Phenomenological Reviews

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177132

The original sinn of Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics

Jaakko Hintikka

pp. 145-177

Abstract

The playful title of this paper has a serious purpose. We cannot understand Ludwig Wittgenstein, the philosopher, without understanding Ludwig Wittgenstein, the moral agent (and the moral patient). Wittgenstein himself would have agreed. He frequently couched his discussion of philosophical problems in moral or quasi-moral terms. He called Frank Ramsey a bourgeois thinker. He compared mathematicians' presumed reaction to his criticisms to a patient's resentful response to Freudian psychoanalysis. He expressed his disapproval of the intellectual level of philosophical journals by comparing them unfavorably with American pulp detective magazines. When Russell praised Norbert Wiener as a mathematician, Wittgenstein's reply was curt: "If Wiener is good at mathematics, mathematics is no good". It is amply clear that set theory was a more serious sin for Wittgenstein than sodomy.

Publication details

Published in:

Hintikka Jaakko (1996) Ludwig Wittgenstein: half-truths and one-and-a-half-truths. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 145-177

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4020-4109-9_7

Full citation:

Hintikka Jaakko (1996) The original sinn of Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics, In: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Dordrecht, Springer, 145–177.