In Playful New Drawings, Artist Paul Chan Revisits One of the 20th Century’s Greatest Thinkers

Who knew that the 20th-century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote a textbook for children? Paul Chan did. Chan is an artist and the founder of Badlands Unlimited, which has just brought out Word Book, the first English-language edition of Wittgenstein’s Wörterbuch für Volksschulen (Dictionary for Elementary Schools) from 1926. Chan also provided the illustrations—ink drawings made with his nondominant (left) hand—which manage somewhat miraculously to convey both childlike playfulness and sophisticated meaning. Each drawing relates to one of the 5,968 words in Wittgenstein’s lexicon, ranging from die Amsel, a solitary blackbird, to das Abendmahl, or “Last Supper,” a dozen festive figures dining on pizza. A lot more drawings are on view in Chan’s current exhibition at Greene Naftali Gallery, many of them very large—12 feet high or wide.

Wittgenstein, who came from one of the richest families in Austria, had already published his game-changing Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus—a metaphysical inquiry into the workings of language—when he decided to give away all his money and teach the fourth-to-sixth-grade children of farmers and factory workers in rural communities from 1920 to 1926. Since the only two dictionaries available to them were either too expensive or inadequate, he wrote one himself.

“Word Book to me is a testament to how a mind changes, if one is willing to learn from others, especially kids, and if one is willing to let go of a certain idea about who one happens to be,” Chan tells me. “After his time teaching in rural Austria, Wittgenstein slowly realized his philosophy was fundamentally wrong. He spent the rest of his life rewriting his thoughts, and in the process, changing his life and mind. Stories about what it means to change are always meaningful to me. This is why I published this book, and why I’m publishing it now.” 

Below, Chan discusses Word Book with an apt critic—his young daughter, Ruby. 

Publisher’s note: The following interview took place on November 2, 2020, between Ruby Chan (the publisher’s nine-year-old daughter, a fourth grader and the same age as Wittgenstein’s youngest students) and the publisher, posing in an online chat as Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Wittgenstein: Dear Ms. Ruby Chan, I am very pleased that you have agreed to talk to me about my book.

Ruby: My dad said if I did this he would let me watch my iPad.

Wittgenstein: Have you read the book?

Ruby: It’s a dictionary.

Wittgenstein: Have you opened it at least?

Ruby: Yeah, it’s pretty. I like the red cover and the drawings. They’re funny and weird. Kinda like my dad.

Wittgenstein: What about the words, what do you think of the words?

Ruby: I like them. Did your students have to memorize all the words?

Wittgenstein: No, just the ones I thought they each needed.

Ruby: My dad said you are a philosopher.

Wittgenstein: People say that.

Ruby: Why is the word philosophy not in the book?