Abstract
In this chapter, we introduce Ludwig Wittgenstein, initially providing background on his life and education in Austria and his relocation to England to study engineering and then philosophy. Addressing issues of interpretation and significance within the domain of philosophical biography, we reflect on the difficult path by which he came to hold positions of prominence in the philosophical community: first within the Vienna Circle of logical positivism, and later in holding a chair in philosophy at Cambridge University. Throughout this discussion, we mark the transition from his early work in the Tractatus and ‘Lecture on Ethics’, to his later work in the Investigations. The intervening period, in which he trained and taught as an elementary school teacher, is taken up in the subsequent chapters (Ch 2 & 3), along with discussion of his more developed thought on language and its relationship to training and learning. Here we set the stage for his appearance on the scene in Philosophy of Education.
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Notes
- 1.
Following convention, titles for Wittgenstein’s works are abbreviated (PI = Philosophical Investigations, RFM = Remarks on the Foundation of Mathematics, OC = On Certainty, WL = Wittgenstein’s Lectures, CV = Culture Value, PO = Philosophical Occasions), with section (§) or page number (p.), with full citation and initials (e.g. RFM) in the References. See Abbreviation list, p. ii??
- 2.
Wittgenstein later reflects back on his picture-theory in the Tractatus, seeing such depiction as one of several ways of forming empirical propositions:
If a proposition is conceived as a picture of the state of affairs it describes and a proposition is said to show just how things stand if it’s true, and thus to show the possibility of the asserted state of affairs, still the most that the proposition can do is what a painting or relief does: and so it can at any rate not set forth what is just not the case. So it depends wholly on our grammar what will be called possible and what not, i.e., what that grammar permits. But surely that is arbitrary! Certainly; but the grammatical constructions we call empirical propositions (e.g., ones which describe a visible distribution of objects in space and could be replaced by a representational drawing) have a particular application, a particular use. (PG §82’ cf. TLP 1.1–1.21)
Wittgenstein also had in mind such gripping images as the empiricist model of perception (OC §90), the cellophane picture of our separation from nature and god (CV 50e), and the Aquinas, inspiration model of calculating (PI §232–35).
- 3.
Ludwig would later be the architect on sister Margarete’s house.
- 4.
Russell’s own account can be listened to on a recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFXWKEc84ew.
- 5.
Danièle Moyal-Sharrock (2004) would say that his later works such as On Certainty and Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology amount to a third iteration of his philosophical thinking.
- 6.
Adolf Hitler attended the same school at this time also, but there is no indication of any contact (Monk 1990, 15). Wittgenstein was ahead of his class by one year, and Hitler behind one year.
- 7.
For an account of Wittgenstein’s comparison of his later philosophy with relativity, see Stickney (2008a).
- 8.
- 9.
‘Ethics and aesthetics are one and the same’. Ludwig Wittgenstein (TLP 6.421).
- 10.
Max Black (1964, 380–81) explains that this was also true for the early Wittgenstein of the Tractatus. ‘The word “senseless”, practically a synonym for “nonsensical” in ordinary English, strongly suggests something improper, absurd, and useless…. In his intended meaning, “senseless” is not always used pejoratively, as is clearly shown by his contention that logical and mathematical statements are all “senseless” (4.461)…’
- 11.
Scenes of training to react normally also open his Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, where he questions how “people are brought by their education (training) so to use” formulas, and so “trained that all take the same step and the same point.” (RFM I. 1–2)
- 12.
The propositions of mathematics might be said to be fossilized.—The proposition ‘I am called…’ is not. But it too is regarded as incontrovertible by those who, like myself, have overwhelming evidence for it. And this is not out of thoughtlessness. For, the evidence’s being overwhelming consists precisely in the fact that we do not need to give way before any contrary evidence. And so we have here a buttress similar to the one that makes the propositions of mathematics incontrovertible.
The question ‘But mightn’t you be in the grip of a delusion now and later find this out?’—might also be raised as an objection to any proposition of the multiplication table. (OC §512)
- 13.
It has puzzled me why Socrates is regarded as a great philosopher. Because when Socrates asks for the meaning of a word and people give him examples of how that word is used, he isn’t satisfied but wants a unique definition. Now if someone shows me how a word is used and its different meanings, that is just the sort of answer I want. (PG VI, 76)
- 14.
BT—Wittgenstein, “Big Typescript” MS 213, 423, in G.H. von Wright, “The Wittgenstein Papers”, 483–503.
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Peters, M.A., Stickney, J. (2018). Picturing Wittgenstein’s Relationships to Education. In: Wittgenstein’s Education: 'A Picture Held Us Captive’. SpringerBriefs in Education(). Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8411-9_1
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