Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 – 1951) sought to lead us beyond the long fantasy — so dominant in philosophy — that a single mind can figure everything out. Rather, we need the greater unity of genuine ...

Cambridge University professor Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) is frequently described as the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. Yet he only published one 82-page book ("Tractatus ...

OF ALL THE innovations that sprang from the trenches of the first world war—the zip, the tea bag, the tank—the “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” must be among the most elegant and humane. When the ...

Many people believe that Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) was the 20th century’s most important philosopher. It is somewhat ironic, then, that he is probably best known for waving a poker at fellow ...

Wittgenstein, who became professor of philosophy at the University of Cambridge in 1939, has a simple face such as "a face with a close smile on her eyes closed", "a face with one eyebrow raised", "an ...

Ludwig Wittgenstein is a notoriously difficult philosopher to read, let alone understand. Help is here in the form of one of the volumes in W.W. Norton’s new “How to Read” series. They are short books ...

How is it that false statements, such as “horses have eight legs”, can be just as meaningful as true statements, such as “horses have four legs”? Where does logical structure come from? We can ...

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Alan Saunders: The Austrian composer Arthur Schoenberg who was busy revolutionising music in early 20th ...

Purchase this and other timeless New Criterion essays in our hard-copy reprint series. It was music, especially, that united the family. F. R. Leavis recalled Wittgenstein’s once having told him that ...