Books

Wittgenstein and Judaism by Ranjit Chatterjee

Ralph Blumenau finds Ranjit Chatterjee sympathetic to Wittgenstein’s Jewish side.

The first quarter of this original and thought-provoking reading of Wittgenstein is not directly concerned with his attitude to Judaism, but is all the same, an essential preliminary to what follows. In these pages Dr Chatterjee establishes three aspects of the general character of Wittgenstein’s philosophy. Firstly, he devotes some time to challenging the idea that there were two distinct Wittgenstein philosophies. He is often supposed to have abandoned the philosophy of the Tractatus for that of the Philosophical Investigations. Chatterjee’s contention that the two books really go together is supported by Wittgenstein himself, who expressed the hope that they could be published together in one volume.

…