Ludwig Wittgenstein: Public and Private Occasions

In the safety of his manuscripts, Ludwig Wittgenstein was free to endlessly revise, rework and reframe his philosophical thoughts. Thus his published work yields a glimpse of just a small portion of Wittgenstein's philosophical thought―the portion that eventually appeared in print. Yet for Wittgenstein, philosophy was an on-going activity, a process. Only in his dialog with the philosophical community and in his private moments does Wittgenstein's philosophical practice fully come to light. Those public and private occasions are collected here.

In Private Occasions, co-editor Alfred Nordmann presents Wittgenstein's diaries from the 1930s to an English audience for the first time. They are accompanied by Wittgenstein's letters to and from friend Ludwig Hänsel. Together, they reveal a great deal about Wittgenstein, who himself says "The movement of thought in my philosophizing should be discernible also in the history of my mind."

In Public Occasions, James Klagge collects Wittgenstein's papers and speeches, some newly published, from a number of forums, including his lectures at Cambridge and his involvement with the Cambridge Moral Science Club. Much of Wittgenstein's philosophical work came through, or in the form of, dialogs, making these public encounters particularly valuable.

The result of this collaboration, Ludwig Wittgenstein: Public and Private Occasions, is a thorough look at the philosophy of one of the 20th century's greatest thinkers that goes beyond a mere study of his published work.