Wittgenstein 1929–31: Conservatism and Jewishness

Abstract

When, at the beginning of 1929, Wittgenstein resolved to live for a time once more in Cambridge and to concern himself again with philosophical problems, the outlines of the thoughts which he was to develop gradually over the next twenty years were by no means clear to him. Although the Weltanschauung, the general attitude which pervades his later reflections is clearly present in the manuscript notes that he made at this time, there is here almost no connection between the elements of this general disposition and theoretical argument, no interplay between attitudes and concept-formation. Wittgenstein grappled with problems in the first few months of 1929 in a manner which appears – in the light of what he was later able to achieve – as a directionless wandering about. He was indeed often conscious of this, and it filled him with despair. “Once more in Cambridge. How strange. It sometimes appears to me”, he wrote on the 2nd of February in his notebook, “as if time had been turned back. ... I don’t know what is awaiting me. But something will tum up! If the spirit does not leave me. .... The time here should have been – or should be – in fact a preparation for something. I have to become clear about something” (MS 105, p. 2). And a few days later: “Everything that I am now writing in philosophy is more or less insipid stuff. But I still believe it possible that it should get better” (ibid.).