Lotze and Wittgenstein

Wittgenstein’s philosophical work has often been judged as constituting a decisive break with the philosophical tradition. Georg Henrik von Wright once wrote that it “is unlike anything I know in Western thought and in many ways opposed to aims and methods in traditional philosophy”. In this chapter we argue against this claim. We are going to show, first, that Wittgenstein was indirectly influenced by Hermann Lotze through his philosophy teachers Frege and Russell. Secondly, there are two other closely related points of Lotze’s philosophy and that of Wittgenstein which are even more important. Significantly, while the traces of the above mentioned influence are clearly visible, the relatedness between Lotze’s and Wittgenstein’s philosophy we have in mind is not easy to discern. The analysis of the latter will be the main subject of the present chapter. We shall also show that its examination can help to better understand Wittgenstein’s philosophy.