This webpage features a chronological account of the life and work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, one the most important philosophers of the 20th Century.

Then, from 18th October 2011, the site will slowly build up information covering events up to the end of 1926, at the same pace as these events took place, exactly one century ago:

Q.: When will information on the later parts of Wittgenstein's life (i.e., post-1926) be published on the site?

A.: I'm not sure; it rather depends on how successful these first parts of the site are.

A.: I'm very grateful to the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society (ALWS), who have recently granted me permission to use some of the photos of Wittgenstein for which they hold the copyright, and these will be uploaded to the site soon. If more photos of Wittgenstein are what you want, you can't do much better than the website of the British Wittgenstein Society (http://www.editor.net/BWS/index.html) and the Cambridge Wittgenstein Archive (http://www.wittgen-cam.ac.uk/) Of course if you own the copyright to any such photos, and would care to allow me to use them on this site for free, I'd be only too happy to hear from you, and would credit you appropriately.

A.: This site draws heavily for its content on the factual information about Wittgenstein's life contained in the two great biographies: Brian McGuinness's Wittgenstein, A Life: Young Ludwig, 1889-1921, (London: Penguin, 1990), and Ray Monk's Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius, (London: Jonathan Cape, 1990). Its construction would not have been possible without these. (They are referred to on this website as 'McGuinness', and 'Monk', respectively). However, this site is in no way meant to be a replacement for, or rival to, these biographies: it will contain little of the interpretive material that also makes those books so invaluable. (Neither is it intended to violate their copyright: only small passages from such biographies are actually quoted on this site). It does, though, seek to provide something they do not: a factual and purely chronological account of the events in Wittgenstein's life (many of which are below the threshold of consequence for a proper biography), as well as those philosophical thoughts he wrote down in notebooks which have survived. Many other materials (books, articles and websites) have also been consulted in the construction of this site: it's not just a digest of the factual bits of McGuinness's and Monk's books.

A.: No, sorry, that's beyond my technical capacity.

A.: Yes, I do. But my institution doesn't yet have access to it, and I haven't yet been able to consult it. I also want this resource to be constructed entirely independently, and I don't want there to be any suspicion that I've violated their copyright.

A.: Aside from reading his works, of course, if you're UK-based you should certainly join the British Wittgenstein Society (http://www.editor.net/BWS/index.html), which has an annual conference, annual Ludwig Wittgenstein lectures, and whose website features a host of information about Wittgenstein scholars, books about Wittgenstein, book reviews, etc.

In the U.S.A., there's a North American Wittgenstein Society (http://hss.fullerton.edu/philosophy/TNAWS/).

A.: The other materials referred to most often here are as follows:

Paul Engelmann, Letters from Ludwig Wittgenstein, with a Memoir, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967).

K.T.Fann (ed.), Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Man and His Philosophy, (New Jersey: Humanities Press, and Sussex: Harvester Press, 1967).

Gottlob Frege, ‘Briefe an Ludwig Wittgenstein’, in B.F.McGuinness & R.Haller (eds.), Wittgenstein in Focus – Im Brennpunkt: Wittgenstein, (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1989), pp.3-33.

Kelly Hamilton, ‘Wittgenstein and the Mind’s Eye’, in J.C.Klagge (ed.), Wittgenstein: Biography and Philosophy, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

Edward Kanterian, Ludwig Wittgenstein, (London: Reaktion Books, 2007).

C.Grant Luckhart (ed.), Wittgenstein; Sources and Perspectives, (Hassocks: Harvester/Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979).

Brian F.McGuinness (ed.), Wittgenstein and His Times, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1982).

Norman Malcolm, Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958).

Georg Henrik von Wright (ed.), A Portrait of Wittgenstein as a Young Man, from the Diary of David Hume Pinsent, 1912-1914, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990).

Rush Rhees (ed.), Recollections of Wittgenstein, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984).

Susan G.Sterrett, Wittgenstein Flies a Kite: A Story of Models of Wings and Models of the World, (New York: Pi Press, 2006).

Michael Nedo, G.Moreton & A.Finlay, Ludwig Wittgenstein: There Where You are Not, (Black Dog Publishing, 2005).

Alexander Waugh, The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War, (London: Bloomsbury, 2008).