"There are two great men in history with whom he [Wittgenstein] somewhat resembles. One was Pascal, other was Tolstoy. Pascal was a mathematician of genius, but abandoned mathematics for piety. Tolstoy sacrificed his genius as a writer to a kind of bogus humility which made him prefer peasants to educated men and Uncle Tom's Cabin to all other works of fiction. Wittgenstein, who could play with metaphysical intricacies as cleverly as Pascal with Hexagons or Tolstoy with emperors, threw away this talent and debased himself before the peasants — in each case from an impulse of pride. I admired Wittgenstein's Tractatus but not his later work, which seemed to me to involve an abnegation of his own best talent very similar to those of Pascal and Tolstoy.... [M]ental torments which made him and Pascal and Tolstoy pardonable in spite of their treachery to their own greatness."
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University of Cambridge facultyPhilosophers from the United KingdomPhilosophers from AustriaAcademics from AustriaPeople from Vienna
Original Language: English
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Sources
Bertrand Russell, My Philosophical Development (1959)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein
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Ludwig Wittgenstein
1889 – 1951
österreichischer Philosoph
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