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Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Man Who Rewrote the Rules of Philosophy

The theory of ideal language was created in the 20th century by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Its foundation was logical mathematics. The idea of logical atomism was created by the physicist.

Early Life and Adolescence

On April 26, 1889, Ludwig was born in Vienna. The boy was the youngest of a steel magnate’s and his wife’s eight children. The boys were homeschooled as children since their father did not believe in public education and wanted them to become well-known industrialists.

Wittgenstein Sr.’s family suffered because of his harsh and uncompromising nature. Out of the five young men, three took their own lives. Hans, the oldest brother, was regarded as a genius. He escaped to the United States in 1902 and passed away inexplicably.

Rudi, a Berlin Academy chemistry student, poisoned himself with cyanide-laced milk in a bar in 1904. Some stories claim that he was gay and that his friend’s passing grieved him greatly. By the end of World War I, Kurt was in charge of the Austrian army. In the fall of 1918, the officer took his own life.

Paul and Ludwig were able to attend a state school when the mom gave up. The future philosopher was reclusive, failed to achieve academic achievement, and struggled to relate to his peers.

While a student at the Technische Hochschule Berlin, Wittgenstein developed an interest in engineering and aircraft design. He graduated with a diploma from Manchester’s Victoria University in 1908. Ludwig’s introduction to Gottlob Frege’s writings was a pivotal point in his life story since it inspired him to consider the philosophical underpinnings of logic and mathematics.

Individual Life

Wittgenstein was in love with both males and females. In 1926–1928, he assisted his sister in building a house in Vienna, where he met Margaretha Respinger, a Swedish woman. The girl resolutely put up with her partner’s austere lifestyle for five years, but a vacation to Norway was the last straw. Respinger left the philosopher there after realizing she could never be his wife.

Ben Richards, who was involved in the Austrian’s personal life in the 1940s, Francis Skinner, who he partnered with in 1930, and David Pinsent, with whom the philosopher had a relationship in 1912, are among Ludwig’s chosen ones.

Philosophies

Wittgenstein arrived in Cambridge in 1911 and became Bertrand Russell’s friend and assistant.

The young man rose to prominence as one of the wealthiest Europeans following the death of his father in 1913. He gave some of his income to creative individuals and distributed the rest among his family members. In the Norwegian settlement of Skjolden, Ludwig rented a floor in a farm house and penned a piece titled “Notes on Logic.”

His studies were connected to theories on language means. He suggested categorizing contradictions as lies and tautology in sentences as truth, or not categorizing them at all.

Wittgenstein volunteered to go to war in 1914. After being apprehended three years later, he penned the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus while imprisoned. The composition was released in 1921. Within the European professional community, it was a success. Ludwig was already employed as a teacher in a remote school at that point.

Gardening in a monastery took the place of teaching for a while. The scholar then returned to teaching, this time at a school close to Trattenbach. Here, he authored a brand-new book that became the author’s second book to be published in his lifetime: a children’s dictionary of spelling and pronunciation.

He thought that the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus had been misunderstood and that some of the judgments described were wrong, so in 1926 he went back to work on it. Seven aphorisms were combined in Wittgenstein’s work and were accompanied with explanations.

The primary concept revolved around the similarity between the world’s structure and the logical structure of language. According to the theory’s creator, it is made up of facts rather than objects. Phrases develop into language components. This idea holds that statements that defy the rules of logic are meaningless and that language is codified and subject to logic’s laws.

Later on, Wittgenstein came up with fresh concepts that showed language to be a dynamic system of contexts that can contain contradictions. According to the revised idea, philosophy’s job was to eliminate conflicts and establish precise guidelines for the application of linguistic units.

Ludwig Wittgenstein, the father of the linguistic philosophy movement, had a significant impact on the development of Anglo-American analytical philosophy. Furthermore, his theories served as the foundation for the development of the logical positivist theory. Experts view his language-game-focused “Notes on Color” as a seminal contribution to logic. The scientist enjoyed international and domestic demand for his works. Alexander Zinoviev, a Soviet philosopher, likewise focused on his studies.

The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was approved as a Cambridge dissertation in 1929. Wittgenstein was appointed to a Trinity College lectureship.

In 1938, following the Anschluss, the physicist obtained German citizenship. As per the Nuremberg Laws, the man’s status was categorized as Jewish. Adolf Hitler gave a privileged racial status to a select few people, including the philosopher and his family members. The family’s financial situation and status had an impact on this. Ludwig became a British citizen in 1939.

The scientist gave philosophy and mathematics lectures at Cambridge at this time, which he found intolerable given the armed conflicts going on around them. He started working as an orderly in a hospital in London in 1941. Wittgenstein stayed anonymous inside the hospital and stole medications from pharmacies under a fictitious name.

The philosopher addressed his Oxford peers at the Jowett Society in 1947. He went to write full time after leaving Cambridge University. Ludwig stayed in Connemara following his trip to Ireland. He went to see pals in New York City in 1949. He composed Philosophical Investigations at this time, which was released in 1953. Within the book was an experiment known as “Bug in a Box.” The study’s concept provoked reflection on the nature of language and the manner in which opinions about the outside world are expressed.

Demise

In April 1951, the philosopher passed away. Prostate cancer was the cause of death. The scientist was buried in Cambridge, near the chapel of St. Giles, in accordance with Catholic customs. Posthumous publications of his books “Being and Time,” “On Certainty,” and others were made possible.

Ludwig Wittgenstein maintained notebooks, and those close to the philosopher left letters and autobiographies that detailed his character and routines. The Austrian’s life was described by Ray Monk in his book “The Debt of Genius”. These days, philosophy textbooks and fiction books contain photos of the researcher.

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