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Ludwig Wittgenstein


Philosopher.

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947. In his lifetime, he published just one book review, one article, a children's dictionary, and the 75-page Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921). In 1999, his posthumously published Philosophical Investigations (1953) was ranked as the most important book of 20th-century philosophy by the Baruch Poll , standing out as "...the one crossover masterpiece in twentieth-century philosophy, appealing across diverse specializations and philosophical orientations". Philosopher Bertrand Russell described him as "the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, and dominating"


Sources:

1.) Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir. Oxford University Press. 2001. pp. 59-60. ISBN 9780199247592. "I believe that Wittgenstein was prepared by his own character and experience to comprehend the idea of a judging and redeeming God. But any cosmological conception of a Deity, derived from the notions of cause or of infinity, would be repugnant to him. He was impatient with 'proofs' of the existence of God, and with attempts to give religion a rational foundation. ...I do not wish to give the impression that Wittgenstein accepted any religious faith — he certainly did not — or that he was a religious person. But I think that there was in him, in some sense, the possibility of religion. I believe that he looked on religion as a 'form of life' (to use an expression from the Investigations) in which he did not participate, but with which he was sympathetic and which greatly interested him. Those who did participate he respected — although here as elsewhere he had contempt for insincerity. I suspect that he regarded religious belief as based on qualities of character and will that he himself did not possess. Of Smythies and Anscombe, both of whom had become Roman Catholics, he once said to me: 'I could not possibly bring myself to believe all the things that they believe.' I think that in this remark he was not disparaging their belief. It was rather an observation about his own capacity."

2.) Tim Labron (2006). Wittgenstein's Religious Point of View. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 47. ISBN 9780826490278. "Wittgenstein has no goal to either support or reject religion; his only interest is to keep discussions, whether religious or not, clear."

3.) William Child (2011). Wittgenstein. Taylor & Francis. p. 218. ISBN 9781136731372. ""Was Wittgenstein religious? If we call him an agnostic, this must not be understood in the sense of the familiar polemical agnosticism that concentrates, and prides itself, on the argument that man could never know about these matters. The idea of a God in the sense of the Bible, the image of God as the creator of the world, hardly ever engaged Wittgenstein's attention..., but the notion of a last judgement was of profound concern to him." - (Engelmann)"

4.) Edward Kanterian (2007). Ludwig Wittgenstein. Reaktion Books. pp. 145-146. ISBN 9781861893208.

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