Movements of Thought - by Ludwig Wittgenstein (Hardcover)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

Wittgenstein's diary from the 1930s contains the raw material for what could have been an incomparable spiritual autobiography. For the first time in an affordable edition, the volume includes updated and expanded editorial notes on Wittgenstein's many allusions, and an introduction by Ray Monk on the larger arc of Wittgenstein's life and work.

Review Quotes

These diaries--brilliant and tortured--offer profound insight into the private world of the anti-philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, the deepest and most self-critical philosophical thinker of the twentieth century. Utterly fascinating--as well as indispensable for anyone interested in the man, his thought, or the intimate connections between the two.

What would it look like to truly face yourself? To give a ruthless self-accounting, to set to dismantling what's unworthy, and to work doggedly towards remolding whatever remains? In this profound and intimate diary Wittgenstein gives us a glimpse--and it's both inspiring and terrifying. It embodies a demand that we change our lives.

Wittgenstein, the man and the philosopher, is a Promethean, puzzling mind. Both his personality and his philosophizing, as Ray Monk superbly recounts in his introduction, emerged from a highly peculiar way of systematizing self-examination. This diary exemplifies that splendidly in a crucial phase of his later development.

About the Author

James C. Klagge is professor of philosophy at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Alfred Nordmann professor of philosophy at Darmstadt Technical University and Visiting Centenary Professor at the University of South Carolina.