Project:About

About

History

As most Wittgenstein scholars and enthusiasts are well aware, the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen maintain a rich collection of online resources related to Ludwig Wittgenstein's Nachlass.

In particular, since 2012, the WAB's "Semantic faceted search and browsing" (SFB) website allows readers and researchers across the globe to search, filter and display individual remarks from the Nachlass, or collections thereof, based on their content or relevant metadata. Moreover, since 2016, the WAB's "Interactive dynamic presentation" (IDP) website makes it possible for users to view entire manuscripts or typescripts, in a linear or diplomatic style, while dynamically selecting which sets of information to display.

Both websites display their human-readable output by using dedicated software to index and parse the WAB's machine-readable transcriptions of Wittgenstein's manuscripts and typescripts. These transcriptions of the handwritten or typewritten material are encoded in the XML format according to the TEI guidelines. While the transcriptions were originally published as part of the CD-based Bergen Electronic Edition in 2000, the SFB and IDP websites now allow anyone who has an Internet connection to easily browse them.

As of late 2022, the many graphics and figures that Wittgenstein had included in the 20.000 pages he wrote were rendered by these transcriptions in one of two ways:

1. Some had been encoded using a combination of Unicode characters (such as letters, numbers, dashes, arrows...) and XML markup that the parsing engine renders as HTML; these are tagged with this syntax in the XML files: <seg type="notation" ... subtype="graphics_..." rend="linear"></seg>;
2. Others (generally speaking, those that were visually more complex) had been redrawn, as had previously been done by publishers with the drawings included in Wittgenstein's writings that had appeared in print; these are tagged with this syntax in the XML files: <seg type="notation" ... subtype="graphics_..." rend="bitmap"></seg>.

Example of point 1 above: the spatial configuration of letters and arrows in Ms-115, page 150 was transcribed using XML markup which is translated by the parser into an HTML table containing Unicode characters which, in turn, is rendered by the browser as above.

Example of point 2 above: the early redrawn version of Wittgenstein's graphic in Ms-130, page 100 was this JPG file.

The quality and consistency of the WAB's redrawn graphics, however, was not considered entirely satisfactory. This prompted Alois Pichler, director of the WAB, and Michele Lavazza, coordinator of the Ludwig Wittgenstein Project, to start a cooperation intended to redraw all these visuals.

With funding from the WAB, the project lasted from October 2022 to April 2024 and resulted in the recreation of approximately 1000 image files which were embedded in the transcriptions (and thus incorporated in the public sites) as they became available. The drawings were made by Michele Lavazza and graphic designer Sara Lavazza under the supervision and coordination of Alois Pichler. Precious help and consultancy was provided by Michael Biggs, Rune Falch, and Daphne Bielefeld.

After the completion of the redrawing phase, it started to seem desirable that the image files should also become available – i.e., browsable and searchable – in and of themselves, and not only as an integral part of the manuscripts. Thus, Michele Lavazza built this website (Wittgenstein Nachlass Graphics) to host the files and used data from the WAB's XML transcriptions, combined with a database-like infrastructure powered by Semantic MediaWiki, to make it possible to search and filter them by description tags as well as by manuscript number. In this task, he received help from Frederic Kettelhoit and continued working in cooperation with Alois Pichler.

Early redrawn version of the 130,100 graphic.

Current redrawn version of the 130,100 graphic.

Finally, at this stage, it became clear that an added value would be provided by the fact of also indexing the visuals that had been encoded in the WAB's transcriptions by the abovementioned combination of XML tags and Unicode characters. These are currently represented by grey placeholders that merely serve the purpose of bearing the semantic tags (more on this topic in the User guide section below). It is our hope that in the future, with the evolution and continuous improvement of the transcriptions, it will become possible to also include their visual appearance in this website.

Current placeholder for graphics and figures encoded in the transcriptions using XML markup and Unicode characters (for example, 115,150-a).

Desired look of a future implementation of graphics and figures encoded in the transcriptions using XML markup and Unicode characters (example based on Ms-115, page 150).

Scope and purpose

This website contains high-quality, "normalised", redrawn visuals that correspond to the hand-drawn graphics and figures from the manuscripts and typescripts in Ludwig Wittgenstein's Nachlass.

The visual items that were recreated are those that had already been redrawn (as opposed to encoded as XML and Unicode) by the WAB as of October 2022. In other words, the scope of the redrawn graphics has not changed since the early phase of the work to transcribe the Nachlass, and the visuals that were initially encoded as XML and Unicode are still encoded in the same way.

Additionally, this website contains a placeholder for each item, encoded in the transcription as XML and Unicode, that was tagged as a "graphic" in the XML file (subtype="graphic") as opposed to a "logic" or "maths" item (subtype="logic" or subtype="math").

Both types of visual items are tagged with semantic descriptors which make it possible to search them and filter them based on their content.

The purpose of this website is to provide the general public as well as researchers and publishers with a set of normalised drawings and figures that can be browsed and freely reused (see the Copyright section below); moreover, it aims to make this corpus easier to navigate by allowing users to look up keywords that will produce a set of results that includes both the drawings and the placeholders.

User guide

Naming conventions

The graphics and figures which are published on this website as images are named according to the following pattern:

• The first three digits correspond to the manuscript or typescript number according to Von Wright's catalogue and are followed by a comma; in a few cases, the manuscript or typescript number may contain additional characters (progressive letters, as in the case of Ms-153a and Ms-153b, or progressive letters and numbers, as in the case of Ts-201a1 and Ts-201a2);
• The next set of digits (one to three) is the page number within the manuscript or typescript; this number is sometimes followed by "r" for "recto" or "v" for "verso";
• When more than one drawing appears on the same page, the page number is followed by a hyphen and by a progressive number.

For example, in 102,32r-2, "102" refers to Ms-102, "32r" refers to page 32 recto, and "2" refers to the fact that this is the second of multiple drawings on the same page.

The placeholders for items that are encoded in the transcriptions as XLM and Unicode follow a partly different pattern. After the digits that refer to the manuscript or typescript number and those that refer to the page number is always a hyphen followed by a progressive letter.

For example, 108,89-c is the third visual item encoded in the transcription as XML and Unicode that occurs on page 89 of Ms-108; and even when only one occurs on a given page, the suffix "-a" is present to prevent situations where the numbering of this type of objects would conflict with that of the other type (for example, 108,25-a is the only visual item encoded as XML and Unicode that occurs on page 25 of Ms-108, while 108,25 is the only visual item that was redrawn as an image on the same page).

File formats

For each redrawn image, two files are provided: a PNG render and an SVG source.

PNG is a raster format, meaning that the file consists of information that defines a grid (or map, or matrix) of flecks of colour. PNG images are easy to download and reuse in many computer programmes and print formats.

SVG is a vector format, meaning that the file consists of plain-text information describing the points, curves, colours, etc., that make up the image. SVG images are natively displayed by most modern browsers and desktop viewers, but may be less stable or lower-fidelity compared to the corresponding PNG renders. Their chief purpose is to be easily editable using vector graphics software such as the free and open-source application Inkscape (the programme they were created with), the proprietary application Adobe Illustrator, or others.

While the PNG files provided by this website are high-resolution, the SVG files may be used to export PNG files of virtually unlimited resolution.

The two files that are provided for each redrawn image have the same name, but they are distinguished by the file type extension (.png or .svg). The corresponding pages on this website (for example, File:164,29.png and File:164,29.svg) link to each other through their description box.

Viewing online

All files that are made available through this website can be viewed online.

The files may be viewed:

• Through a gallery page that includes all images (All graphics);
• Through a gallery page for each manuscript or typescript (All manuscript pages);
• Individually, through a description page that can be viewed by clicking on the name of a file in a gallery page or on the "More details" button which appears after clicking on an image in a gallery page.

All these types of pages can also be accessed by using the search bar to look up a manuscript or typescript number or a file name.

Please note that gallery pages only list the PNG files to avoid duplicates. To access a SVG file, either click on the relevant link in the description box of the PNG file, or look its name up directly through the search bar.

Downloading

All files that are made available through this website can be downloaded.

Individual files can easily be downloaded through their expanded view in the gallery pages or through their description page.

Bulk downloads are available for individual manuscripts through a link in each manuscript's page and through the dedicated section of the homepage, where a link is also available to download all files at once.

Please keep in mind that the files on this website may be updated to implement corrections or improvements. Of course, downloaded files will not reflect these changes.

Semantic tags and searching

Each description page for a PNG image is tagged with semantic descriptors that were imported from the WAB's transcriptions by parsing the XML files with a dedicated script. For example, the drawing in Ms-101, page 28, bears the following attribute in the XML transcription:

subtype="graphics_Abbild; Mensch(en)"

And therefore has the following properties in this website:

• Has graphic type: Graphics
• Has graphic subtype: Abbild
• Has subject: Mensch(en)

The values of these properties are displayed in the image's description box. Additional property values, including service properties such as Has sort key and Is rendered as, can be viewed by clicking on "Browse properties" in the left sidebar menu when on the description page of a PNG image.

The Structured semantic search section of the Main Page allows users to search for images that match one or more keywords for each of these properties. Please note that the search results will only include the visual items that match all keywords; if you wish to look up the images that match a keyword or another, please run two successive searches.

On the other hand, the Free-text search section of the Main Page, just like the search bar that appears at the top of each page in this website, provides a tool to perform unstructured searches on the title and contents of the description pages of the files.

Copyright

The drawings are licenced under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. This means that the image files can be freely downloaded without asking for permission or paying a fee and can be reused for any purpose, including commercial, provided that the authors are credited, if possible with a link to this website.

The rights to the semantic tags (i.e., to the relationship between the image files and the descriptors) belong to the WAB. The copyright holders (The Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge and the University of Bergen, Bergen, in agreement with Oxford University Press) released the transcriptions of a subset of the manuscripts (Ts-201a1, Ts-201a2, Ms-139a, Ts-207, Ms-114, Ms-115, Ms-153a, Ms-153b, Ms-154, Ms-155, Ms-156a, Ms-148, Ms-149, Ms-150, Ts-212, Ts-213, p.39v of Ms-140, Ms-141, Ms-152, Ts-310) under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0, meaning that the semantic tags are also available under the same licence; all rights to the transcriptions of the other manuscripts are reserved.