LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN

Mind over manner.

The Austrian-born philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) transformed the ways in which we think of language’s relationship to mind, to the things in this world, and to the patterns of behavior that guide our lives. Famously irascible, difficult to read, and the scion of one of the wealthiest European families of the 19th century, Wittgenstein has become an archetype for the professional philosopher, straddling worldly and unworldly landscapes. This biography by author and book critic Gottlieb sees Wittgenstein largely as a product of his family and his social milieu. The father was a great industrialist, the Carnegie of Austria. The siblings were musicians and aesthetes, almost incapable of living in reality (three of his siblings killed themselves). Music was central to the Wittgensteins (Brahms was a family friend), and this book illuminates the ways in which the Viennese aristocracy sought social advancement through music patronage and appreciation. Wittgenstein’s life was largely spent renouncing the precious world of his family. He studied engineering, turned to philosophy under the guidance of Bertrand Russell, and spent most of his years moving between the heights of university intellection and the depths of self-annihilating isolation and menial jobs. He fell in love with young men who rarely understood him. What we learn from this book—part of Yale’s Jewish Lives series—is that philosophy, for Wittgenstein, was less a set of tenets than a habit of mind: a way of coping with the problems we make for ourselves and trying to understand what we mean when we say something. Like others in his family and social class, Wittgenstein (hereditarily Jewish but converted) had a conflicted understanding of his heritage. Less important than Judaism was his rare spirituality—he once said that if he had not been a philosopher he would have been a monk.

A deft biography of a staggering mind, told through his all-too-human relationships to family, friends, and lovers.