Wittgenstein Installment 1 - Kara Stallings sec 11

 

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) was born in Vienna, youngest of the nine children, to the second-richest family in Austria-Hungary. He was introduced into a very extensive world of art at a rather young age. A few friends of the family included sculptor Auguste Rodin, painter Gustav Klimt, and composer Johannes Brahms and Gustav Mahler. Ludwig was educated at home until the age of 14, he then attended a technical school (where he may or may have not have been a classmate of Adolf Hitler) and then studied engineering in Berlin and Manchester. At 22 he began studying with Bertrand Russel at Cambridge, where he later taught, taking over G.E. Moore’s Chair when he retired. He spent many years living in a Norwegian village, fighting in the Austrian army in WWI, working as a gardener, and teaching elementary school in a remote Austrian village.

Wittgenstein’s work in philosophy delved greatly into the world of language. His studies on “family resemblance,” word games and his Beetle in a Box theory are still greatly respected and explored today. These studies spoke often on the connection between language and society and the significance of individual perspective; the idea that humans are not built to withstand merely on their own individual intellect, but rather to share their ideas and more specifically their language with the rest of society. With this concept he hoped to strengthen the bondage of human knowledge through greater means of communication and present relationships.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ33gAyhg2c

- Kara Stallings #11