Wittgenstein (Open Court Paperbacks) by III Bartley (PDF)

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The portrait that emerges from this account is human, all too human, but the author’s respect for Wittgenstein is never in doubt. Though brief and written so that it can be understood by those with no previous knowledge of Wittgenstein’s philosophy, this book is an important contribution to our understanding of the man and of the development of his thought.—Walter Kaufmann

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐This partial biography of Wittgenstein has been attacked severely when it was published first and again in 1985. Most of the attacks were leveled against this book because of brief unflattering remarks about W’s sexual activities. But there is more subtext. This book presents a more realistic account of W as a philosopher. Perhaps he was not the greatest philosopher to ever walk on this earth and perhaps he was not the most original philosopher in history and definitely he was not the divine purist and spiritual guide that his followers would insist on. No doubt, W was a great and brilliant philosopher. But he was very troubled as a man and as a philosopher, and he definitely had a great gift for creating fantastic impression of himself on almost everyone around him. Some of his students worshiped W as if he was some sort of a prophet who came to earth with a divine mission to solve (more likely, to dismiss) all the questions and problems of philosophy. Many philosophers in different traditions and eras were far more original than W and (in the long run) far more influential than W. Frege advanced an original philosophy of mathematics (and despite all the disinters and false claims, it’s still influential today among the neologicists) and he initiated the modern study of philosophy of language, introducing several brilliant positions and a master argument that invoked the essential public dimension of human language to offer forceful critique of the then-dominant German and British (Hegelian) idealism. And of course, in one publication, Frege developed an axiomatic approach to propositional logic and the new system of first-order predicate logic (and later, second-order predicate logic), which ended the long stagnation of Aristotelian logic and created a revolution of studies and researches in symbolic, mathematical, and computer logic. Any of these great achievements would place Frege way above W. W’s first work The Tractatus was simply a failed attempt (by the admission of W himself) to create a metaphysical and epistemological accounts based on the inadequate system of propositional logic. The later (and more influential) work Philosophical Investigations contained some brilliant arguments but the fantastic over-inflated claim that W’s approach of ordinary-language philosophy successfully solved all the problems of philosophy (mostly by his attempts at showing that they arise from misuses of human ordinary language). Almost all philosophers (then and now) dismiss this claim as a fantasy. Bartley’s book repeats some of these glaring inaccuracies but it remains the most sober account of W, the man and the philosopher. Highly recommended.

⭐This is a short and very accessible biography. Wittgenstein tends to be widely and divergently interpreted – which goes with the territory, I suppose: with all that talk about language games, you can’t really say he’s “misunderstood”, but there is little consensus as to what his philosophy really means. Not helped, also, by his later work (encapsulated in the

⭐) effectively recanting on the logical formalism of his earlier

⭐.Bartley’s life does the extremely valuable service of distilling down the central tenets of Wittgenstein to manageable nuggets rendered at a sufficiently remote level of abstraction that a lay reader should be able to digest them comfortably. Much more entertaining than Marie McGinn’s rather humourless

⭐, for example.However, this is no dry exposition of the Philosophical Investigations. It is a true biography, covering Wittgenstein’s period as an Austrian schoolteacher. Bartley paints a plausible picture of the Philosopher as hermit auteur. He is also obstreporously controversial in writing colourfully of Wittgenstein’s taste for a bit of Vienese rough trade in a section which (as Bartley defensively notes in the afterword) occupies just five pages (but it is pretty much the first five!) which appears to have gained this volume some not insignificant literary notoriety on publication in 1973.These days, a spot of Tyrolian cottaging seems almost somewhat tame, if gratuitous, stuff (tame in that it has almost become more controversial to claim a lifetime literary bachelor was *straight* and gratuitous in that, despite a salutary attempt late on, Bartley makes no real effort to link said saucy tendencies to anything more significant in Wittgenstein’s life or work, and in fact in a studiously defensive afterword, explicitly rejects the validity of doing just that. Much of the afterword is written with the air of an author-as-fullback looking suspiciously quizzical and innocent while the subject-as-winger writhes in agony on the ground just inside the penalty box, it never being clear who is more deserving of a booking.Nonetheless, it’s a quick, clear, entertaining read and will be of particular value for those (like me) seeking an overview and context to this important 20th century philosopher, having discovered that an uncontextualised approach on the north face of the Philosophical Investigations without an experienced sherpa and some preparatory reading oxygen, was a bit of a tall order.Olly Buxton

⭐Fantastic book, full of drama in the deepest sense. I just couldn’t stop reading it, and hoped that, like Borges’ “Book of Sand”, it would have no end. The experiences of the philosopher as a teacher in a lost alpine village in Austria are here beautifully and terribly described.

⭐著者は米国人の学者でカール・ポパーの弟子。｢まえがき｣担当はWalter Kaufmannだが、この人は有名なニーチェ学者ではなかろうか。出版当時は嵐を呼んだ本らしい。理由はヴィトゲンシュタインが男色家だったと明言したから。それも若い時分はウィーン２区(労働者階級地域)のハッテン場に頻繁に赴く活動的な人(←？)だったと。怒り狂ったヴィトゲンシュタインの弟子たちによって弾劾キャンペーンが展開され、裁判沙汰にまでなった。しかし時を置いて見れば、「だから売れたんじゃないのー」とも。本書はかなり版を重ねている。半分以上は専門性の高い哲学話が展開しているというのに！冒頭が秀逸。貴種流離譚よろしくド田舎で小学校教師をやっていた時代のヴィトゲンシュタインの足跡を探し、オーストリアの寒村に赴いた著者が雑貨屋でバナナを買い求め、「ヴィトゲンシュタインという名に聞き覚えはありませんか？」と尋ねると、雑貨屋の主人は驚愕して答える、「戦後の餓えた時代に食料を携えて20キロの山道を登って来てくれたのがヴィトゲンシュタイン先生だった。私にバナナをくれた。生まれて初めて食べたバナナだった」。そこからどんどん元教え子たちが集まってくるあたり、素晴らしく感動的。本書はそれまで看過されてきた「小学校教師時代のヴィトゲンシュタイン」に焦点を当てた最初の伝記でもあるとか。子供には好かれても田舎の大人たちとはやっていけない社会不適応系の人間の姿が微笑ましくも痛々しくもある。やはり住処は象牙の塔にしかなかったんだろうな。で、後半は長々と哲学論議が展開するので、そちらに興味のある方もどうぞ。伝記としては敬意に満ちた真摯な本だし、哲学論になると専門家向きだし(要するに私には意味不明だと)、この本がスキャンダルになったということ自体が面白い。

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