War Notes (1914-1917)

Author: (Austrian) Ludwig Wittgenstein, translated and compiled by Han Lin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-03-04
Features: The notes (Manuscripts 101, 102, 103) of Wittgenstein that I have compiled consist of two parts as a whole. One part is the so-called private section, which records Wittgenstein's life and psychological state during his military service, especially his views on the world and life. The other part is the so-called philosophical section, which records his pure philosophical reflections during his service. The philosophical part of these notes was published in German-English parallel form as early as 1961: Notebooks 1914—1916, ed. G. H. von Wright and G. E. M. Anscombe, (Oxford: Blackwell, 2ed. 1979). However, the private section was not published in its complete form in Spanish (German-Spanish-Catalan parallel edition) until 1985, and in 1991, a pure German edition was published in Vienna: Geheime Tagebücher 1914—1916, ed. W. Baum (Wien: Turia and Kant). But these two parts originally belonged to a whole, and they are mutually complementary in content. Publishing them separately cannot accurately reflect their original form and is not conducive to readers deeply understanding Wittgenstein's early thought. Additionally, there are many problems with the editing of these two versions. The editing issues in the philosophical section are particularly severe, as the editors made very arbitrary choices in some places. In 2000, the electronic version Wittgenstein's Nachlass (Wittgenstein's Posthumous Works), compiled over more than ten years by the Wittgenstein Archive at the University of Bergen in Norway, was published by Oxford University Press. It includes all existing works of Wittgenstein in various forms: notes, manuscripts, typescripts. Both the philosophical and private sections of the notes we have compiled are included in this version. It does a good job of reproducing the original appearance. Of course, there are also some minor editorial errors. In the Chinese edition, I combined the philosophical and private sections into one and changed the title to War Notes: 1914—1917, because the notes also include three notes from 1917. During the compilation process, I based myself on the facsimile copies of the original manuscripts preserved in the Wittgenstein Archive at the Department of Philosophy, University of Helsinki, Finland, while also referring to the above three versions and correcting the editorial errors in them. This book is the wartime notes written by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein from 1914 to 1917. It records the author's life and psychological state at the time, as well as his reflections on philosophical issues. This book is a key document for understanding Wittgenstein's early thought.