Ludwig Wittgenstein (Biography)

Anthony Gottlieb wrote the biography of one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century. He portrays how his ideas related to intellectual Vienna and his family, one of the wealthiest in Europe.

"In October 1911, a young Austrian, an Aeronautical Engineering student, with very little knowledge of philosophy, born into one of the wealthiest families in Europe, dared to arrange a meeting, in Cambridge, with one of the most eminent professors and philosophers of the time, Bertrand Russell, simply because he was interested in discussing this man's work "on logic and the philosophy of mathematics."

The meeting took place at Trinity College, and the young man, named Ludwig Wittgenstein, never returned to the engineering course. Decades later, he came to be considered one of the main and most influential thinkers of the 20th century. At the time, Russell had a mistress with whom he corresponded. These letters reveal the impact that this meeting had on Bertrand Russell: "I am very interested [...] and hope to meet him quite often." The following year, he declared that he was a genius.»

Wittgenstein was born into one of the wealthiest families in Europe at the end of the 19th century, but aspired to a simple life, so he renounced his share of the inheritance. After studying with Bertrand Russell in Cambridge, who received him as a genius, he wrote his famous Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus while serving in the First World War.

Next, he took on several positions as a primary school teacher in rural areas of Austria, before returning to Cambridge as a fellow, where a cult formed around him. The book "Ludwig Wittgenstein", by Anthony Gottlieb, the result of meticulous research, follows the itinerant and troubled life of Wittgenstein and the development of his influential ideas, relating them to the Viennese intellectual milieu and the family context that shaped them.