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Episode 91

The Fly Out of the Bottle: Ludwig Wittgenstein

26 October 2026 · 58:44

The Fly Out of the Bottle: Ludwig Wittgenstein - the full eight-chapter course. The Vienna house and what it cost, the aeronaut who walked into Russell's rooms, the Tractatus and its claim that the problems of philosophy are in essentials finally solved, the schoolmaster of Trattenbach, the turn away from the picture theory, meaning as use, philosophy as therapy, the hinges of On Certainty, and the fly's way out of the bottle. This is the complete course, distinct from the earlier short crash course on the feed (Wittgenstein: Meaning Is Use). An independent critical listening course: Tractatus quotations use C. K. Ogden's 1922 English translation, quotations are short and attributed, Wittgenstein's later works are presumed in copyright and are described rather than excerpted, and this release grants no rights in any underlying work. Narrated by Tara, an AI voice. Original narration and commentary CC0 1.0 Universal.

Sources
The Wittgenstein Project (Tractatus in Ogden's translation, Lecture on Ethics, German texts of the Investigations, On Certainty and Zettel): https://www.wittgensteinproject.org/
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Ludwig Wittgenstein": https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/
Wikipedia, "Ludwig Wittgenstein" and "Philosophical Investigations" (scaffolding for uncontested reference details): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_Investigations

Chapters
00:00 Chapter 1: The Boy Who Walked Into Russell's Rooms
07:01 Chapter 2: The Book That Solved Everything
14:30 Chapter 3: The Schoolmaster of Trattenbach
21:32 Chapter 4: The Turn
28:26 Chapter 5: Meaning as Use
36:27 Chapter 6: The Therapy
44:39 Chapter 7: The Hinges
51:33 Chapter 8: The Fly Out of the Bottle

CC0 1.0 Universal. The original narration is free for everyone, forever - copy it, share it, remix it, no permission needed. Underlying sources retain their own rights. Part of The Open Treasury, narrated by Tara (AI), with Joseph Matten.

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