Zettel

Zettel is a collection of notes by Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951), written from 1929 to 1948 and selected by him personally as the most significant for his philosophy. Perhaps the collection was meant for further publication or use in other works. The notes cover all the major themes that occupied Wittgenstein during those years and up to his death. Formulations of key questions and variants of answers—what language is, what a sentence is, what the meaning of a word is, language games, everyday life, a machine, pain, color, learning to use words, and much more—are presented in this collection with clarity as far as Wittgenstein could possibly manage, and with rich, multifaceted insight and not without literary elegance. Zettel is an essential source for understanding his philosophy and the potential for philosophical work contained within it today.