Wittgenstein's Nachlass

On his death in 1951, the Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein left behind a significant volume of some 20,000 pages which were written between 1913 and 1951. This is called "Wittgenstein's Nachlass" and contains Wittgenstein's philosophical notebooks, manuscripts, typescripts and dictations. At the time of Wittgenstein's death this body of work was largely unknown. In his will Wittgenstein appointed three literary heirs - Rush Rhees, Elizabeth Anscombe and Georg Henrik von Wright - to publish from the Nachlass as they thought fit. This leads to fascinating questions about the content of Wittgenstein's philosophy and how its perception was affected by the literary heirs' editorial work in bringing the content to a wider public through publication such as Philosophical Investigations (1953) or Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics (1956). As the practice of bringing the Nachlass to modern readers continues through digital editing, the deep issues about the relation between the meaning of philosophical writings and their interpretation plays out in more complex formats, for example, via interactive digital media. This page links to WAB's activities and projects on making Wittgenstein's Nachlass better available and researchable. This includes, since 2016, open access to the entirety of WAB's Nachlass transcriptions and facsimiles.

On October 31, 2017, the philosophical Nachlass of Ludwig Wittgenstein was inscribed to the UNESCO Memory of the World list. We are proud and happy that we are central in giving the world access to the philosophical Nachlass of Ludwig Wittgenstein.

A sortable table of Wittgenstein's Nachlass and publications thereof can be found here.

Ongoing:

• (2016-) Access to entire Nachlass through Interactive dynamic presentation (IDP) site.
• (2013-) Wittgenstein Nachlass timeline, in cooperation with Net7.
• (2012-) Semantic faceted search and browsing (SFB) of the Nachlass.
• (2011-) WiTTFind: Search the Nachlass, in cooperation with CIS [NB: Currently available only for 5000 pages].
• (2010-) Table of Nachlass remarks. Sortable spreadsheet (*.csv) with metadata for each of Wittgenstein's Nachlass remarks.
• (2009-) Nachlass facsimile on Wittgenstein Source Bergen Nachlass Edition (BNE).
• (2009-) Wittgenstein Source.
• (2009-) Nachlass text editions on Wittgenstein Source [NB: Currently available for 5000 pages only].
• (2009-) Working towards a Wittgenstein ontology.

Completed:

• Nachlass metadata ingestion to Europeana, in cooperation with DM2E project (2012-2014)
• Culture and Value Revisited (C&V 2006-2008)
• HyperWittgenstein. Samples of Nachlass editions and XML transcriptions (2004-16)
• Wittgenstein MS 115 in APE (Ms-115ape 2004)
• Wittgenstein MS 115 in GABEK (Ms-115gabek 2004)
• Using XML to generate research tools for Wittgenstein scholars by collaborative groupwork (Ms-101 2004)
• Wittgenstein's Nachlass. The Bergen Electronic Edition (BEE 2000)
• Wittgenstein TS 201a online (Ts-201a 1996)
• Wittgenstein MS 115 online (Ms-115 1996)