1128 LUDWIGWITTGENSTEIN
Wittgenstein immersed himself in philosophical studies, filling notebooks with
ideas. When World War I began in 1914, he enlisted as a machine-gunner in the
Austrian army. While in the army, he continued his philosophical work, writing a
short treatise in 1918 based on his notebooks. That same year, he was captured by
the Italian army. In captivity, he managed to send a copy of this treatise to Russell,
who considered it a work of genius and arranged for its publication as the
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus(1921). This was the only philosophical book
Wittgenstein published during his lifetime.
Wittgenstein believed his Tractatusgave the definitive answer to all philosophical
problems. Following the war, therefore, he left philosophy completely. After a course
at a teacher’s training college, he spent the next six years as a schoolteacher in
remote Austrian villages. But teaching did not suit his temperament, and he was des-
perately unhappy. He resigned in 1926 and worked as a monastery gardener before
moving back to Vienna to design a house for his sister. While in Vienna, Wittgenstein
began talking philosophy again with Moritz Schlick, professor of philosophy at the
University of Vienna, and with other professors who admired his Tractatus.
Philosophically revived, Wittgenstein returned to Cambridge in 1929, and,
after submitting his now famous Tractatusas a doctoral dissertation, he became a
research fellow of Trinity College. Again, Wittgenstein filled notebooks with
philosophical reflections and prepared them for publication. But, with the excep-
tion of one paper, Wittgenstein never saw any of his new ideas in print; he always
considered his newest thoughts incomplete or not yet adequately formulated.
For the rest of his life, Wittgenstein continued his association with Cambridge—
though he never felt completely comfortable with academic life. On several occa-
sions, he left the university, sometimes living in isolation in his hut in Norway. In
1939, he was appointed professor of philosophy at Cambridge, succeeding
G.E. Moore. But before he could take the chair, World War II began, and he volun-
teered as a hospital orderly in London. He returned to Cambridge following the war,
but he found his job so dreadful that he resigned after two years. Living alone in
Ireland, he completed his second major work,Philosophical Investigations,though
again he could not bring himself to publish it. (It appeared posthumously in 1953.)
During a visit to the United States in 1949, his health began to deteriorate. On
his return to Cambridge, doctors discovered prostate cancer, and he died eighteen
months later, in 1951. Since his death, his literary executors have published more
than a dozen books of uncompleted manuscripts, notes, lectures, and letters.
Throughout his adult life, Wittgenstein was interested in philosophy as an activity
rather than as a set of theories. He believed that the goal of philosophy is to
remove or “dissolve” problems, and the primary means for doing this is analysis
of language. According to Wittgenstein, most philosophical problems can be
traced to a misuse of language. In one of his early notebooks he wrote:
Philosophy gives no pictures of reality and can neither confirm nor confute scien-
tific investigations. Philosophy teaches us the logical form of propositions: that is its
fundamental task.*
*Ludwig Wittgenstein,Notebooks 1914–1916(Oxford: John Wiley & Sons, 1981).
