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WITTGENSTEIN, Ludwig Josef Johann (1889-1951). 'Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung', in: Annalen der Naturphilosophie. Leipzig: Reinhold Berger for Verlag Unesma G.m.b.H., 1921. Volume XIV, parts 3/4, pp.185-262.
8° (224 x 158mm). Line diagrams and letterpress truth-tables. Volume title and index bound in at the end of the part. Loosely-inserted one-leaf publisher's advertisement of Art. Institut Orell Füssli, Zurich. (Very light occasional spotting, some leaves lightly browned.) Original orange printed wrappers with woodcut illustration (slightly darkened at edges, minor chipping at edges of wrappers and foot of spine), modern cloth portfolio with gilt lettering-piece on upper cover.
FIRST EDITION. A FRESH COPY OF THE RARE GERMAN EDITION OF WITTGENSTEIN'S TRACTATUS, IN THE ORIGINAL WRAPPERS. Wittgenstein's attempts to find a publisher for the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus were repeatedly frustrated, until Bertrand Russell, whose reputation as a philosopher was firmly established, offered to write an introduction to the work as an incentive to reassure publishers wary of the work's potential profitability.
In 1921 Russell persuaded the editor C.K. Ogden to publish an English translation in the Kegan Paul series The International Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific Method; in tandem with Russell, his friend Dorothy Wrinch was independently searching for a publisher. Following a rejection from the Cambridge University Press, she contacted three German journals, including Wilhelm Ostwald's Annalen der Naturphilosophie. The only acceptance she received was from Ostwald, who replied to Wrinch that he would publish the work because of Russell's introduction (which appears in German on pp.186-198 of the present copy); as Ostwald wrote to Wrinch, 'in any other case I should have declined to accept the article' (R. Monk Ludwig Wittgenstein (London: 1990), p.203). However, the text that appeared in Annalen der Naturphilosophie was riddled with errors; Wittgenstein had used the symbols available on a normal typewriter in place of those employed in Russellian logic, and Ostwald had simply them set as type--rather than substituting the correct symbols--and Russell 'evidently had little time to read the proofs carefully, and in any case the book had already gone to print before he had received them' (Monk op. cit., p.204). Wittgenstein (who never saw proofs of the work) evidently foresaw problems prior to publication, as his letter to Russell of 28 November 1921 makes clear: 'Wenn auch Ostwald ein Erzscharlatan ist! Wenn er es nur nicht verstümmelt! Liest Du die korrekturen? Dann bitte sei so lieb und gib acht, daß er es genau so druckt, wie es bei mir steht. Ich traue dem Ostwald zu, daß er die Arbeit nach seinem Geschmack, etwa nach seiner blödsinnigen Orthographie, verändert' (B. McGuiness and G.H. von Wright (eds) Ludwig Wittgenstein: Cambridge Letters (Oxford: 1996), p.172).
Ostwald did not send Wittgenstein any copies of the work when it was published, and when Wittgenstein heard from Russell that the issue of the journal was in print he had to resort to asking Ludwig Hänsel to search the bookshops of Vienna for a copy. The search was unsuccessful, and Wittgenstein did not see a copy until C.K. Ogden sent him one in April 1922. His earlier fears about Ostwald's capacity for folly were fully justified--for example, where Wittgenstein used an exclamation mark in place of a Scheffer stroke in the present edition, it was rendered as an exclamation mark, thus: 'p!q. !. p!q.'(proposition 5.1311). Wittgenstein was infuriated by the crassness of the errors introduced by Ostwald, exclaiming in a letter to Paul Engelmann that 'Diesen Druck betrachte ich aber als Raubdruck, er ist voller Fehler' (B.F. McGuiness, T. Nyberg and G.H. von Wright (eds) Prototractatus (London: 1971), p.28). One interesting aspect of the present volume is the appearance of the truth-tables on pp.224 and 225; 'the truth-table is Wittgenstein's only formal device to have found its way into logic books' (H.-J. Glock A Wittgenstein Dictionary (Oxford: 1996), p.368), and this is the first use of them by Wittgenstein in print. Only one copy of Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung is recorded at auction by ABPC since 1975. Christie's are grateful to Dr Maximilian de Gaynesford for his kind assistance in the cataloguing of this and the following two lots.
8° (224 x 158mm). Line diagrams and letterpress truth-tables. Volume title and index bound in at the end of the part. Loosely-inserted one-leaf publisher's advertisement of Art. Institut Orell Füssli, Zurich. (Very light occasional spotting, some leaves lightly browned.) Original orange printed wrappers with woodcut illustration (slightly darkened at edges, minor chipping at edges of wrappers and foot of spine), modern cloth portfolio with gilt lettering-piece on upper cover.
FIRST EDITION. A FRESH COPY OF THE RARE GERMAN EDITION OF WITTGENSTEIN'S TRACTATUS, IN THE ORIGINAL WRAPPERS. Wittgenstein's attempts to find a publisher for the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus were repeatedly frustrated, until Bertrand Russell, whose reputation as a philosopher was firmly established, offered to write an introduction to the work as an incentive to reassure publishers wary of the work's potential profitability.
In 1921 Russell persuaded the editor C.K. Ogden to publish an English translation in the Kegan Paul series The International Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific Method; in tandem with Russell, his friend Dorothy Wrinch was independently searching for a publisher. Following a rejection from the Cambridge University Press, she contacted three German journals, including Wilhelm Ostwald's Annalen der Naturphilosophie. The only acceptance she received was from Ostwald, who replied to Wrinch that he would publish the work because of Russell's introduction (which appears in German on pp.186-198 of the present copy); as Ostwald wrote to Wrinch, 'in any other case I should have declined to accept the article' (R. Monk Ludwig Wittgenstein (London: 1990), p.203). However, the text that appeared in Annalen der Naturphilosophie was riddled with errors; Wittgenstein had used the symbols available on a normal typewriter in place of those employed in Russellian logic, and Ostwald had simply them set as type--rather than substituting the correct symbols--and Russell 'evidently had little time to read the proofs carefully, and in any case the book had already gone to print before he had received them' (Monk op. cit., p.204). Wittgenstein (who never saw proofs of the work) evidently foresaw problems prior to publication, as his letter to Russell of 28 November 1921 makes clear: 'Wenn auch Ostwald ein Erzscharlatan ist! Wenn er es nur nicht verstümmelt! Liest Du die korrekturen? Dann bitte sei so lieb und gib acht, daß er es genau so druckt, wie es bei mir steht. Ich traue dem Ostwald zu, daß er die Arbeit nach seinem Geschmack, etwa nach seiner blödsinnigen Orthographie, verändert' (B. McGuiness and G.H. von Wright (eds) Ludwig Wittgenstein: Cambridge Letters (Oxford: 1996), p.172).
Ostwald did not send Wittgenstein any copies of the work when it was published, and when Wittgenstein heard from Russell that the issue of the journal was in print he had to resort to asking Ludwig Hänsel to search the bookshops of Vienna for a copy. The search was unsuccessful, and Wittgenstein did not see a copy until C.K. Ogden sent him one in April 1922. His earlier fears about Ostwald's capacity for folly were fully justified--for example, where Wittgenstein used an exclamation mark in place of a Scheffer stroke in the present edition, it was rendered as an exclamation mark, thus: 'p!q. !. p!q.'(proposition 5.1311). Wittgenstein was infuriated by the crassness of the errors introduced by Ostwald, exclaiming in a letter to Paul Engelmann that 'Diesen Druck betrachte ich aber als Raubdruck, er ist voller Fehler' (B.F. McGuiness, T. Nyberg and G.H. von Wright (eds) Prototractatus (London: 1971), p.28). One interesting aspect of the present volume is the appearance of the truth-tables on pp.224 and 225; 'the truth-table is Wittgenstein's only formal device to have found its way into logic books' (H.-J. Glock A Wittgenstein Dictionary (Oxford: 1996), p.368), and this is the first use of them by Wittgenstein in print. Only one copy of Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung is recorded at auction by ABPC since 1975. Christie's are grateful to Dr Maximilian de Gaynesford for his kind assistance in the cataloguing of this and the following two lots.
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