Professor McGiunness' Young Ludwig (1988) was the first thoroughly researched and in-depth life history of the philosopher. Over fifteen years passed and the text eventually went out of print. Oxford decided to launch a second edition, with a new preface by McGuinness, enabling the work to be read by a new generation of readers interested in the rich culture and family that contributed to Wittgenstein's thought and the creation of the Tractatus. In fact, the last chapter of the book is devoted entirely to the Tractatus, which to a large extent sheds new light on this often-misunderstood philosophical text.
McGiunness spent many years researching and composing this biography. He travelled throughout Europe, Israel and America, studying countless manuscripts and correspondence, interviewing family and individuals that knew the philosopher, many of whom, unfortunately, have passed on.
This is a detailed analysis of Wittgenstein, painting a rich cultural picture of pre-WW1 Vienna. Wittgenstein's father, Karl, was an extraordinary man in his own right, a capitalist of ingenious talent, creating an empire of extreme wealth and prestige. A creative and forceful personality, similar to his youngest son, along with his wife, was at the centre of the thriving music and art scene in Vienna, where Brahms, Mahler, and Klimt were frequent guests at the house for musical evenings and group discussions on literature, culture and politics. Karl Wittgenstein wrote many economic articles for major publications in Vienna and Germany that continue to be read by historians today.
The family, however, experienced tragedy, with three of Karl's oldest sons committing suicide. Ludwig often considered ending his own life, but experienced a spiritual transformation after WW1, (As many young men who survived experienced after the war) was awarded medals for bravery and ended up a prisoner of war in an Italian camp. It is in this camp that Wittgenstein wrote the finishing touches, from the copious notebooks written during the war, of his only published philosophical treatise, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The biography describes the philosopher's war experiences, his time as a prisoner of war and his eventual return to Vienna, where he gave away his massive inheritance, attempted to publish his book, attended teachers college to instruct elementary school and became a gardener for a Catholic monastery.
Unfortunately, the biography ends in 1921, a year before the first publication of the English translation of the Tractutas. I believe in the "philosophical biography" as it can present the family and cultural influences on the philosopher, revealing better insight into the particular ideas and thought processes of that philosopher.
This is a prize winning biography giving the reader greater insight into a unique and extraordinary human being.
It's good to see Brian McGuinness's biography of the first half of Ludwig Wittgenstein's life back in print. There are other worthwhile books on Wittgenstein's life and thought, but none is a substitute for this book.
"Young Ludwig" is the result of years of McGuinness' own research. It draws on his personal discussions and correspondence with members of Wittgenstein's family and friends during which, he tells us in a new preface, he was "reconstructing Wittgenstein's life along with them." This biography shows that he also meticulously tracked down a wide variety of acquaintances and people who had crossed paths with Wittgenstein and Russell. He seems to have ferretted out an amazing variety of documents and other scattered scraps of evidence from unusual places as well as from the usual kinds of sources. The book is densely detailed; even people who know a lot about Wittgenstein from other sources will learn new things about him and his times from this book. (I know this because of the "Really -- I didn't know that!" reactions I often get when mentioning things I've learned from this book to fellow philosophers.)
The book also benefits from McGuinness' role as a philosopher. He has authored many papers on Wittgenstein's philosophy (some recently collected in Approaches to Wittgenstein (Routledge 2002)) and edited anthologies related to it. Young Ludwig exhibits McGuinness' intimate acquaintance with Wittgenstein's intellectual interests and philosophical endeavors during his early years. Along with another Oxford philosopher (David Pears), McGuinness produced a new translation of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. In that related project, his philosophical work was accompanied by substantial historical research: he located, scrutinized, and tried to date and order such manuscripts as could be discovered of Wittgenstein's previous attempts at the work. He dug up and edited and/or translated many works related to Wittgenstein's life and work previously unavailable in English: essays on political economy by Karl Wittgenstein (Ludwig's father), popular scientific essays by Ludwig Boltzmann (whom Ludwig admired and wanted to study physics with), and many, many others. Thus, his work on Wittgenstein scholarship is monumental: writing about Wittgenstein involved establishing a whole collection of sources related to his life and work.
I also happen to like this book a lot. I personally prefer the kind of biography McGuinness has written. You read it slowly, lingering over the groupings of artifacts and remembrances he has brought together and leads you through as a patient guide. You begin to realize how vast the collection is, how much there is to be put together. He does not tell you what to make of everything --- although (as he put it in the preface to the first edition) he does attempt to present Wittgenstein's life "as something capable of being seen as a unity". He pauses at times to address the reader on the significance of a certain detail, on the ambiguities involved in the craft of biography and on more general conundrums involved in making sense of another human being. He tells us not only about his subject, but how he came to know his subject, generously sharing his finds with the reader. It is somehow extremely scholarly and humbly personal at the same time. I like his style because it allows the reader some mental freedom to develop his or her own picture of things from what is known. McGuinness tells us in the new preface that his interest "is not in causes but in effects, in seeing how Wittgenstein (the young Wittgenstein, in this volume) lived out the situation he was in." You will want to have this book for the sheer amount of information it contains (it has an index, too), regardless of your taste in biographical style.
When this book was out of print, I snapped up used copies to loan to students and colleagues. (I would not part with my own.) Now I can tell them what I would tell anyone interested in Wittgenstein's life or early analytic philosophy: we are very fortunate to have this labor of love available to us, and in an affordable edition, too --- how great that now anyone can go get a copy!
