Books like Wittgenstein on Other Minds — picked by fans

I love this book because it shows me the intensity with which the intellectual challenges that the revolution in theoretical physics after Einstein brought about were forcing Erwin Schrödinger to escape to Helgoland. Carlo Rovelli’s description of this unique historical episode, which changed the path of natural sciences, which gave birth to quantum theory, made me trust in the possibility of singular theoretical breakthroughs.

Rovelli has been called the poet in the current gallery of leading scientists in quantum theory. With this book, he showed me that he really is. When Schrödinger escapes from the stagnating attempts of formalisation of observed phenomena to go to Helgoland, when he then returns with a stupifying solution that overthrows the intellectual world into a delightful turmoil—that is poetry and knowledge packed in the same book.

I chose this book as an easy leisure read for a holiday in Greece, and I fell in enduring love with it. Umberto Eco is not only the master of the theory of sign systems (semiotics) but also able to escape from the dry plains of scientific conclusions to the rich landscapes of historical narratives.

In this book, he shows us that Europe’s early development has not just been the linearly ascending advance from ancient Greece, via the Roman Empire, to the Renaissance. The narrator he invented for his book lets us return to the many threats from which the Middle Ages in Europe could emerge.

I started reading it as an entertaining storytelling book, but in the middle of this adventure, I realized how deeply into scientific thought Eco, the specialist in medieval studies, had abducted me.

This book is a treasure chest for me, which I take from my bookshelf again and again. When I first bought it—many years ago—I read it in one breathtaking sweep. It is THE book that incorporates modernity, the ‘break’ being the signum of modernity (in Adorno’s own words).

Adorno left ‘high philosophical theory’, escaped from the intricate loops of Hegelianism, to land in a landscape of seemingly trivial paragraphs hiding deep thought. As a mysterious pillar saint of the youth revolt of 68 (which he despised), his insights in this book remain in my brain like little hooks.

They make me return to my bookshelf again and again. The modern world is broken like the paragraphs in this book. Based on that, we will return.

There were a few books that were able to carry me off into an entirely new cultural environment without reducing my interest in its multi-faceted characters and the seemingly trivial biographical stories. For me, Maxim Gorki, the artist, is a monolith in literature, and this book is a marvel.

The protagonist, young Gorki, has escaped the narrow and backward childhood in rural, almost medieval, Russia and tries to study at a university. It is his insatiable will to learn, to understand, which makes him so special. But every move towards university, towards more knowledge, turns out to be in vain. It leaves him a bit sad, but not hopeless.

He can always return to his reassuring doubt, a lonely doubt. Like the author in his later life—the book was published in 1924—the protagonist is lonely, ever lonelier. He escapes and returns from the pulsation of life itself, of its unknown… show more.

Like Ludwig Wittgenstein himself, this book is a work of extremes.

The delusions are grand, the narrative is dense, and the non-sequiturs are out of control. And yet, the more time you spend with it, the more these inhibitors become the very reason for your voracious engagement.

Once you get through that, what stands out about this work is the nuanced approach Markson takes to the female voice. On the one hand, it’s very subtle, with thin, cosmetic references to clothing, aesthetics, and male love interests. But as you immerse yourself in the text, you begin to sense a deeper ambition is possibly at work, inherent in the stream-of-consciousness narrative he employs.

The other thing that’s cool about this book is the series of disparate facts Markson weaves together about a range of cultural figures. It’s easy to take these as throwaway comments until you remember they were accumulated manually,… show more.

An exhilarating set of 676 aphorisms composed by the Austrian-British anti-philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein during the final months of his life, On Certainty questions the human will to cock-sure knowledge and mastery of the world. It’s an appeal for greater humility about what we claim to know, a warning against literal-mindedness and self-indulgent talk of "facts" and "objective reality." Facts are artifacts, and what counts as truth varies through time and space, he dared to say.

Wittgenstein went on to imagine a world where instead of saying ‘I know,’ we chose more humbly to say "I believe I know." This suggestion has an important flipside: gloomy convictions that we’re living in a doomed age headed for hell are the conjoined twin of optimistic know-all certainty. Pessimism is optimism turned upside down.

In most introvert-theme fiction, not much “happens.” Instead, the author focuses on the texture of characters’ thoughts, experiences, and memories. I found this novel, by an Austrian writer not well known in the English-speaking world, fascinating for two reasons. First, it explores the life, work, and thinking process of an obsessive genius – someone introverted to the nth degree. And second, it does so in a book of just two paragraphs, going on and on in musical prose where the repetitive rhythms of the sentences have just as much impact as what they’re narrating. The architectural genius in Correction is partly based on Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, which added interest for me since I find Wittgenstein a uniquely inspiring figure.

From Martin’s expansive look at things, let’s move onto a more granular approach – Fournier’s Double Nickels. Fournier focuses on just one band and an album (albeit a double record album and one of the best to come out of punk in the 1980s). The Minutemen played a fast, discordant music that sounded like jazz as much as hardcore thrash music. Fournier’s examination turns up something few people consider, that punk wasn’t all about blistering music but rather sophisticated in its nature. Fournier documents how the bassist in the band, Mike Watt, had extended conversations with one of the most important artists associated with 1980s punk – Raymond Pettibon (who as of now has made his way into accomplished art museums and galleries). They talked about everything from Ludwig Wittgenstein to James Joyce. Band members supposedly got into heated debates about history and would stop at public libraries while… show more.

The Vienna Circle was a group of polymaths—primarily scientists and philosophers—who held weekly meetings in Vienna between the World Wars. This book is by far the best retelling of their story, and it’s fascinating.

While their names aren’t well known, their work had tremendous influence. They prominently shaped the reception and understanding of Einstein’s new theories of relativity, began the use of simple images to communicate information without words, and introduced logical developments that eventually led to computers and other technology.

The figure of Ludwig Wittgenstein has always been quite enigmatic for me.

The enormous contradictions of his life and the intensity of it are difficult to understand in the abstract. Ray Monk's biography contextualizes the life and work of the Austrian philosopher who set out to solve all the problems of philosophy.

Monk's biography stands as a testament to Wittgenstein's enduring influence on our understanding of language, thought, and reality.