Ludwig Wittgenstein

My college abstract algebra professor, who was fond of grilling us in class, once asked me to define an "isomorphism". I said something to the effect that an isomorphism is when you have two structures that though technically different, share an essential similarity. To which he quipped "that's the Time Magazine definition of an isomorphism, I want you to tell me how you really define it, mathematically."<p>This article, I submit, is the Time Magazine definition of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Read at your own peril.<p>(Peter Hacker is the only academic I know who really seems to get Wittgenstein. You're probably best off ignoring the secondary sources on Wittgenstein altogether, but if you must, I recommend you read Hacker---please not Daniel Dennet.)

This recent new yorker article gives some interesting background on wittgenstein's extremely neurotic (and intersting, of course) family. Apparently three of his four brothers committed suicide, as did one of his sister's husband. I personally didn't understand his books - I guess a lot of what was revolutionary in his ideas (language games?) had already been absorbed and taken for granted by the time I was born.<p><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/04/06/090406crbo_books_gottlieb" rel="nofollow">http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/04/06/09040...</a>

Spam from me (I know the author of this book) about a recent book on LW:<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wittgenstein-Flies-Kite-Story-Models/dp/0131499971" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Wittgenstein-Flies-Kite-Story-Models/d...</a>

Daniel Dennett, himself a contemporary caricature of a philosopher, opens by asking whether a philosopher would be happier to become so successful as to strike down philosophy completely, or rather to become popular and read forever. Wittgenstein, says Dennet, aimed for the former, but achieved the latter.<p>To my mind, though, Wittgenstein did, in fact, succeeded in shooting down philosophy as we knew it. He did so by demonstrating with his own unique story and bizarre writing that (if to paraphrase Clemenceau) philosophy is far too important to be left to the philosophers. Wittgenstein's generation was the first one in which Philosophy as an academic and literary endeavour has contributed virtually nothing to our understanding of the world.

I don't think I agree with the author of this TIMES article. I think a philosopher deep down inside definitely wants to be right over read.

What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence. -- Wittgenstein

time.com - a good example of a badly put together website.<p>It looks awful and finding stuff is virtually impossible. How wide exactly is that text column where I am supposed to read from ? 300px ?<p>&#60;shudder&#62;

This just in: Daniel Dennett cites Ludwig Wittgenstein as one of the 100 most important people of the century. And coming up later on the 11:00 news: Heisenberg admits, "I never could have done it without Bohr."

Wittgenstein was a terrible person who hit children, hard, on the head:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein</a><p>&#62; His severe disciplinary methods (often involving corporal punishment, not unusual at the time)—as well as a general suspicion amongst the villagers that he was somewhat mad—led to a long series of bitter disagreements with some of his students' parents, and eventually culminated in April 1926 in the collapse of an eleven-year-old boy whom Wittgenstein had struck on the head.[29] The boy's father attempted to have Wittgenstein arrested, and despite being cleared of misconduct, he resigned his position and returned to Vienna, feeling that he had failed as a school teacher.<p>But Wittgenstein was a much worse philosopher. He wrote, for example, confusing/obscure attacks on the value of philosophy itself. Not having any philosophical problems one is interested in or finds fruitful is completely understandable. And of course a person in that situation won't make any useful contributions to solving philosophical problems. The weird thing is why he's considered a philosopher, let alone a good one, by anyone.