5 ms·

This time in Vienna was really rather interesting. So many intellectual projects and groups going on in Vienna. Economists, philosophy and of course Freud and s

by nickik 7y ago

This time in Vienna was really rather interesting. So many intellectual projects and groups going on in Vienna. Economists, philosophy and of course Freud and so on. Hayek came in contact with quite a few interesting characters, including Bukharin who would be the leading economist among the Bolsheviks. They didn't agree on much unfortunately.

a_bonobo 7y ago
If you can, read Zweig's The World Of Yesterday, a memoir on life in Vienna before WW1. It's surely rose-tinted, but the amount of culture and intellectual life was outstanding, what an enormous loss. (Hitler also lived there at the time, going to the same class as Wittgenstein for a year or two, neither remembering each other later)
- antupis 7y ago
  Also Trotski, Stalin, Tito and Freud lived in Vienna same time https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21859771 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21859771
  - keiferski 7y ago
    And of course all the artists; Klimt, Kokoschka, Schiele, to name a few.
- jhbadger 7y ago
  There's also a good recent book by Karl Sigmund called "Exact Thinking in Demented Times" which is about the Logical Positivists in Vienna during this period (and the later interwar period) which included Wittgenstein.
  - a_bonobo 7y ago
    With a preface by Douglas R Hofstadter, nice! I'll get it, thank you :)
- bloak 7y ago
  I think they were at the same school but not in the same class. There's a theory (more fun than plausible) that Hitler was influenced by Wittgenstein: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jew_of_Linz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jew_of_Linz One of the problems with the theory is perhaps that other children at school are unlikely to have known about Wittgenstein's Jewish ancestry: his immediate family were practising Roman Catholics; one doesn't normally advertise the religion of one's grandparents. Of course if Hitler also denied remembering Wittgenstein that would be another problem with the theory. The linked Wikipedia page doesn't seem to mention that.
  - a_bonobo 7y ago
    You're right, they were the same age and at the same school but apparently Hitler had to repeat a grade and Wittgenstein was pushed one grade ahead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein#Jewish_background_and_Hitler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein#Jewish_bac...
Merrill 7y ago
Thunder at Twilight: Vienna, 1913-1914 by Frederic Morton https://www.amazon.com/Thunder-at-Twilight-Vienna-1913-1914/dp/0684191431/ref=asc_df_0684191431/ https://www.amazon.com/Thunder-at-Twilight-Vienna-1913-1914/... >In an astonishing work of literary energy and historical insight, the author of The Rothschilds brings us the backstage dynamics that preceded the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, the deed that precipitated WW I. Morton captures both the elegant decadence of Emperor Franz Joseph's Vienna, and the potent spirits of those revolutionary thinkers who, all in Vienna at some time during the two years before the war, would blow away the past and create modernity. There were Stalin, Trotsky and Lenin; Freud and Jung; the glowering Hitler; Kafka, Wittgenstein and Karl Kraus; and a small band of Serb nationalists, one of whom fired the shot that catapulted Franz Joseph, Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas into a war they didn't want but couldn't prevent, and that reduced them to puppets.

by nickik 7y ago

a_bonobo 7y ago

If you can, read Zweig's The World Of Yesterday, a memoir on life in Vienna before WW1. It's surely rose-tinted, but the amount of culture and intellectual life was outstanding, what an enormous loss. (Hitler also lived there at the time, going to the same class as Wittgenstein for a year or two, neither remembering each other later)

antupis 7y ago
Also Trotski, Stalin, Tito and Freud lived in Vienna same time https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21859771 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21859771
- keiferski 7y ago
  And of course all the artists; Klimt, Kokoschka, Schiele, to name a few.
jhbadger 7y ago
There's also a good recent book by Karl Sigmund called "Exact Thinking in Demented Times" which is about the Logical Positivists in Vienna during this period (and the later interwar period) which included Wittgenstein.
- a_bonobo 7y ago
  With a preface by Douglas R Hofstadter, nice! I'll get it, thank you :)
bloak 7y ago
I think they were at the same school but not in the same class. There's a theory (more fun than plausible) that Hitler was influenced by Wittgenstein: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jew_of_Linz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jew_of_Linz One of the problems with the theory is perhaps that other children at school are unlikely to have known about Wittgenstein's Jewish ancestry: his immediate family were practising Roman Catholics; one doesn't normally advertise the religion of one's grandparents. Of course if Hitler also denied remembering Wittgenstein that would be another problem with the theory. The linked Wikipedia page doesn't seem to mention that.
- a_bonobo 7y ago
  You're right, they were the same age and at the same school but apparently Hitler had to repeat a grade and Wittgenstein was pushed one grade ahead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein#Jewish_background_and_Hitler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein#Jewish_bac...

Merrill 7y ago

Thunder at Twilight: Vienna, 1913-1914 by Frederic Morton https://www.amazon.com/Thunder-at-Twilight-Vienna-1913-1914/dp/0684191431/ref=asc_df_0684191431/ https://www.amazon.com/Thunder-at-Twilight-Vienna-1913-1914/... >In an astonishing work of literary energy and historical insight, the author of The Rothschilds brings us the backstage dynamics that preceded the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, the deed that precipitated WW I. Morton captures both the elegant decadence of Emperor Franz Joseph's Vienna, and the potent spirits of those revolutionary thinkers who, all in Vienna at some time during the two years before the war, would blow away the past and create modernity. There were Stalin, Trotsky and Lenin; Freud and Jung; the glowering Hitler; Kafka, Wittgenstein and Karl Kraus; and a small band of Serb nationalists, one of whom fired the shot that catapulted Franz Joseph, Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas into a war they didn't want but couldn't prevent, and that reduced them to puppets.