Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius by Ray Monk

Author:Ray Monk [Monk, Ray]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781448112678
Published: 2012-03-30T20:00:00+00:00

I have wanted to show by means of language-games the vague way in which we use ‘language’, ‘proposition’, ‘sentence’.5 There are many things, such as orders, which we may or may not call propositions and not only one game can be called language. Language-games are a clue to the understanding of logic. Since what we call a proposition is more or less arbitrary, what we call logic plays a different role from that which Russell and Frege supposed.

Among those attending these lectures was a twenty-year-old undergraduate student of mathematics, then in his third year at Trinity, who was soon to become the most important person in Wittgenstein’s life – his constant companion, his trusted confidant, and, even, his most valued collaborator in philosophical work.

Francis Skinner had come up to Cambridge from St Paul’s in 1930, and was recognized as one of the most promising mathematicians of his year. By his second year at Cambridge, however, his mathematical work had begun to take second place to his interest in Wittgenstein. He became utterly, uncritically and almost obsessively devoted to Wittgenstein. What it was about him that attracted Wittgenstein, we can only guess. He is remembered by all who knew him as shy, unassuming, good-looking and, above all, extraordinarily gentle. But attracted Wittgenstein certainly was. As with Pinsent and Marguerite, Skinner’s mere presence seemed to provide Wittgenstein with the peace he needed to conduct his work. In 1932 Wittgenstein left a note concerning the work he was then endeavouring to finish which suggests that he himself regarded Skinner’s relation to that work as parallel to Pinsent’s to the Tractatus:

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