Wittgenstein´s Lectures on Aesthetics Contextualized

Lectures on Aesthetics Contextualized (Vorlesungen zur Ästhetik im Kontext) is a project whose aim is to create a fully navigable electronic corpus of passages in Wittgenstein`s writings dealing with the matters of aesthetics, psychoanalysis and religion. Thus, we use Wittgenstein`s 1938-lectures (Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief = LC) as a starting point and a thematic anchor from which hyperlinks to ICE and BEE will be created. As such, thematically link segments of Wittgenstein`s thought will be available for systematic investigation by philosophers, historians of philosophy, cultural historians, philologists and social scientists for the first time. Thus, it can be expected that other disciplines may also benefit from this kind of editing and semantic linking of primary sources and can help scholars searching, navigating, and thus understanding textual sources. The researchers involved (from FIBA and WAB) will actively investigate new ways of electronic editing in humanities by applying state-of-the-art technologies and methods (such as computer-supported content analysis or XML/ TEI). They will explore key questions challenging the hitherto existing ways of researching, and will thus uncover innovative ways to ask new questions. A successful completion of the project will facilitate the researchers` queries for thematically relevant text passages (on aesthetics etc.) in both the entire BEE (Nachlass) and the entire ICE (Correspondence) by providing them with a network of hyperlinks based on semantic markups and thus a fully navigable corpus. Identifying, labeling and tagging of all passages in the entire Briefwechsel (ICE) as well as the Nachlass (BEE) which are thematically/semantically dealing with matters of aesthetics (psychology/psychoanalysis and religious belief) will be done according to guidelines corporately compiled in an index provided by WAB and FIBA. In order to supply researchers with a fully navigable electronic corpus, we will produce a machine-readable critical diplomatic edition of LC (according to XML/TEI standards), supplemented with historical-cultural commentary. Both the diplomatic electronic edition of LC as well as the hyperlinked editions of all three LC, BEE and ICE will be produced in cooperation with InteLex Corporation and might be made accessible online.

The aim of the project Lectures on Aesthetics Contextualized (Vorlesungen zur Ästhetik im Kontext, abbreviation: LC) has been to create a fully navigable electronic corpus of passages in Wittgenstein's writings dealing with the matters of aesthetics, psychoanalysis and religion. Two digitally published works by Wittgenstein form the basis of that corpus: The Innsbruck Correspondence Edition (ICE) and the Bergen Electronic Edition (BEE). We have used notes taken by Wittgenstein's students during his lectures on Aesthetics, religious belief and during private conversations on psychoanalysis (published as Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief by Cyril Barrett 1967 = LC) as a starting point and a thematic anchor from which hyperlinks to ICE and BEE have been created. As such, thematically linked segments of Wittgenstein's thought are now available for systematic investigation by philosophers, historians of philosophy, cultural historians, philologists and social scientists for the first time. The foundation of the project consists of machine readable versions of texts that are transcribed according to the XML/TEI standard. Most importantly LC, its two German translations and ICE must be converted in XML/TEI. During the progress of the project we have employed Semantic Web Technology, notably OWL (Web Ontology Language) for semantic linking. Using the data available in OWL we have experimented with two alternative computer-supported content analyses on LC. Last but not least we now have an XML/TEIedition of LC, enriched with scholarly commentary. The goals in short were: 1. Create XML/TEI versions of LC and ICE 2. Create an OWL-ontology of LC 3. Add comments and semantic linking to LC and ICE 4. Apply methods of computer-supported content analysis 5. Creating comments and introductory essays for the readers of LC These goals were accomplished in the course of the project. To create a fully navigable corpus linking texts to BEE further work on subject headings must be done for BEE. This forms an on-going research work in the Wittgenstein Archives in Bergen and will eventually incorporate the results of our work in Innsbruck.