Wittgenstein Day-by-Day: Facebook Page Tracks the Philosopher’s Wartime Experience 100 Years Ago

Last week we told you about an ambi­tious video series — The Great War — that will doc­u­ment how World War I unfold­ed, week-by-week, over a four-year peri­od, from 1914 to 1918. A new video will be released every Thurs­day, and it will reflect on what hap­pened dur­ing the same week 100 years pri­or. When com­plete, there should be close to 300 videos in the series.

Today, we’re stay­ing in the same time peri­od, but get­ting even more micro. Wittgen­stein Day-by-Day is a Face­book page that “tracks [Lud­wig] Wittgen­stein’s diary entries as they were writ­ten 100 years ago,” writes Levi Ash­er on his blog Lit­er­ary Kicks. Dur­ing World War I, Wittgen­stein served on the front­lines in a how­itzer reg­i­ment in Gali­cia and was dec­o­rat­ed sev­er­al times for his courage (more on that here). While fight­ing, he con­tin­ued writ­ing phi­los­o­phy — texts that would be gath­ered in Note­books, 1914–1916 – while also record­ing his expe­ri­ences in his diaries. Today’s entry on Wittgen­stein Day-by-Day reads:

Wednes­day 18th Novem­ber, 1914: In his pri­vate diary, LW reports hear­ing more thun­der from the front-line, as well as machine-gun fire and heavy artillery fire. He records feel­ing pleased that their com­man­der is again being replaced by their Lieu­tenant. He notes that he has done quite a lot of (philo­soph­i­cal) work, and is in a good mood. How­ev­er, he also notes that in his work there has been at a stand­still, as he needs a major inci­dent to move for­ward (GT2, S.22).

Con­tin­u­ing his thought from yes­ter­day, LW tells him­self that it is all sim­ply a mat­ter of the exis­tence of the log­i­cal place. ‘But what the dev­il is this “log­i­cal place”?’, he then asks him­self (NB, p.31).

You can like and fol­low Wittgen­stein Day-by-Day on Face­book. And, while you’re at it, do the same with Open Cul­ture’s FB page here.

via Lit­er­ary Kicks

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Wittgen­stein: Watch Derek Jarman’s Trib­ute to the Philoso­pher, Fea­tur­ing Til­da Swin­ton (1993)

Bertrand Rus­sell on His Stu­dent Lud­wig Wittgen­stein: Man of Genius or Mere­ly an Eccen­tric?

Pho­tog­ra­phy of Lud­wig Wittgen­stein Released by Archives at Cam­bridge

Down­load 110 Free Phi­los­o­phy eBooks: From Aris­to­tle to Niet­zsche & Wittgen­stein