Not only were Martin Heidegger and Ludwig Wittgenstein both born in 1889, but the year 1911 saw an enduring passion for philosophy kindled in both men. Yet their backgrounds were starkly different: Wittgenstein was the product of a middle-class Viennese family while Heidegger was born into modest circumstances in a small provincial town in Baden. Both are considered among the 20th century’s most important thinkers, and their respective engagement with National Socialism (Hitler, too, was born in 1989) and the catastrophes of that epoch became a focus of both men’s work.
In this brilliantly researched book, bestselling author Manfred Geier traces the biographies of both philosophers and describes how different their biographies were, and how disparate their thinking. Heidegger’s major work was entitled Sein und Zeit, while Wittgenstein’s best-known work is the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Heidegger’s thought became more general and abstract over the course of his life; he left notions of Dasein behind and concentrated on lending Sein a voice. Wittgenstein, on the other hand, engaged in an increasingly detailed and contrastive examination of everyday language, placing this in the context of the ways that humans live.
