Abstract

This volume includes nearly everything contained in Cambridge Letters, supplemented by Wittgenstein’s exchanges with Sraffa, by correspondence with many of his students, and by various documents pertaining to his status in the University and to the Moral Sciences meetings. Throughout, there are notes by McGuinness that provide details about persons, places, and events mentioned in the texts. Altogether, the volume offers rich rewards for both students of Wittgenstein and those interested in the interplay of the times.Wittgenstein was Austrian to the core, as is evident in his admiration for such distinctly Viennese cultural icons as Nestroy, Grillparzer, Labor, Weininger, and Kraus—none of whom was familiar in the circles within which he moved in Cambridge. In his introduction, however, McGuinness makes clear that Cambridge, not Vienna, was the place where Wittgenstein could work. There were no roots in Cambridge, compared to those in Vienna, but growth, it seems, had to take place away from the roots. During his first stay in Cambridge Wittgenstein established connections with the giants of the time: Russell, Moore, and Keynes, all of whom had been active members of the Apostles, and who