Subject , World and Value ( Sorne Hypotheses on the Influence of Schopenhauer in the early Wittgenstein )

It is an acknowledged fact that Wittgenstein read Schopenhauer's Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (The World as Will and Representation. ) in his youth, and possibly other works by the same author (Anscombe, 1963; McGuiness, 1988). In general, Wittgenstein is reluctant to recognize other authors' influences on his thought, but in his Notebooks, 1914-1916 2 he makes explicit reference to Schopenhauer, and it is also a conunonplace that his influence is present in many of the theses and ideas of the Tractatus Logico-philosophicus (Anscmnbe, 1959; Gardiner, 1963; Janik, 1966; Micheletti, 1967; Engel, 1969). Wittgenstein himself recognized in conversations with close colleagues that, as a young man, he carne to think that Schopenhauer had got the basics right (Von Wright, 1954; Bouwsma, 1986). Such recognition cannot be seen to weaken in his later philosophy.