New book: Wittgenstein’s Secret Diaries. Semiotic Writing in Cryptography – Dinda L. Gorlée

Dinda L. Gorlée

Wittgenstein’s Secret Diaries. Semiotic Writing in Cryptography. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s works encompass a huge number of notebooks, lectures, and articles, as well as his own private diaries. Written mainly in coded script, Wittgenstein’s autobiographical diaries interpolate his writings on the philosophy of language. The diaries were previously unknown to the public and impossible to decode without learning the coding system to decode his humors and moods.

Dinda L. Gorlée’s Wittgenstein Secret Diaries deciphers the cryptography of the diary entries to examine and explain Wittgenstein’s personal idiom to reveal his public and private identities. Employing the semiotic doctrine of Charles S. Peirce, the style of writing reflects Wittgenstein’s public and private identities of dealing with life as a political emigré. Bringing Peirce’s reasoning of abduction together with induction and deduction, this book investigates how the semiosis of Wittgenstein’s emotional, energetic and logical interpretations of signs and objects reveal his psychological states in the coded diaries.

For Bloomington’s site about Dinda L. Gorlée’s book, click here.