Wittgenstein: The Crooked Roads

by William Lyons

Difficult to know and impossible to forget, Ludwig Wittgenstein is remembered as the greatest philosopher of the twentieth century. He published only one book in his lifetime - a masterpiece that moulded the evolution of philosophy and baffled his teachers. Spanning most of his life, from his early encounters with Bertrand Russell in Cambridge to a final trip to New York via the Russian Front, The Crooked Roads tracks the journeys of a tortured soul.

William Lyons, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Trinity College, Dublin, has written a moving and philosophically acute journey through successive decades of Wittgenstein's career. The play received its world premiere on 19 April 2011 at the Riverside Studios.

Genres: Plays

88 pages, Paperback

First published June 18, 2015

Reviews

[James Klagge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Received an advanced copy, and finished it in one morning. An engaging play by a philosopher-turned-dramatist about a dramatic philosopher. The interest of Wittgenstein's life threatens to overwhelm the interest of his philosophy. So it is that dramatic renderings, like this play, or Derek Jarman's film, show us much more about his life and personality than about his work. But that is what most non-philosophers would find most interesting. In Jarman's film the philosophy is almost ridiculed (as with Aristophanes' play about Socrates). In this brief play the philosophy is not a focus. There is a scene from a class in 1938 in which Wittgenstein agonizes over the different uses of "same"--what we would now call numerical identity and qualitative indiscernibility, and what we would call types and tokens. This is not in fact something he did specifically agonize over, but it is a good illustrative discussion for the layperson. As far as Wittgenstein's life and personality, the play shows what a deep yet difficult person he was. He left indelible marks (sometimes injuries) on those he knew. The best line in the play is the last one, in which the author handles Wittgenstein's dying words: "Tell them I had a wonderful life.": When this is reported to her, Lady Ottoline Morrell remarks: "But what about THEM?"