When it was eventually published in 1921, Wittgenstein dedicated it to the memory of Pinsent, his boyfriend. Yet without Pinsent’s presence and support, Wittgenstein’s immensely influential book, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, might never have existed. Pinsent’s diary reveals that, as well as being moody, Wittgenstein was fiercely intellectually independent, and very rarely influenced by other thinkers. Wittgenstein kept in contact with Pinsent’s family at least until mid-1919, and probably beyond that. But at a railway station near Salzburg he bumped into his uncle Paul, who found him in a state of anguish, but saved him from the suicide he was planning. In the immediate aftermath of Pinsent’s death, Wittgenstein was depressed to the point of planning to kill himself somewhere in the mountains in Austria.
We often talked of you and hoped to see you as soon as the War is over. He spoke of you always with great affection and regretted that he could not write to you. I saw him the day before he was killed and we talked of you. I want to tell you how much he loved you and valued your friendship up to the last. He was perfectly happy when flying, he loved it, and I think during the last months of his life he was as happy as a man could be. My son David was killed while flying on the 8th May. Wittgenstein, I know you will be very grieved to hear the sad news I have to tell you. Pinsent’s mother, Ellen, wrote to inform him: Wittgenstein heard of Pinsent’s death while on leave in Vienna. Dedicated to DavidĪlthough Lutyens’ body was found quickly, despite an extensive search Pinsent’s body was only found on Tuesday May 14, floating in the Basingstoke Canal. A witness said the machine appeared to be flying in good condition when all at once it seemed to make a nose-dive, and immediately appeared to fall to pieces. The machine had been examined just before the flight, and everything was in as good trim as possible. Pinsent had flown in the same machine many times before, and the flights had all been successful ones. Lutyens was a registered pilot, quite qualified, and had flown overseas. Following an inquest into their deaths, the Surrey Advertiser reported:Įvidence was given that Lieut. The two were conducting pressure tests on the aircraft’s tail-plane, which failed dramatically. On May 8, 1918, Pinsent was the co-pilot in a de Havilland two-seat biplane bomber, alongside pilot Lieutenant L. For example, in March 1915, Wittgenstein writes: “Yesterday lovely letter from David Answered David. It is notable that he talks of feeling “sensuous” immediately after mentioning how much he misses Pinsent. Throughout the war, Wittgenstein wrote notebooks which later formed the basis of his book Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: a work which is mostly about logic and language, but it also features important ideas about meaning, life, God, and the soul, which seem to have emerged from his war experiences on the frontline. Wittgenstein served in the Austro-Hungarian army, on the Eastern Front.
Pinsent was deemed unsuitable for active service, but trained as a test pilot, flying prototype aircraft at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, in Farnborough – alongside other heroic mathematicians and scientists. Although they planned to meet in August 1914, World War I intervened.
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