Wittgenstein flies a kite : a story of models of wings and models of the world

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Title:

Wittgenstein flies a kite : a story of models of wings and models of the world

Author:

Sterrett, Susan G.

ISBN:

9780131499973

Personal Author:

Sterrett, Susan G.

Publication Information:

New York, N.Y. : Pearson Education, c2006, [i.e. 2005].

Physical Description:

xxii, 329 p. ; 24 cm.

Contents:

Toys to overcome time, distance and gravity -- To fly like a bird, not float like a cloud -- Finding a place in the world -- A new continent -- A new age-old problem to solve -- The physics of miniature worlds -- Models of wings and models of the world -- A world made of facts.

Personal Subject:

Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1889-1951.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1889-1951. Tractatus logico-philosophicus.

Electronic Access:

Table of contents http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0517/2005023489.html

Copies:

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Library	Material Type	Item Barcode	Shelf Number	Copy	Status
Searching... 1:IIEMSA	1:GEN-BOOK	33168025520905	192 S839W 2006	1	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

The philosophy of language and experimental research in aeronautics made great leaps at about the same time in the early twentieth century. Strange as it may sound, this was no coincidence. Sterrett explains what Wittgenstein s glimpse of a solution to the problem of language in 1914 had to do with experimental models, which had been so crucial to the Wright brothers solving the problem of flight.

On the eve of the First World War in Europe, Wittgenstein left aeronautical research to study philosophy. He was deeply dissatisfied with Bertrand Russell s solution to the paradoxes of logic, the theory of types. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic Ocean, a physicist trying to improve U.S. aeronautical research capability pondered how the logic of empirical equations held the key to identifying physically similar situations, which in turn would explain the success of the Wright brothers airplane built from cardboard cartons and bicycle parts. His conclusion held an answer to Wittgenstein s problems about the logic of propositions.