Wittgenstein in 90 Minutes

“If we accept Wittgenstein’s word for it,” Paul Strathern writes, “he is the last philosopher. In his view, philosophy in the traditional sense was finished.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein was a superb logician who distrusted language & sought to solve the problems of philosophy by reducing them to logic. All else– metaphysics, aesthetics, ethics, finally even philosophy itself–was excluded. They were all wrong, he argued. “What we cannot speak about,” he declared, “we must pass over in silence.” In Wittgenstein in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of Wittgenstein’s life & ideas, & explains their influence on the struggle to understand existence in the world. The book also includes selections from Wittgenstein’s work; a brief list of suggested reading for those who wish to push further; & chronologies that place Wittgenstein within his own age & in the broader scheme of philosophy.