维根斯坦说过，“哲学应该用诗歌的形式写出来”，他甚至将《逻辑哲学论》（或《名理论》）描述为“是哲学也是文学”。但市面上并没有几本书针对他这几个说法多着墨，关注维根斯坦所研究的特殊文学及艺术时期的书就更少了。《维根斯坦和现代主义》是第一本解决现代主义与维根斯坦间那种既丰富又忧愁的矛盾关系的书。在解开这复杂关系的过程中，我们可以对现代主义及这位优秀的哲学家有更新的了解。
           
Michael LeMahieu 与Karen Zumhagen-Yekplé集结了研究二十世纪哲学家及当代文学的学者，让维根斯坦和一些知名的当代指标人物擦出火花，其中包括：Samuel Beckett、Saul Bellow、Walter Benjamin、Henry James、James Joyce、Franz Kafka、Adolf Loos、Robert Musil、Wallace Stevens与 Virginia Woolf。这些参与其中的学者从形式和媒介这两个重要的面向触及维根斯坦的作品集现代主义。他们讨论的范畴很广，从维根斯坦和诗歌，到他将《逻辑哲学论》中使用的编号命题是现代主义形式的艺术表现；从维根斯坦不断使用宗教、音乐及摄影的隐喻到探索他和Henry James如何沟通协商美学与伦理间的关系。 
 
这本书让我们更了解这名哲学家和艺术，让我们能更全面的了解这两门被分开的学问，了解维根斯坦在现代主义中所扮演的重要角色。
 
本书好评
“The absence of extensive debate about the fruitfulness of reading Wittgenstein through the lens of the idea of modernism—and vice versa—is notable to anyone with even a casual interest in these matters. This book creates a space in which those cross-readings can happen, and I can’t imagine a more successful attempt at doing so. Addressing a wide range of thinkers, texts, and topics, this ambitious and arresting volume should be widely discussed across disciplines.”
(Alice Crary, author of Inside Ethics)
 
“Wittgenstein and Modernism is a model of its genre, a collection of thought-provoking essays bound together with LeMahieu and Zumhagen-Yekplé’s richly insightful introduction. As the volume progresses, its central themes resonate and find variations in sinuous interworkings. We move from the European context of Wittgenstein’s life, to the scope of his influence from his Cambridge base outward to broader intellectual circles, and on to the many interrelations between his work and modernist literature. The result is a book that will be of wide use: for scholars of Wittgenstein, it will immediately take its place as a benchmark contribution, but it should also serve as an illuminating introduction for anyone with an interest in modernism who has not yet looked into Wittgenstein’s thought.”
(Garry L. Hagberg, author of Describing Ourselves)
 
关于作者
Michael LeMahieu是Clemson University英语系的副教授，也是《当代文学》（ Contemporary Literature）期刊的联合编辑。他是 Fictions of Fact and Value: The Erasure of Logical Positivism in American Literature, 1945–1975的作者。
 
Karen Zumhagen-Yekplé是Tulane University英语系的副教授也是Stone Center for Latin American Studies 及Gender Studies and Film Studies课程的讲师。