Lars Iyer: 'Real philosophers feel a burning sense of vocation'

A contemporary version of Wittgenstein, my central character has much in common with the great thinker, but faces hard challenges in the modern university

I like to write about philosophers in my fiction, but what a gloriously difficult subject philosophy is! EM Cioran asks: “How can a man be a philosopher? … How can he have the effrontery to contend with time, with beauty, with God, and the rest?” It’s a good question. Real philosophers – not to be confused with academic philosophers, with the philosophers of our contemporary university – feel a burning sense of vocation, but are never quite sure what they are being called to. They’re diagnosticians, symptomatologists. They’re working on a cure. They philosophise for the world, even if the world ignores them. It’s admirable, but also quixotic. It’s no surprise that they often have a sense of being against their times.

There are few philosophers who have felt the duty of philosophy more strongly than Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951). My novel Wittgenstein Jr is indeed based on the life and myth of the great Viennese philosopher, which I find irresistible. But the novel is set in our present – in today’s Cambridge – and Wittgenstein is a nickname some students give to their intense young lecturer. It is a fitting nickname: my character is as afraid as the real Wittgenstein was of losing his mind. He has the same quasi-religious faith, initially at least, that his studies in logic might save him. He has immense personal charisma, inspiring acolytes and followers by his seriousness and integrity; and, like the real Wittgenstein, he comes into collision with university institutions, albeit for different reasons than his predecessor.

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