Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) fully Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian-born British philosopher, logician, engineer, and architect. Regarded by many as the greatest philosopher of the 20th century, Wittgenstein’s work on the philosophy of logical positivism and language greatly influenced later British and American philosophy.
Born in Vienna into one of Europe’s wealthiest families, Wittgenstein studied mechanical engineering at Berlin and at Manchester, where he did research on aeronautics and designed a jet-reaction propeller.
After reading Bertrand A. Russell‘s The Principles of Mathematics (1903) Wittgenstein abandoned his engineering research and studied mathematical logic at Cambridge under Russell, who said approvingly that Wittgenstein “soon knew all that I had to teach.”
Wittgenstein then turned to the study of language and its relationship to the world. His two major works are Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung (1921; Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1922) and Philosophische Untersuchungen (published posthumously in 1953; Philosophical Investigations.) He argued that words—and language in general—take on different roles depending on the context in which they are used and that they do not have definite intrinsic meanings.
Many of Wittgenstein’s notebooks and manuscripts have been posthumously published—Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics (1956,) The Blue and Brown Books (1958,) Philosophische Bemerkungen (1964,) and On Certainty (1969.)
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Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Words, Language
If one understands eternity as timelessness, and not as an unending timespan, then whoever lives in the present lives for all time.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Logic pervades the world; the limits of the world are also the limits of logic.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Decisions
A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that’s unlocked and opens inwards; as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Prison
A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Philosophy, Comedy
The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Language, Words
The world of the happy is quite different from that of the unhappy.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Behavior, Manners
If a person tells me he has been to the worst places I have no reason to judge him; but if he tells me it was his superior wisdom that enabled him to go there, then I know he is a fraud.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
The human body is the best picture of the human soul.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Health
I sit astride life like a bad rider on a horse. I only owe it to the horse’s good nature that I am not thrown off at this very moment.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Knowledge is in the end based on acknowledgement.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Topics: Knowledge
I don’t know why we are here, but I’m pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
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