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Something that sticks in my head about Wittgenstein (someone correct me if I'm getting this wrong) was that during World War 2, Wittgenstein felt that being a p
by codeulike 6y ago
Something that sticks in my head about Wittgenstein (someone correct me if I'm getting this wrong) was that during World War 2, Wittgenstein felt that being a professor of philosophy at Cambridge was 'intolerable' and went to work as a hospital porter instead, incognito.
Also, favourite quote:
"A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring."
- kingkawn 6y agoHe also volunteered for military service in world war 1, and when he reached the front line volunteered for the extremely dangerous assignment of crawling into no-man’s land alone to make observations of the enemy. He said it seemed absurd to be a volunteer among draftees and not take on the most dangerous missions.
- idoubtit 6y agoHis World War I journal portrays him has an very egoistical man, with a violent contempt to everyone, including his comrades. He wrote: "It is almost impossible to find a trace of humanity in them [the men of his unit]" and, about marines, "I often cannot discern the human being in a man". As an extremely wealthy and high-class officer, he despised the low ranked soldiers ("stupid", "malicious", "pigs"...), but also the other officers ("pigs", "utterly limited"). He volunteered for the army of Austro-Hungarian empire and expected others to follow; he failed to understand that the e.g. Serbian soldiers whose people was oppressed by the empire did not share his views. I don't care about his personal life, but since this thread was turning into an hagiography, I just wanted to draw a more complex portray.
- kingkawn 6y agoHe was a self-critical upper class twit who continued to evolve and transform his view of the world and himself over the course of his entire life.