Ludwig Wittgenstein
The first biography in more than three decades of the Austrian-born thinker Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century
According to the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), philosophy is a "battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language." This audacious idea changed the way many of its practitioners saw their subject. In the first biography of Wittgenstein in more than three decades, Anthony Gottlieb evaluates this revolutionary idea, explaining the evolution of Wittgenstein's thought and his place in the history of philosophy.
Wittgenstein was born into an immensely rich Viennese family but yearned to live a simple life, and he gave away his inheritance. After studying with Bertrand Russell in Cambridge, he wrote his famous Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus while serving in World War I. He then took several positions as a primary-school teacher in rural Austria before returning as a fellow to Cambridge, where a cultlike following developed around him. Wittgenstein worked not only as a philosopher and schoolteacher, but also as an aeronautical engineer in Manchester and as an architect in Vienna.
Gottlieb's meticulously researched book traces the itinerant and troubled life of Wittgenstein, the development of his influential ideas, and the Viennese intellectual milieu and family background that shaped him.
Anthony Gottlieb
Anthony Gottlieb is a British writer, former Executive Editor of The Economist, historian of ideas, and the author of The Dream of Reason. He was educated at Cambridge University and has held visiting fellowships at All Souls College, Oxford, and Harvard University. He has taught at the CUNY Graduate Center and the New School in New York, and been a visiting scholar at New York University and fellow at the Cullman Centre for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. He is a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities and the series editor of The Routledge Guides to the Great Books.
Nigel Warburton
Nigel Warburton is an author and Public Philosopher. He co-hosts the 'Philosophy Bites' podcast with David Edmonds and is the author of 'A Little History of Philosophy' amongst other titles. He has been the host of 'Philosophy in the Bookshop' at Blackwell's Oxford since 2013.
