It's a Wonderful Life: Reflections on Wittgenstein's Last Words

Abstract

On his deathbed, Wittgenstein is reported to have said, upon hearing that his friends were coming for a visit, “Tell them I've had a wonderful life.” Malcolm found this puzzling, given that Wittgenstein seemed to be fiercely unhappy. I find my way into these words against the backdrop of the Hollywood film It's a Wonderful Life and Wittgenstein's famous remark, to wit, “Man has to awaken to wonder . . . Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.” Along the way I discuss Plato's praise of wonder, Nietzsche's attack on science, and Kierkegaard's remark about finding the sublime in the pedestrian. I conclude that Wittgenstein did have a wonderful life insofar as he was fully awake to wonder, what I call the wonder of our words.

Wittgenstein and Friendship

“…Hall's reflections were first presented as the Presidential Address of the annual meeting of the Society for the Philosophy of Religion in Claremont California, February 2010. They were subsequently published as “It's a Wonderful Life: Reflections on Wittgenstein's Last Words” (Hall ).…”

“…Coleridge (, 254). Hall does not quote Coleridge, but he aligns Wittgenstein's wonder with religion and romanticism “in a qualified sense” (Hall , 297).…”