![]() And it struck me as the way to go in making drawings for Word Book. I’ve done what I call “left-handed path” drawings before. Word Book is an utterly unique work from a formidable philosopher who ended up learning from his students about what it means to understand the world, and a testament to how a mind is changed, if one is willing to let go of a certain idea of who one happens to be. He reconsidered his entire philosophy after his experience. But it is also a revealing document of Wittgenstein’s own mind changing as a result of teaching (and learning) from children. It consists of words and concepts (5,968 terms in all) chosen by Wittgenstein as part of his curriculum. Word Book is the first English translation of Wörterbuch. But one was too expensive, and the other was too small and badly put together. There were only two dictionaries available then. During this time, it occurred to him that a good “dictionary” would help his young students learn. He once said he was “tired of prostituting his mind for smart people.” So in 1921 he abandoned Cambridge and his privileged philosophical career, and become an elementary school teacher in rural Austria.įor six years he taught poor kids in grades four through six. But Wittgenstein was deeply unhappy there. He was teaching at Cambridge, and was expected to be the heir apparent to Bertrand Russell. By the early 1920s, Wittgenstein was already famous for his first book, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. He wrote it in 1925, during a time when he was just beginning to change, as a person and a philosopher. It has never been translated into English. But the more I learned about the circumstances that led to him writing this textbook, which was originally titled Wörterbuch für Volksschulen (or Dictionary for Elementary Schools), the more curious I became. I have never felt close to Wittgenstein’s work: too axiomatic, too bloodless. More than ten years ago, I heard a rumor about how Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote a textbook for children.
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