Comment by astrange
5 years ago
Wittgenstein was one of the richest heirs in Europe so at the least he had all the time in the world, and lived in a time with such little competition that they gave him a PhD for writing a non-academic book none of them understood.
Looking at his biography, you feel like people were just hanging out with him because he was rich, since his personality was so bad and he clearly hated everyone he ever met.
To say that "people were just hanging out with him because he was rich" is a very biased and uncharitable reading of his biography. He gave away all his inheritance pretty early in his life and later often had to depend on friends such as Keynes, Russell and Moore to support applications for grants so that he could continue his research at Cambridge. Of course it's true that he came from an extremely privileged background and was never in danger of starving to death, but he could spend as much time on his philosophy as he did because he lived a modest life and was lucky enough to be supported by Russell when he first came to Cambridge.