Product Description

Ludwig Wittgenstein, who died in Cambridge in 1951, is one of the most powerful influences on contemporary philosophy, yet he shunned publicity and was essentially a private man. His friend Norman Malcolm (himself an eminent philosopher) wrote this remarkably vivid personal memoir of Wittgenstein, which was published in 1958 and was immediately recognized as a moving and truthful portrait of this gifted, difficult man. This edition includes also the complete text of the fifty-seven letters which Wittgenstein wrote to Malcolm over a period of eleven years. Apart from the quotations in the Memoir these letters are previously unpublished. They reveal how much friendships mattered to Wittgenstein, and how concerned he was for the health and well-being of his friends. His human qualities become evident; he advises, warns, jokes. and is grateful and affectionate. The volume also features a concise biographical sketch by another leading philosopher who was a friend of Wittgenstein, Georg Henrik von Wright. Much has been published about Wittgenstein since his death, but nothing brings us closer to the man himself than this modest classic of philosophical biography.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #232672 in Books
• Published on: 2001-08-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Customer Reviews

A vivid memory
Norman Malcolm was a close friend of Ludwig Wittgenstein's. They exchanged many letters and the reader can discover the 56 letters that Wittgenstein sent to Malcolm between March 26 1940 to April 16 1951 in this book.
Norman Malcolm does not discuss Wittgenstein's philosophical works - although he attended a respectable number of his lectures - but describes the philosopher in his daily life, his tastes, his talks with his fellows in Cambridge. It is interesting to learn that Wittgenstein was an emphatic talker both while lecturing and conversing privately, that he dressed as simply as possible although he had rigorous standards of cleanliness and that his room at Trinity College was austerely furnished.
His lectures were quite original. He didn't address his audience in a formal way but the meetings - in his room where the members of the class had to bring chairs - were rather a conversation during which Wittgenstein carried on original research. He was usually impatient and easily angered and his students often feared him. Making friendship with Wittgenstein was very exacting since his extreme harshness could rebuke a friend. Malcolm often experienced that Wittgenstein had a tendency to be suspicious of motives and character. It was always a strain to be with Wittgenstein because of the intellectual demands of his conversation and his ruthless severity. This was due to his passionate love of truth and that is the reason why his philosophical thoughts tortured and exhausted him. He detested academic life, he could not stand the society of his academic colleagues and could not suffer all forms of affectation and insincerity. His mood was often sombre because of the difficulty of achieving understanding in philosophy. As he struggled to work through a problem, his listeners felt that they were in the presence of real suffering. That may explain his strong inclination to pessimism, a feeling that was often close to despair. Another source of torment was that he felt himself to be a failure as a teacher, a profession he abandoned after a few years to devote himself exclusively to philosophy.
Towards the end of his life, Wittgenstein spent long months with Malcolm and his wife in America where Malcolm could witness Wittgenstein's increasing difficulty to concentrate and think, mainly because of his fragile health. A moving memory of one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century.