The Wittgenstein Project

Between 2022 and 2026, I independently carried out an initiative called "The Wittgenstein Project". The project consisted of a slow reading of Wittgenstein, with the goal of understanding and then summarizing the subtle points he made in his notes, compiled and published posthumously as "Philosophical Investigations" (1953). My project contains 24 chapters and a number of "companion texts." The project was written in Russian. I have translated the first three chapters and the table of contents into English (using AI).

Alexander Klein
2026, September 12

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The Wittgenstein Project. Chapter 1: Introduction

I am going to read and comment on Wittgenstein. Slowly. Over a long period of time. Let me say right away—the translation is terrible, completely distorting Wittgenstein. But that doesn’t matter. Because those who don’t understand won’t understand Wittgenstein anyway, even if it were translated perfectly. And for those who do understand, even this translation won’t be an obstacle.

We will be reading the book Philosophical Investigations (1953), the 2019 translation (see photo). I will number the quotes, log the dates, and provide my own commentary. The main theme is: "How Wittgenstein approached dialectical logic." He talks about it constantly, about the "boundaries of consideration," yet he lacks these very concepts. It is doubly interesting to watch how a man of genius, lacking these concepts, nevertheless speaks about all of this correctly, though not always convincingly... even to himself. He sincerely considers his book to be "bad," (*) but the source of even this opinion of his lies in "dialectical logic"—or, in other words, in how our familiar notion of a "concept" differs from Hegel’s notion of a "concept." The ordinary, familiar notion of a "concept" always represents a "cross-section" of a process, or an "object." Well, clearly—it's the "description of an object"—but right now I am drawing the "boundaries of consideration of a phenomenon" like this: "here is an object—and there is a process," here is the solid—and there is the fluid; here is what can be touched—and there is what can be seen only with "inner vision." You could even say: "here is physics, and there is metaphysics," meaning what is visible to the eyes versus what is visible to the "soul."

It is vital to understand this: Hegel’s notion of a "concept" is a process, a flow. If I were to define you according to Hegel—yes, exactly you, comrade student... (In his latest book... mm-mm-m.. well? oh!..—KGBT+ (2022)—Pelevin writes on some page—about prison, I think, near the end—that the main character "...had to do something from the First ...something... Kilometer?.. and up to the Last Cartridge, and that he saw a logical inconsistency"—oh! found it! see photo—"between the First Department and the Last Cartridge." Let's get back to it.)—"yes, exactly you, comrade student..."—for the continuation, see Maha-Oboyma (1999) http://klein.zen.ru/old/MahaOboyma.htm - The Last Cartridge (that is the title of the final, 7th section of Maha-Oboyma).

If I were to define you according to Hegel, this definition would include you from infancy to your current age. ...I once wrote that this is precisely how parents see their children when they think about them. "Write down 2, carry 5." Which is exactly what it means to "see not with the eyes, but with the heart"—sheer metaphysics, the "world of ideas, eidh," rather than our brutal "world of objects."

But if you are a philosopher, you are obliged to see the world like Hegel, not like Gogol—"...he came, he saw, he conquered... Chichikov"... "a lady, agreeable in every respect" (by the way, he borrowed this from Plutarch; in the episode about Alexander and Phocion, Plutarch writes: ...you alone he considers a man worthy in every respect). You describe Chichikov—his cheeks, his tailcoat, the plumpness of his figure, his manners—and Chichikov is ready! "We know how badly you play..., the chibouk, cards, puppies, son-in-law Mezhuyev"—and Nozdryov is ready!.. In mathematics and physics, it’s even simpler—speed is time over distance. Well, I mean, the other way around. But ordinary life is something halfway between Gogol’s Chichikov and Newton’s Second Law—it's a brick, a board, a job, a husband, happiness, and an "I want!" ...Yesterday, a thought was born that "Not a single human being knows what they want!", but I chose not to voice it due to its utter opposition to surrounding life, because everyone thinks they know what they want. ...But try digging a bit deeper into someone, and it turns out that nobody knows what they want. To avoid suffering, or out of sheer foolishness, they fill their lives with petty, superficial, inconsequential desires... and they rush about, tossing and turning... or, conversely, they shut down and pretend they want nothing at all. But they do want something. They just don't know exactly what. It's about people like this that they say: "They don't know what they want themselves!" This applies to all of us. Don't believe me? Then here is a trick question: What is the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the West?

An infant is one thing, an old man is another. That is the standard notion of a "concept." You—yes, you!—are both the infant and the old man, even though right now you are quite a young specimen. But if we take it "in development," across time, as a process and a flow, then we must take it all. Hegel spoke this way and took things this way. Who can understand him? If I hadn't told you, you wouldn't know or understand him either. And there is an infinite number of such things!... just like in any flow of any elements. And all of them are important. So Hegel will approach and gnaw off a piece from one side, Wittgenstein from another... and I'm here doing a bit of it too... Gnawing on the granite of science, on knowledge—that is good. Gnawing away at the world is bad. So you think about what you ought to gnaw on.

Well, all in all, the introduction is set—Wittgenstein, dialectical logic, the boundaries of considering processes and phenomena—this is the direction we will be moving in, taking a step with every quote from Philosophical Investigations. Today is December 25, 2022—Christmas. And these excavations of holes inside a plot, and inside that hole another hole, and another one inside that, followed by a return to the surface up a different wall or walls—this is a specific genre, it's called a "picaresque novel." Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas, Lesage—haven't heard of them?.. Oh well, we'll get together sometime and I'll read them on Zoom, we'll start with O. Henry. He had something to do with dialectical logic as well. I will post the first quote from Wittgenstein later.
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(*) He considers his book "bad," but only because, for the first time in human history, he created a "flow-book." And since a flow cannot have a structure, a clear sequence, or rigid cohesion, if you look at it as a standard book, it appears "uncombed," "disheveled," and "confused." ..."A spoon, comrade cadets, consists of 3 parts: the handle, the bowl, and the neck between them" (c) Maha-Oboyma—now that, I understand, is a definition! Plus, the principle practiced by modern European civilization: Bad is the concept that does not strive to become such a definition! Everything else is of the evil one (from the devil, meaning). This is why nobody knows about Hegel's notion of a "concept," despite more than 150 years of elite and mass study, and why Wittgenstein sincerely considers his book "bad."

Aleksandr Klein
December 25, 2022
original text: http://proza.ru/2022/12/25/1113

Illustration by Kl (Aleksandr Klein). The red box reads (a quote from Pelevin): The truck brought us to the gulag. I'd get my ride and drift off for a while, hauling chunks of frozen dung between the First Department and the Last Bullet (there was a bug in the program here, but I couldn't figure out what it was due to the heavy stupefaction that always accompanied this phase of sleep).

Kant. How are true a priori synthetic judgments possible?
http://proza.ru/2025/05/20/931

Hegel’s notion of a "concept." The Einstein-Hegel Sausage
http://proza.ru/2022/06/07/729

On Pelevin's KGBT-Plus
http://proza.ru/2022/11/29/1688

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The Wittgenstein Project. Chapter 2: A Fitting Description

"...the question: Is this a fitting description or not?
The answer: Yes, it is fitting, but only for this narrowly restricted domain, not for everything you were aiming to describe.
As if someone were to say: A game consists in moving objects across a surface according to certain rules…
And we were to reply: You seem to have board games in mind, but there are others as well. Your definition will be correct if you restrict it to the games you mentioned." (c) Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

Question: Is this true?
Answer: Yes, it is true, but only within certain "boundaries of consideration of the process or phenomenon."

— Is this correct?
— Yes, but only within certain boundaries of consideration. Within other boundaries of consideration, it is incorrect.

— Is this "it"?
— Yes, this is "it," but only within these boundaries of consideration. Within other boundaries of consideration, it is "not it." It is the "it" which is "not-it."

Aleksandr Klein
December 29, 2022 - January 20, 2023
original text: http://proza.ru/2023/01/20/155

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The Wittgenstein Project. Chapter 3: Models and Goals

"17. ...The way we group words into types depends on the goal of the classification—that is, on our own intentions." (c) Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

This means:
The "models" that we construct ourselves (i.e., "carve out" of the "infinite flow of the world") depend on our "intended action" (on "what do we want to do?"), which is a crucial element of the "boundaries of consideration of the process or phenomenon" that we draw.

Aleksandr Klein
January 19–20, 2023
original text: http://proza.ru/2023/01/20/175

Boundaries of consideration, action, yes and no, Wittgenstein
http://proza.ru/2023/01/22/92

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The Wittgenstein Project
Table of contents + links to the original texts in Russian

Chapter 1: Introduction http://proza.ru/2022/12/25/1113
Chapter 2: A Fitting Description http://proza.ru/2023/01/20/155
Chapter 3: Models and Goals http://proza.ru/2023/01/20/175
--- Models as Steps, or How to Read Wittgenstein? http://proza.ru/2023/02/12/1522
Chapter 4: Intellectualizing http://proza.ru/2023/02/19/1307
Chapter 5: Question or Statement http://proza.ru/2023/02/19/1395
Chapter 6: Word and Process http://proza.ru/2023/02/19/1419
--- The Foundation of Speech, or Thoughts of a Teapot Manager http://proza.ru/2023/02/19/1504
--- Marx and Wittgenstein http://proza.ru/2023/08/20/1793
Chapter 7: Word and Process II http://proza.ru/2023/02/22/1149
Chapter 8: Word, Process, Dharma http://proza.ru/2023/02/22/1721
--- Did Wittgenstein Want to Destroy the Traps of Words? http://proza.ru/2023/02/23/13
Chapter 9: Shakespeare and the Physicalists http://proza.ru/2023/02/26/1181
Chapter 10: Language Games http://proza.ru/2023/03/02/1497
Chapter 11: Two Wittgensteins http://proza.ru/2023/03/04/892
--- I Love! http://proza.ru/2023/03/04/1293
--- The Formula of Dialectical Contradiction, or Words Against Processes http://proza.ru/2023/03/12/965
Chapter 12: Thinking or Action? http://proza.ru/2023/03/04/1464
--- Pelevin and Language http://proza.ru/2023/04/02/855
--- Pelevin's Mind B – Words and Processes http://proza.ru/2023/04/19/1054
--- Motroshilova and Heidegger http://proza.ru/2023/04/02/907
Chapter 13: Logos and Eidos http://proza.ru/2023/07/17/1543
Chapter 14: Wittgenstein's Dream http://proza.ru/2023/07/30/1401
Chapter 15: Mr. N http://proza.ru/2023/07/31/21
Chapter 16: Alignment http://proza.ru/2023/08/18/888
Chapter 17: Dialectical Logic http://proza.ru/2023/08/19/25
Chapter 18: The Resident's Mistake http://proza.ru/2023/08/19/929
--- An Apple Core, or Meaning and Sense in Wittgenstein http://proza.ru/2023/09/24/1500
--- Philosophical Game: Pudin and Misin http://proza.ru/2019/11/22/84
Chapter 19: Accuracy vs. Adequacy http://proza.ru/2023/11/14/116
Chapter 20: Logic http://proza.ru/2023/11/26/944
Chapter 21: The Accumulated (Table of Contents) http://proza.ru/2024/08/01/1415
--- A Picture Holds Us Captive http://proza.ru/2024/06/27/1186
--- Philosophy as a Battle http://proza.ru/2024/06/09/1522
--- A Grammatical Joke: Wittgenstein and Thor http://proza.ru/2024/05/11/1506
--- Models and the Bewitchment of the Intellect by Means of Language http://proza.ru/2024/05/11/1538
--- A Description Is Always Incorrect: Cutting Off the Infinite http://proza.ru/2024/04/18/1440
--- Does Consciousness Exist? Consciousness as a Model http://proza.ru/2024/07/05/802
--- The Existing and Existence: Qualia http://proza.ru/2024/07/31/1270
--- Wittgenstein and Existence http://proza.ru/2024/08/01/1379
Chapter 22: Wittgenstein as a Dialectical Philosopher http://proza.ru/2024/08/07/1152
--- The Scientist Who Knew Nothing http://proza.ru/2024/08/07/1691
--- Japanese Tanka http://proza.ru/2024/08/08/833
--- Sense and Meaning According to Wittgenstein: The Emperor http://proza.ru/2024/08/31/1062
--- Scanning and Scanning, or The Law of the 3 Attributes of Qualia http://proza.ru/2024/09/01/1054
--- Wittgenstein and the Principle of Dialectical Logic http://proza.ru/2024/10/07/1737
Chapter 23: Wittgenstein: Such-and-Such Happens VS It Happens Thus http://proza.ru/2024/09/23/1133
--- Plato's Phaedo and Deuteros Plous: Wittgenstein http://proza.ru/2024/12/04/1332
--- Pharmakon and the Foundation of Dialectics: Plato and Wittgenstein http://proza.ru/2024/12/16/1913
--- South Korean artists installation on Wittgenstein http://proza.ru/2025/02/03/1097
Chapter 24: Wittgenstein: Sisyphus and Totality http://proza.ru/2025/02/13/1938
--- The Wittgenstein Cocktail http://proza.ru/2025/02/13/1942
--- Duties and Civilization http://proza.ru/2025/03/29/1309
--- QE and QT: Wittgenstein's Fence and the Global Crisis http://proza.ru/2025/04/01/1617
Kant's Reason and Wittgenstein's Book http://proza.ru/2025/08/24/1666
Lenin and Wittgenstein http://www.proza.ru/2019/11/23/20
The Wittgenstein Project is completed. - Kl. 01.04.2025

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Alexander Klein
2026, September 12