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He wrote two complete philosophies that contradict each other. Both became influential. He disowned the first while writing the second.
He said: if a theory cannot be proved wrong, it isn't science. That one sentence changed philosophy of science forever.
Connection
Ludwig Wittgenstein rivals in Vienna Karl Popper — Popper and Wittgenstein occupied opposite poles in Viennese philosophical culture. At their famous Cambridge meeting in 1946, Wittgenstein allegedly brandished a poker. Whether the story is true, they genuinely disagreed about whether philosophical problems are real.
Ideas
Words
“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”
“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”
“Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.”
“Science must begin with myths and with the criticism of myths.”
Key Moments
1914-21
Tractatus written during the First World War
1929
Returns to philosophy at Cambridge
29 April 1951
Death in Cambridge
1934
The Logic of Scientific Discovery in Vienna
1946-69
LSE professorship, center of British intellectual life
Works
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
The Open Society and Its Enemies