Wittgenstein Lectures

Wittgenstein Lectures
Name	Wittgenstein Lectures
Subject	Ludwig Wittgenstein
Dates	1920s–1950s
Venue	Cambridge, Bergen, Vienna
Notable	Ludwig Wittgenstein, G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell

Contents

Wittgenstein Lectures

The Wittgenstein Lectures comprise a corpus of public and private lecture courses delivered by Ludwig Wittgenstein across sessions at University of Cambridge, Trinity College, Cambridge, Queens' College, Cambridge, University of Oslo, Hajek? and other venues during the 1920s–1950s, forming a central strand in 20th‑century analytic philosophy tied to figures such as Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore, Josef Frank, Moritz Schlick. The lectures influenced movements associated with Vienna Circle, Cambridge School, Ordinary language philosophy, Logical Positivism, and institutions like Trinity College and the University of Vienna. The manuscripts and stenographic notes circulated among colleagues including C. K. Ogden, Rush Rhees, Elizabeth Anscombe, G. H. von Wright, and students such as G. H. Hardy? and Norman Malcolm.

Overview

Wittgenstein delivered lecture courses that addressed topics spanning the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, later remarks that fed into work published as Philosophical Investigations, and intermediate materials linked to texts like On Certainty, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, Blue and Brown Books, and engagements with figures such as A. J. Ayer, Rudolf Carnap, Karl Popper, Friedrich Waismann, John Austin, and Paul Grice. The lecture corpus exists in manuscript, typescript, and student shorthand notes preserved in archives at institutions such as Wittgenstein Archive at the University of Cambridge, Trinity College Library, Bodleian Library, and the British Library. The circulating texts affected debates at conferences including the International Congress of Philosophy and seminars hosted by Vienna Circle and the Society for Pure Logic.

Wittgenstein's lectures emerged amid interactions with early 20th‑century intellectuals including Bertrand Russell at Trinity College, Cambridge, G. E. Moore at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and continental interlocutors like Ludwig Boltzmann, Edmund Husserl, Gottlob Frege, Ernst Mach, and Arthur Schopenhauer. The post‑World War I milieu featured institutions and events such as University of Cambridge reforms, the Vienna Circle, the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, and the revival of analytic work at University of Cambridge and University of Vienna. Wartime and interwar encounters with scholars including Karl Popper at the Berggasse 19 milieu and with mathematicians like Bertrand Russell and Frank Ramsey shaped the evolution from the logicist phase visible in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus toward the later ordinary‑language emphasis seen in lectures transcribed by Rush Rhees, G. H. von Wright, Elizabeth Anscombe, Norman Malcolm, and G. E. Moore.

Major courses were delivered at venues including University of Cambridge (1930s–1940s), University of Oslo (1930), University of Bergen (postwar visits), and private seminars at Trinity College, Cambridge and the Town and Gown Club. Prominent series include Cambridge lectures on Philosophical Investigations themes, lectures on logic hosted alongside figures like C. I. Lewis, Alonzo Church, Kurt Gödel, W. V. Quine, Michael Dummett, and seminars attended by students connected to Oxford University and Harvard University visiting faculties. Guest lectures and exchanges intersected with events like the International Congress of Mathematicians and symposia where contemporaries such as John von Neumann, Alan Turing, Norbert Wiener, Rudolf Carnap, and Hans Hahn were active.

Lecture content ranged across semantics, rule‑following, private language, certainties, logic, mathematics, psychology, and aesthetics, engaging texts and interlocutors including Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Philosophical Investigations, On Certainty, Remarks on Colour, and exchanges with G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, Rudolf Carnap, Karl Popper, Friedrich Waismann, Norman Malcolm, and Elizabeth Anscombe. Recurring themes include critique of representationalism as in responses to Gottlob Frege and Ludwig Boltzmann influences, accounts of meaning influenced by exchanges with John Wisdom and Gilbert Ryle, and explorations of arithmetic and foundation debates connected to Bertrand Russell, Alfred North Whitehead, David Hilbert, and Kurt Gödel. The lectures often corrected or supplemented printed works discussed in venues such as Wittgenstein Archive at the University of Cambridge, Bodleian Library, and forums attended by scholars from University of Oxford, Princeton University, Harvard University, and University of Chicago.

Transcriptions were produced by students and collaborators including Rush Rhees, G. H. von Wright, Elizabeth Anscombe, Norman Malcolm, G. E. Moore, C. K. Ogden, and later editors at archives such as the Wittgenstein Archive at the University of Cambridge and publishers linked to Blackwell Publishing, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and academic series edited by figures like G. H. von Wright and Rush Rhees. Key published collections, typographical editions, and critical editions trace textual variants between shorthand notes, original manuscripts, and posthumous compilations related to works such as Philosophical Investigations, Blue and Brown Books, and On Certainty. Editorial debates involved scholars including Saul Kripke, G. E. M. Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Peter Hacker, Hans-Johann Glock, Marie McGinn, and institutions like King's College London and University of Cambridge.

The lectures shaped subsequent analytic philosophy through influence on scholars and movements tied to Ordinary language philosophy, Logical Positivism, Postanalytic philosophy, and institutions such as University of Oxford, Harvard University, Princeton University, University of California, Berkeley, and London School of Economics. Reception history records debates from critics and advocates including Saul Kripke, Peter Strawson, Gilbert Ryle, J. L. Austin, P. F. Strawson?, Michael Dummett, John Searle, Donald Davidson, Willard Van Orman Quine, Hilary Putnam, and historians of philosophy at archives like the Bodleian Library and the Wittgenstein Archive at the University of Cambridge. The lectures continue to inform contemporary work across seminars, conferences, and curricula at venues like Moral Philosophy seminars at Oxford, Philosophy of Language programs at MIT, and centers including the Institute for Advanced Study and the Centre for Philosophical Studies.