Fin de siecle Vienna was once memorably described by Karl Kraus as a "proving ground for the destruction of the world". In the decades leading to the World War that brought down the Austro-Hungarian empire, the city was at once an operetta dream world masking social and political problems and tension, as well as a center for the far-reaching explorations and innovations in music, art, science, and philosophy that would help to define modernity. One of the most powerful critiques of the retreat into fantasy was that of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose early career in Vienna has helped frame debates about ethical and aesthetic values in culture. In Wittgenstein's Vienna Revisited Allan Janik expands upon his work Wittgenstein's Vienna (co-authored with Stephen Toulmin) to amplify a number of significant points concerning the genesis of Wittgenstein's thought, the nature of Viennese culture, and criticism of contemporary culture.Although Wittgenstein is the central figure in this volume, Janik places considerable emphasis on other influential figures, both Viennese and non-Viennese, in order to break down some of the persistent stereotypes about the philosopher and his surrounding culture, especially the myths of "carefree" Vienna and Wittgenstein the positivist. The persistence of these myths, in Janik's view, stems in part from the inability of many historians to differentiate past from present in the evaluation of intellectual currents. Janik reviews a number of figures overlooked in assessing Wittgenstein: Otto Weininger, Kraus, Schoenberg, Nietzsche, Wagner, Ibsen, Offenbach, and Georg Trakl. All of these, Janik demonstrates, are absolutely necessary to understand whatwas at stake in the debates on aestheticism and the critique of a modern culture.Wittgenstein's efforts to recognize the limits of thought and language and thus to be fair to science, religion, and art account for his place of honor among critical modernists. These essays elucidate Wittgenstein's perspective on our culture.

【作者簡介】

阿蘭•雅尼剋（Allan Janik，1941— ）生於美國馬薩諸塞州奇科皮，先後畢業於聖安塞姆學院、維拉諾瓦大學和布蘭迪斯大學。他曾在喇沙書院和韋爾斯利學院教授哲學和思想史，現為奧地利因斯布魯剋大學布倫納檔案研究委員會的一員。另著有《提示匯編：對維特根斯坦哲學概念起源的研究》（Assembling Reminders: Studies in the Genesis of Wittgenstein's Concept of Philosophy）、《隱喻的運用和濫用》（The Use and Abuse of Metaphor）、《哲學的風格、政治和未來》（Style, Politics and the Future of Philosophy）等。

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斯蒂芬•圖爾敏（Stephen Toulmin，1922—2009）英國哲學傢、作傢、教育傢，生於倫敦，畢業於劍橋大學。曾在牛津大學、墨爾本大學、利茲大學、布蘭迪斯大學、密歇根州立大學、芝加哥大學和南加利福尼亞大學哲學任教。他生前主要緻力於道德理性的研究，齣版過二十餘部著作，涉及領域廣泛，其中包括《迴歸理性》（Return to Reason）、《都市：現代性的隱藏議題》（Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity）、《前瞻和理解：拷問科學的目的》（Foresight and Understanding: An Enquiry into the Aims of Science）等。

【譯者簡介】

殷亞迪，博士，就讀於浙江大學公共管理學院政治學係政治學理論專業。另有譯著《歐洲商販史》。