Wittgenstein was eccentric, and the eccentricities are usually reported without conclusion.
But the eccentric way he lived is important to understanding him.
Wittgenstein said, over and again, that we can’t talk about ethical and religious ideas. We can only live values. Whereof we cannot speak we can put into practice.
Wittgenstein held that making judgments about a person’s ethical pronouncements was pointless. But if you look at a person’s life, you can get a sense of whether you’d want to live that way.
One remarkable feature of Wittgenstein’s life was his simplicity and frugality. When the American philosopher Norman Malcolm visited him in Cambridge, he found him living in college rooms.
Wittgenstein’s rooms in Whewell’s Court were austerely furnished. There was no easy chair or reading lamp. There were no ornaments, paintings, or photographs. The walls were bare. In his living-room were two canvas chairs and a plain wooden chair, and in his bedroom a canvas cot. An old-fashioned iron heating stove was in the centre of the living-room. There were some flowers in a window box, and one or two flower pots in the room. There was a metal safe in which he kept his manuscripts, and a card table on which he did his writing. The rooms were always scrupulously clean.
Wittgenstein grew up in one of the wealthiest families in Europe. The house was a mansion if not a palace. Servants were everywhere, bumping into the powerful and famous people who visited. Brahms came to dinner. Klimt painted a portrait of Wittgenstein’s sister.
It’s quite a contrast: the place where Wittgenstein grew up vs. the place where he chose to live. It’s quite a contrast in values.
This frugality or simplicity was not Wittgenstein’s religion or his way of life. It was one of many features of his life, just one example of the way he lived.
The way he went about living reflected his values. That gave his life a kind of integrity that’s not common.
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