Ludwig Wittgenstein joined the army the day after his native Austria-Hungary declared war on Russia in August 1914. He had been serving for almost three months when he received word that his brother Paul, a concert pianist, had lost his right arm in battle. “Again and again,” he wrote in his notebook, “I have to think of poor Paul, who has so suddenly been deprived of his vocation! How terrible! What philosophical outlook would it take to overcome such a thing? Can it even happen except through suicide!”
Wittgenstein was an unusual philosopher. He became obsessed with the foundations of logic while an engineering student and presented himself to Bertrand Russell in Cambridge, ready to solve all its problems. His intent was to provide an account of logic that was free from paradox and his solution came in the form of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, sent to Russell from the Italian prisoner-of-war camp in which Wittgenstein was held at the end of the first world war.
The Tractatus is written as a series of numbered propositions, closer in form to modernist poetry than philosophical treatise. Its central ideas can be traced back to the notebooks Wittgenstein kept during the early years of the conflict. The right-hand side of each spread was used to set out his evolving thoughts on logic and language. The left-hand side was saved for his personal notes, written in a simple code in which the letters of the alphabet were reversed (Z = A, and so on).
It is these private remarks that are published in English here for the first time, edited and translated by Marjorie Perloff. They range from complaints about the other soldiers – “a bunch of swine! No enthusiasm for anything, unbelievable crudity, stupidity & malice!” – to the number of times he masturbates (“Yesterday, for the first time in 3 weeks”). He recounts his depression – “like a stone it presses on my chest. Every duty turns into an unbearable burden” – and his living conditions. These are accompanied by constant updates on how his work is going. And by “work”, he always means philosophy. “Remember how great the blessing of work is!” he writes. This work is the focus; the war, a backdrop.
Wittgenstein’s solution to the problems of logic was largely in place by 1916. And had his contribution to philosophy ended there, the Tractatus might be unknown beyond that particular sub-field. But the book ends with a series of puzzling remarks on ethics, value and the meaning of life – remarks that Wittgenstein thought central to his project but which both confused and frustrated his first readers. It is here that the Notebooks tantalise. For in the material on the left-hand pages Wittgenstein first begins to reflect on the inner self, on God’s presence in the world, on what is required for life to make sense. It can sometimes seem irrelevant to the discussion of logic taking place on the right-hand side. “Have thought a great deal about all sorts of things,” he writes, “but curiously enough cannot establish their connection to my mathematical train of thought.”
And then in 1916, facing death on the frontline, the connection is forged. Paradox in logic arises when you try to say those things that can only be shown. But that applies equally to God, the self and meaning. As he writes on a left-hand page, “What cannot be said, cannot be said”. The purview of ethics, like the purview of logic, lies outside the realm of what can be stated in language. And thus we get to the seventh and final statement of the Tractatus: whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
For those who know the Tractatus, there is some interest in seeing how concerns that start life among the personal remarks slowly drift over to the facing page. For those who do not care about these details, there is interest in seeing first-hand the obsessive focus of a philosophical genius – one who thinks constantly about his work, even under enemy fire. When he writes of “laying siege”, it is to philosophical problems; when he wants to “spill [his] blood before this fortress”, it is in the context of logic.
Even the masturbation is hard to separate from the philosophy: it happens when work is going well. For Wittgenstein, it seems, masturbation and philosophy are both expressions of living in the face of death.
Perloff sees allusion to sexual affairs in some of Wittgenstein’s taciturn remarks. He records evening visits to the baths in Kraków and notes, somewhat matter-of-factly at the start of a new year, that “my moral standing is now much lower than it was at Easter”. More affecting is his unambiguous love and desire for his Cambridge friend David Pinsent. “A letter from David!! I kissed it. Answered right away.” Pinsent didn’t survive the war. He was a test pilot in Farnborough and died in an accident in May 1918. The Tractatus – one of the most significant works in 20th-century philosophy – is dedicated to his memory.
• Private Notebooks 1914-1916 is published by WW Norton (£18.99). To support the Guardian and the Observer buy a copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
