Introducing Wittgenstein

Ludwig Wittgenstein has captured the popular imagination as the modern Socrates, the fascinating master of enigmatic reasoning who, with his icy logic, convinced Bertrand Russell that there was a hippo in the room. He is an icon of modernism, but what did he really say?In Introducing Wittgenstein we meet a strange man, a rigorous logician who prized poetry above philosophy, who inherited a fortune and gave it away, who sought death in the trenches of the First World War, a great teacher who advised his students to give up philosophy, a solitary man who nonetheless inspired lifelong friendships. We are also given a clear and accessible guide to Wittgenstein's central work, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, a glacier of logic, and his later, friendlier Philosophical Investigations. Here is an accessible introduction for anyone baffled by the complexity or intrigued by the reputation of this great 20th-century philosopher.