Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was born on 26 April 1889 in Vienna into one of the wealthiest families in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father, Karl Wittgenstein, was a prominent industrialist in the steel sector. Ludwig was the youngest of eight children. He was educated at home until the age of fourteen, then attended the Realschule in Linz before studying mechanical engineering in Berlin and later in Manchester, where he developed an interest in the mathematical foundations of aeronautics.

His reading of Bertrand Russell and Gottlob Frege redirected his attention to mathematical logic, and in 1911 he went to Cambridge to study under Russell at Trinity College. Russell recognized his ability quickly. During the First World War, Wittgenstein served in the Austro-Hungarian army on several fronts and was taken prisoner by Italian forces in 1918. While in captivity he completed the manuscript that became his first major work.

The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was published in German in 1921 and in English translation in 1922. The work addressed the relationship between language and the world and the limits of what can be meaningfully said. After its publication, Wittgenstein believed philosophy to be essentially complete and withdrew from academic life. He worked as a primary school teacher in rural Austria from 1920 to 1926, then as a gardener and architect before returning to Cambridge in 1929.

He was elected to a fellowship at Trinity College and in 1939 succeeded G. E. Moore as professor of philosophy. During the Second World War he worked as a medical orderly in London and later as a laboratory assistant in Newcastle. He resigned his professorship in 1947 to concentrate on writing.

His second major work, Philosophical Investigations, was published posthumously in 1953. It substantially revised the positions of the Tractatus, developing an account of meaning grounded in use and social practice rather than in logical form. Wittgenstein died of prostate cancer on 29 April 1951 in Cambridge. He became a British citizen in 1939.