Quantum Wittgenstein

Quantum Wittgenstein

Metaphysical debates in quantum physics don’t get at ‘truth’ – they’re nothing but a form of ritual, activity and culture. I first learnt about Plato’s allegory of the cave when I was in senior high school. A mathematics and English nerd – a strange combination – I played cello and wrote short stories in my […]

Secular pilgrimage

Secular pilgrimage

Visiting Wittgenstein’s home evokes the philosopher’s serious, ascetic mind (no doubt he would disapprove its restoration) Westerners who see ancestor worship as something only other cultures do should look around: signs of its devout practice are everywhere. We have park benches in memory of those who once sat there, plaques to the famous inhabitants of […]

The Photography of Ludwig Wittgenstein

The Photography of Ludwig Wittgenstein

Philosophers have often ruminated on the aesthetics of photography. Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida begins with a poignant memorialization of his mother, as remembered through her photograph. Pierre Bourdieu’s Photography: A Middle-Brow Art wondered why and how the medium became so widespread that “there are few households, at least in towns, which do not possess a camera.” And […]

An Animated Introduction to Ludwig Wittgenstein & His Philosophical Insights on the Problems of Human Communication

An Animated Introduction to Ludwig Wittgenstein & His Philosophical Insights on the Problems of Human Communication

In the recorded history of philosophy, there may be no sharper a mind than Ludwig Wittgenstein. A bête noire, enfant terrible, and all other such phrases used to describe affronts to order and decorum, Wittgenstein also represented an anarchic force that disturbed the staid discipline. His teacher Bertrand Russell recognized the existential threat Wittgenstein posed to his profession […]

Who was Ludwig Wittgenstein?

Who was Ludwig Wittgenstein?

Ludwig Wittgenstein was born in Vienna, Austria in 1889. As a young man he studied engineering, but his mathematical work in this area led him to developing an interest in the philosophy of mathematics and then philosophy in general. Wittgenstein read and admired the philosopher Bertrand Russell’s book, The Principles of Mathematics. In 1911, he […]