Wittgenstein Quote

Ha! What a quote. I have heard his name but not much else. Presumably he was either religious or maybe more likely "Humanist" of the "good without God" variety? I am just speculating with out bothering to go to wikipedia....

This anecdote seems suggestive!

But Wittgenstein was by all accounts deeply troubled. He was a tortured, misunderstood genius. 3 of his 4 elder brothers died by suicide, so you've got profound misery in circulation there.

He wrote expressly that he was not happy--that unhappiness was one of the great problems of his life. He had need of Epicurus:

"Vain are the words of that philosopher that do not relieve any human suffering."

I don't agree that Wittgenstein was much of a materialist. He says as much in the beginning of the Tractatus: "The world is the totality of facts, not of things." (Emphasis mine)

He goes on to insist that some facts are simply mystical and beyond cognition (or language) and that people who have mystical revelations are in fact accessing some sort of hidden or unspeakable truth.

My gosh if three of your four brothers committed suicide I can't imagine that didn't hang like a sword of doom over every minute of his life, and that would have had an effect on anyone.