Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1914-1951 (Creation)
Level of description
Extent and medium
32 boxes, paper
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was born on 26 April 1889 in Vienna, the son of Karl Wittgenstein, a wealthy steel industrialist. He studied at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin-Charlottenburg whence he moved in 1908 to the University of Manchester to study aeronautics where he designed a primitive jet-turbine engine. The mathematics required for his studies in engineering brought him to consider the philosophy of mathematics and to seek out Bertrand Russell at Trinity College Cambridge, with whom he studied, at first on an unofficial basis. In January 1912 he was admitted to Trinity where he spent five terms before moving to Skjolden in Norway, where he thought he might work on logic in peaceful surroundings.
At the outbreak of war, Wittgenstein volunteered for the Austrian army, fighting on the Eastern and Southern fronts before he was captured by the Italians in 1918. During his incarceration, he was able to finish the work which was to become the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, later published in 1922. The war clearly had a profound effect on Wittgenstein, who, shortly after his release gave away the fortune that he had inherited from his father and resolved to lead a life of simplicity.
Wittgenstein now took up the career of schoolteacher, holding positions in a number of schools in Lower Austria, but he was not always sufficiently sensitive to the needs of the slower children. In 1926 he was forced to leave after hitting a young pupil, and he returned to Vienna to design a house for his sister.
In 1929, Wittgenstein returned to Cambridge on the prompting of Frank Ramsey and in June received the degree of PhD, submitting the Tractatus as his dissertation. In the following year he was elected to a senior research fellowship of Trinity College, which he held for six years. At the same time he was a lecturer in the Moral Sciences faculty, during which time the Blue and Brown books were dictated to his pupils. In 1939 he succeeded G E Moore as Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy. During WWII he worked as a porter in Guy's hospital and as a laboratory assistant in a laboratory in Newcastle looking into shell shock. He returned to his duties in Cambridge at the end of the war, but resigned from his chair in 1947. In 1948 and 49 he lived in Ireland but returned to England, dying in Cambridge in 1951.
Repository
Archival history
Not all items in this collection have the same provenance. On the reading of Wittgenstein's will, it was discovered that he had appointed three literary executors, G H von Wright, G E M Anscombe and Rush Rhees. In December 1951, Rhees received a box containing many of the manuscripts in this list. In 1952 and 1965 further material came to light in Austria and in 1967, 1976 and 1977 more typescript were found.
In May 1969, the literary executors gave all the Wittgenstein originals in their care to Trinity College
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Wittgenstein's literary executors, namely G H von Wright, Elizabeth Anscombe and Rush Rhees
Content and structure area
Scope and content
The largest surviving portion of Wittgenstein's nachlass containing his working papers 1914-1951
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
System of arrangement
The arrangement and system of references follow G H von Wright's catalogue, first published in 1982 and subsequently periodically updated
Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
Digital images of these papers are available on the Wittgenstein Source website: wittgensteinsource.org. In the interests of preservation, access is only granted if there is a particular reason to see the original documents. Please contact the Archivist if you would like to discuss this.
Conditions governing reproduction
Language of material
- English
- German
Script of material
Language and script notes
Physical characteristics and technical requirements
Finding aids
The printed finding aid is available in the library. Some items have in it have not yet been added to the online catalogue: it is lacking correspondence, 401-404, and a listing of material at Add. MS a. 278, and the notes of Wittgenstein's lectures, 501-510.
Allied materials area
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Digital images of the entire nachlass are available on the Wittgenstein Source website: wittgensteinsource.org
Related units of description
See also: Add. MS a/647: Carbon typescript of Wittgenstein MS 140, the "Grosses Format", labelled "Wi, MS"; Add. MS a/427, Letters from Wittgenstein to Piero Sraffa.
Nachlass items held elsewhere (numbers follow the von Wright catalogue):
MSS 105, 106, 107, 112 , 113 and 142 and TS 203 are in the Austrian National Library in Vienna
MS 104 and TS 202 are in the Bodleian Library in Oxford
TS 201 is in the Bertrand Russell Archive at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario