Wittgensteins Secret Diaries: Semiotic Writing in Cryptography

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Ludwig Wittgensteins works encompass a huge number of published philosophical manuscripts, notebooks, lectures, remarks, and responses, as well as his unpublished private diaries. The diaries were written mainly in coded script to interpolate his writings on the philosophy of language with autobiographic passages, but were previously unknown to the public and impossible to decode without learning the coding system. This book deciphers the cryptography of the diary entries to examine what Wittgensteins personal idiom reveals about his public and private identities. Employing the semiotic doctrine of Charles S. Peirce, Dinda L. Gorle argues that the style of writing reflects the variety of Wittgensteins emotional moods, which were profoundly affected by his medical symptoms. Bringing Peirces reasoning of abduction together with induction and deduction, the book investigates how the semiosis of the emotional, energetic, and logical interpretations of signs and objects reveal Wittgensteins psychological states in the coded diaries.

Reviews

Wittgensteins diary and secret code writing deserves meticulous study. Gorles book is, to my knowledge, the first comprehensive and methodologically grounded investigation into this subject. The author has looked at every one of the several hundred secret code passages of the Nachlass and produced a book that impressively combines semiotics, cryptography, philosophy, religious and biblical studies, cultural studies and anthropology, biography, musicology and writing research. The book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand Wittgensteins motives for interpolating fragments and reflections from his personal life into his philosophy. The author is to be commended for drawing our attention to these passages and, last but not least, for giving us excellent English translations thereof. -- Alois Pichler, Director of the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen, Norway
Dinda Gorles theoretically rich investigation into Wittgensteins coded diaries masterfully unravels their meaning in relation to his philosophical genius and troubled life. Gorle draws on her extensive knowledge of semiotic theory, translation studies, and Wittgensteins philosophy to weave a unique and fascinating account that unlocks the secret of these diaries. It is a pioneering and important study. -- Jeffrey R. Di Leo, Professor of English and Philosophy and Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, University of Houston-Victoria, USA

Author Bio

Dinda L. Gorle is Visiting Professor of Translation Studies and Semiotics at the University of Helsinki, Finland.