>His methods were in keeping with his approach to philosophy: he did not lay claim to any special authority and instead of expounding facts and theories he asked his pupils questions and left them to work out the answers for themselves. When Hermine happened to see him at work she marvelled at his capacity to hold their attention.
It sounds that he, quite before anyone else, had discovered the secret of teaching. Frederick Wiseman, a famous documentarian, produced a couple documentary films titled High School and High School 2. The first documented a typical suburban high school in the US. The second documented an experimental high school in an urban, low-income, predominantly Latino neighborhood. The second school was notable in that it went on to produce the largest proportion of students to not only attend college but to finish and acquire 4-year degrees in the nation. The 'experiment' they were trying was quite simple - every single class, regardless subject, was centered totally around critical thinking. No teacher taught by fiat. They served instead to aid and guide students as they explored the concepts being taught through relentless questioning, all including the teachers bound to the rational method.
It's unfortunate that this method of teaching demands a tremendous amount of integrity and knowledge on the part of teachers. I don't know that it would be particularly difficult for someone invested in the endeavor, but for a teacher used to ruling like a mini dictator and able to punish students for questioning their edicts it must be intolerable.
This must be satire. It's one of the most cryptic, least comprehensible pieces of philosophy ever written. The most brilliant philosophers of his time didn't properly understand it, according to Wittgenstein himself.
Not satire. I have a copy on my desk at work and used it within the last month to explain truth tables (section 4.31) to a developer.
Try looking at it again through the lens of designing a domain specific language. It forms a robust framework for rigid and controlled communications or interactions.
The reason it was supplanted by Philosophical Investigations is that it was overly strict in defining the logical foundations of language and meaning.
It uses common words and often short sentences, which each seems to express something utterly trivial or profoundly deep. It is certainly not accessible, in particular if you have no other background in philosophy.
I'd call myself an ignorant as far as philosophy goes, but I found „Philosophical investigations” much more readable and influential on me than the „Tractatus”.
Nothing by wittgenstein qualifies as "one of the most accessible pieces of philosophy ever written". If you believe this, you probably didn't understand what you were reading. If you want accessible, then I'd start with the pre-socratics.
Well what a mess this comment page is! The Tractatus is certainly not accessible, but the later Wittgenstein easily qualifies as the most accessible philosophy ever written.
As this is HN: Wittgenstein was the guy who invented truth tables.
He is my personal favorite philosopher along with Quine. Wittgenstein is IMO underappreciated. First he kind of described what is possible with philosophy with regard to the physical world in the Tractatus. And then he explored the "virtual world" in his writings about games. To me his writing style is a bit of a hindrance to get to his concepts. But I think I know, what he is getting at (prove me wrong).
More "mystic" philosophers were obviously pissed and have been bad-mouthing him ever since.
A quick look at wikipedia says truth tables were first devised by Charles Sanders Peirce. Though truth tables probably weren't much of an invention - it's just a layout that is fairly equivalent to a record keeping notation used much earlier.
I have seen what looks very much like a truth table written in George Boole's spidery handwriting in an exhibition dedicated to him in the University where he taught, Queen's College, Cork, now University College Cork. Instead of '1' and '0', or 'T' and 'F', he had written out the whole words, 'true' and 'false'.
Mystic is probably a misleading word to use, because Wittgenstein is considered to be something of a mystic himself, especially when it came to things like aesthetics and ethics. The philosophical/religious definition of mysticism is a bit different than the everyday one.
"he had once told Russell he was interested in becoming a saint ... Wittgenstein’s siblings knew what his detractors apparently did not: that he was referringl ... to a favourite theme from one of his favourite books: William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience."
VRE is a decent read by a great mind, and reading it can only illuminate what W. was getting at. And yes, it's far from the 'everyday'.
Bach wrote on the title page of his Orgelbüchlein: "To the glory of the most high God, and that my neighbour may be benefited thereby." That is what I would have liked to say about my work.
I think Wittgenstein (like most philosophers who aren’t named Plato or Aristotle) is less “underappreciated” and more “completely unknown” once you get outside philosophy. Within that discipline, he’s unquestionably the most important thinker of the 20th century and, most would argue, the most important single philosopher since Kant; the entire linguistic turn in philosophy is due to PI. (One can argue, with more controversy, that the “other greatest philosopher” of the 20th century is Quine — it’s hard to imagine the neopragmatic renaissance without him!)
During WW2 he gave up his post a Cambridge and went to work as a porter at a hospital.
"Wittgenstein, however, detested Cambridge academic life, and urged his pupils not to become academic philosophers, but to do something decent with their lives. When the war began he was eager to be involved in war work and to be, as he put it, 'where the bombs are falling'. In September 1941, through Professor John Ryle of Guy's Hospital (brother of Wittgenstein's friend the philosopher Gilbert Ryle) he began work as a porter at Guy's."
It sounds that he, quite before anyone else, had discovered the secret of teaching. Frederick Wiseman, a famous documentarian, produced a couple documentary films titled High School and High School 2. The first documented a typical suburban high school in the US. The second documented an experimental high school in an urban, low-income, predominantly Latino neighborhood. The second school was notable in that it went on to produce the largest proportion of students to not only attend college but to finish and acquire 4-year degrees in the nation. The 'experiment' they were trying was quite simple - every single class, regardless subject, was centered totally around critical thinking. No teacher taught by fiat. They served instead to aid and guide students as they explored the concepts being taught through relentless questioning, all including the teachers bound to the rational method.
It's unfortunate that this method of teaching demands a tremendous amount of integrity and knowledge on the part of teachers. I don't know that it would be particularly difficult for someone invested in the endeavor, but for a teacher used to ruling like a mini dictator and able to punish students for questioning their edicts it must be intolerable.