The ‘cases’ of a number of famous historical people have recently been ‘reopened’ with a view to examining whether or not they might have had Asperger syndrome. Among these, Ludwig Wittgenstein is probably currently the best-known ‘representative’, but many others are ‘on the list’. It is always speculative to examine case histories in retrospect, and there can be no ‘truth’ regarding who ‘had’ and who ‘did not have’ Asperger syndrome in cases not clinically examined. Nevertheless, because of the sheer number of publications relating to the possibility that Wittgenstein may have had an autism spectrum disorder, I feel that it is appropriate to elaborate a little bit about him in this book.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

The Austrian philosopher and mathematician Ludwig Wittgenstein is reported to have had a nephew who must have had Asperger syndrome. The writer Thomas Bernhard has described Paul Wittgenstein in such detail (in his book Wittgenstein's Nephew) that there can be little doubt about the diagnosis. Paul probably also suffered from bipolar disorder. Bernhard describes Paul and Ludwig as similar in nature.

There are those who claim that Paul Wittgenstein never existed, that he is a fictive person created by Bernhard, and I have not been able to find corroborative evidence of his existence. However, it is clear that many of Wittgenstein's close relatives had extremely odd personalities and that many suffered from affective illnesses. Two of his four brothers definitely committed suicide and another one disappeared from a boat, possibly as a result of suicide.