“Today I took another walk with W. over Taughannock Gorge. As we sat, he said he had come to see little by little that life was not what it seemed to be. He was silent for a few minutes. Then he said, “You see, in the city the streets are well laid out. And you drive right, and you have lights at intersections, and so on. There are rules. When you leave town, there are still roads, but no lights. And when you go further, there are no more roads, no more lights, no more rules, nothing to guide you. There are only the woods left. And when you come back to town, you can get the feeling that the rules are wrong, that there should be no rules, and so on. ” This didn’t enlighten me much. Later on, as we walked, he said, “That may be summed up this way. If you have a light, I would tell you, "Follow it."May be good. ” »

In the last two years of his life, Wittgenstein became friends with O.K. Bouwsma. The American philosopher regularly recorded their conversations in the form of notes. It is unusual to witness the emergence of a philosopher’s ideas.

Here we discover Wittgenstein among his relatives, we see him react to what they say, to everyday events: on the spot, he would engage in close discussions, improvise a conceptual analysis, or dispel confusion by means of a formula, an image.

An ardent Wittgenstein disciple, Bouwsma has done more than meticulously gather some of the philosopher's last reflections on morality, religion, or literature: he has taken us into the factory of his thoughts.