(Original article, welcome to read, if you dare to wash the manuscript, it is bound to be investigated by the whole network to the end)
Wen | the grace of the gods
Philosophers have always been regarded as the wisest men. Many great philosophers in ancient and modern China and abroad, whether it is Socrates, Rousseau, Nietzsche, Russell, etc., each has an endless legend. Among the many philosophers, there is one who shines exceptionally brightly. He was the Austrian philosopher Wittgenstein.
Wittgenstein is known as one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century, born into a wealthy family, but a life of poverty. In order to realize the ideal of life, he changed his profession several times, and he became a scholar, a soldier, a gardener, and even a miscellaneous worker, which made many people feel incredible. It can be said that his life is more legendary than his profound philosophical thought.
Wittgenstein Speaks of Logic and Language provides an in-depth introduction to Wittgenstein's life, philosophical thought, and philosophical contributions. The author of this book is The Chinese Canadian scholar Kong Xinwei. In the book, Kong Xinwei interprets Wittgenstein's core ideas in his own language, in-depth and simple, making the original obscure theories easy to understand.
Wittgenstein's full name was Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein was born on 26 April 1889 in the house of the Steel King in Vienna. The Wittgenstein family was well-known in Europe, and the great musicians of the time, Brahms and Mahler, were all guests of the Wittgenstein family. Growing up in an artistic atmosphere made Wittgenstein sensitive and artistic.
Wittgenstein's father was passionate about engineering when he was young, and after marrying and having children, he imposed this hobby on his sons, and Wittgenstein also inherited his father's genes, born with a love of machinery, and built a simple sewing machine at the age of ten. But his two older brothers, overwhelmed by their father's pressure, committed suicide one after another. After the death of his brothers, his father was too frightened to put too much pressure on Wittgenstein, so he sent him to a regular school to receive a civilian education.
Interestingly, in that civilian school, two world-class figures were born, one was Wittgenstein and the other was Hitler. Although they were not in the same class, they appeared in the same photo.
As a young man, Wittgenstein left Austria to study in England. At the time, Russell was Britain's most famous philosopher and mathematician. Once, Wittgenstein stumbled upon Russell's Principia Mathematica. Excited to discover that this was his interest, he plucked up the courage to visit Russell at Cambridge University. After an in-depth conversation, Russell discovered that Wittgenstein was a very thoughtful young man who admired Wittgenstein's talent, valued him more and more, and even regarded him as the successor of his career. In Russell's eyes, Wittgenstein was "the perfect example of a genius."
If Wittgenstein followed this life plan, his life path would be much smoother than later. However, after the outbreak of the First World War, he chose another path. In 1914, he returned decisively to Vienna, joined the army, and threw himself into the artillery of the war. During his service, he wrote a number of philosophical notes, which were later included in the Wartime Notes.
On the battlefield, seeing his comrades around him lose their lives one by one, Wittgenstein was full of fear of war. To calm his mind, he carried with him the Gospels edited by Tolstoy.
During the years of gunfire, the Gospels and philosophy became wittgenstein's spiritual pillars. After the end of World War I, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was destroyed, and Widgenstein was imprisoned in an Italian prisoner-of-war camp. There, with astonishing perseverance, he completed The Treatise on the Philosophy of Logic. His best friend
After Wittgenstein's release from prison, the Treatise on the Philosophy of Logic was successfully published. The book went on to be hailed as one of the greatest philosophical works of the 20th century. Later, Wittgenstein suddenly had a thought to become a village teacher. This idea of his startled everyone. But he did not care what others thought, he gave all his possessions to his equally wealthy brothers and sisters, and one was willing to live a life of seclusion.
Soon after, Wittgenstein became an elementary school teacher. However, as soon as he arrived in the countryside, he was dumbfounded, it was completely different from what he imagined, and he could not adapt to rural life at all. The barbarism and rudeness of the peasants surprised him greatly.
Wittgenstein came from a rich family, and from an early age, he was strict with his parents, and he was very strict with himself and more demanding of others. During one class, he physically punished several students, but the parents stopped and took him to court. He was acquitted, but he lost his job.
There is too much helplessness in the real world, which makes Wittgenstein repeatedly frustrated. However, his inner perfectionist tendency has never changed, and all his life, he has followed his inner voice and never succumbed to the cruelty of reality!
Soon he got a new job — a gardener in a monastery! He loves the job very much, and the flowers and flowers bring him a long-lost peace of mind. Later, he left the monastery and returned to Vienna, where he became an architect and helped his sister design a house.
After several tosses, with the help of the economist Keynes, Wittgenstein returned to Cambridge University. After returning to Cambridge, Wittgenstein urgently needed a thesis to obtain a doctorate qualification, only in this way could he get research funds and live a decent life.
At the time, his doctoral dissertation was "The Philosophy of Logic", and the examiner was a group of Cambridge professors, including Russell. In front of everyone, Russell asked him a question, and after Wittgenstein finished answering, he said with another arrogant face: "Don't care, I know you will never understand." "Others thought Wittgenstein was arrogant, but he was 40 years old at the time, and in order to get his doctorate, he had to be questioned in public.
After receiving his research grant, Wittgenstein settled down in Cambridge, but he was not satisfied with life here. After the outbreak of World War II, he left Cambridge and changed careers again. This time it was even more outrageous, and it was actually going to the hospital as a medical assistant technician.
It is gold that always shines. After World War II, Wittgenstein was hired as a professor at Cambridge. In his later years, he completed his last book in Ireland, Philosophical Studies. At the age of 62, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and died shortly thereafter. Before he died, he said, "Tell them I've had a great life." ”
Throughout Wittgenstein's life, he was true and spontaneous, born in a rich family, but willing to live in poverty. He worked as a soldier, a village teacher, a gardener, a miscellaneous worker in a hospital, and eventually became a master of philosophy. Such a life is legendary!
Wittgenstein's books are known for their obscurity. At the heart of his philosophical thinking is the unspeakable beauty. For a person who has been repeatedly frustrated in reality, his thoughts are like a long drought. He excelled at paragraph-based writing, and his works were short and pithy, much like the style of the philosopher Nietzsche.
So what themes did Wittgenstein's philosophical thought include?
The first theme is suffering and nothingness.
In Culture and Values, Wittgenstein argues that there are all kinds of sufferings everywhere in the world, and that the greatest suffering of man is the loss of himself. Living an empty life creates a sense of nothingness, which in turn creates suffering. If we are convinced that life itself is meaningful, then we can endure all suffering.
The second theme is that the meaning of the world is unspeakable, and although it is unspeakable, it can be revealed in life. This theme is the essence of Wittgenstein's thought.
Wittgenstein believed that the world is a collection of everything, and even the concept of the outside world is part of the world. The world exists in thinking, and without thinking, people cannot solve problems.
Wittgenstein's idea, much like the Chinese Zen Buddhism's idea of "teaching outside the teachings, not establishing words", advocates that everything that can be expressed, such as words or language, to a certain extent, will weaken or distort the original intention of the heart. They all advocate not to say, and to say it is wrong. For example, when we name a person, we have extended the existing language to include him, and after he can be expressed by language, he has lost part of his true self.
Wittgenstein believed that although the meaning of the world could not be expressed in words, it would be revealed in life. When you put together the information you know, the meaning appears on its own, and what is what it is is. Once spoken in words, it is distorted. People try to find a way out of the language, but find that in the end they can only find more confusion. So Wittgenstein argued that where it is impossible to speak, one must remain silent.
The third theme is death, eternity and time and space.
In The Philosophy of Logic, Wittgenstein argues that when the world is viewed from an eternal perspective, as a whole, the world is mysterious. If eternity does not represent the infinite continuation of time, but only the absence of time, then living in the present means living in eternity. Wittgenstein believed that man lives in time and space, and the answer to the mystery of life must lie outside of time and space.
Life is a difficult puzzle for everyone, and some people think that if the soul is not destroyed, it can solve all the problems of life. Wittgenstein, on the other hand, believed that this was a goal of means. Only when people live in the present can the present become eternal. At this time, our life is down-to-earth, and we can really live without the constraints of time and peace of mind.
Wittgenstein's greatest contribution to philosophy was his sorting out the relationship between logic and language. He argues that philosophy is based on the speculation of language, and that language has its own boundaries. At the same time, he clearly pointed out the existence of boundaries and asserted that the meaning of life is outside the boundaries of language.
In 1953, two years after Wittgenstein's death, The Philosophy of Studies was officially published. In the book, Wittgenstein says he investigates philosophical issues as cases rather than academic research. He also said that perhaps only those who had similar ideas in the book could read the book.
Wittgenstein believed that one cannot think of an illogical thing, otherwise one must think illogically. This sentence sounds a bit winding, for example you will understand. The boss gives you the task of work, he says east for a while, he says west for a while, there is no logic in his speech, you must be confused, but if he tells you very clearly: today you have to complete three things, the first thing is what to do, the second thing is what to do, and the last thing is what to do. At this time, you can quickly grasp his meaning, and you can work smoothly.
In Wittgenstein's view, philosophy is not a theory, but an activity, and the purpose of philosophy is to clarify facts, to eliminate the confusion caused by language, to make those ideas that are originally vague clearer, to establish boundaries for ideas. He said: Everything that can be thought about can be clearly thought about, and everything that can be said can be clearly said. The boundaries of a man's language mean the boundaries of his world.
Wittgenstein argues that you can describe me, but that is not me as subject, but me as object. In other words, the me you describe is the me in your eyes, not the real me. In my world, everything is my experience, so I am the boundary of the world.
For Wittgenstein, language was the carrier of ideas. The description of human language is very inaccurate compared to what is described itself. Every explanation is a hypothesis. Let's look at an example. Red items can be destroyed, but red itself cannot be destroyed. That's why the word "red" exists independently of red objects. Once you know what the word stands for, you can know what it's all about.
In Wittgenstein's later masterpiece, Philosophical Studies, his focus shifted from logic to language. Everyday language is more ambiguous than logic and is further removed from the core questions of philosophy. therefore. When many people read "Philosophical Studies", they will have questions: the daily and trivial discussions in the book, although very in-depth, have anything to do with philosophy? But Wittgenstein argued that language and logic are equally important in philosophy.
In his view, language is a game, and there is equality between sublime and ordinary words, and there is no distinction between the two. Language is the sum of all propositions, and spoken language is part of the human organism, but language can sometimes obscure ideas. Speaking of this, Wittgenstein made an analogy: the shape of a dress is made of something, and the purpose of this thing is not to show the body. From the appearance of the garment, we cannot deduce what kind of soul is hidden under the garment.
In the preface to Philosophical Studies, Wittgenstein says that the purpose of his writing was to provoke more people to think through his books and generate their own ideas. He believes that thinking can bring great spiritual rewards. Wittgenstein loved to think all his life, and he once said that nothing in the world is more wonderful than thinking about philosophical questions. Therefore, he has always advocated that people's thinking should transcend time and not be limited by time.
In his book Notes on Wartime, Wittgenstein writes that true happiness does not refer to worldly happiness in the sense of having a successful career or having a happy family. True happiness means not living in the torrent of time, but living only in the present. Only those who live in the present moment are the happiest.
Wittgenstein's words are the essence of his philosophical thought. His life was full of legends, and until his death, he never regretted every choice he made. Throughout his life, he combined knowledge and action, and spent 62 years perfectly interpreting his philosophical ideas. The happiest thing in the world is to fight for an ideal all your life. Wittgenstein was willing to abandon worldly happiness because he had a higher spiritual pursuit in his heart. If this is not a happy life, then there is probably no happy life in this world.
(End)
About the author: The Grace of the Gods, a senior Internet person, a multi-platform contracted author, and an excellent author of Jianshu Humanities. He loves to read, think, and write, and is called "the encyclopedia of walking" by friends. This article is an original article, welcome to like, leave a message, forward. Plagiarism or washing of manuscripts must be investigated.