Abstract

I shall discuss my forthcoming edition/translation of Wittgenstein’s Private Coded War Notebooks of 1914–16. My first question will be: Why have these Notebooks never been published? We have Notebooks 1914–16, but this only replicates the right-hand (recto) pages of the Notebooks. The Geheime Tagebücher by Wilhelm Baum is out of print so that there is not even a German text, and there has never been a translation. Why? My speculative answer has to do with issues of nationalism and Wittgenstein’s sexuality. I will then go on to discuss the importance of these Notebooks for our understanding of the Tractatus. What begins as a treatise on logic turns into a very different book as a result of Wittgenstein’s experience at the Eastern Front. By the summer of 1915 Wittgenstein realizes that he can’t find “das erlösende Wort” that he has been looking for and he turns from equations regarding the truth tables to larger questions about ontology, about life and death. The Private Notebook on the left-hand page begins to come together with the right-hand one or public one: there are remarks on the verso that one would expect to find on the recto, and so one can follow the process whereby the Ur-Tractatus came into being. The personal struggle and transformation of the young Wittgenstein is central to his philosophy.