David Hume Pinsent (; 24 May 1891 – 8 May 1918) was a collaborator of the Austrian philosopher

Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is considere ...

. Wittgenstein's ''

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus The ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'' (widely abbreviated and cited as TLP) is a book-length philosophical work by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein which deals with the relationship between language and reality and aims to define the ...

'' (1922) is dedicated to Pinsent's memory.

Early life

Pinsent, a descendant of philosopher

David Hume David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment philo ...

's brother, John Home, was born in

Edgbaston Edgbaston () is an affluent suburban area of central Birmingham, England, historically in Warwickshire, and curved around the southwest of the city centre. In the 19th century, the area was under the control of the Gough-Calthorpe family an ...

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

. He gained a first-class honours degree in mathematics at Cambridge University, where he was described by

George Thomson George Thomson may refer to: Government and politics * George Thomson (MP for Southwark) (c. 1607–1691), English merchant and Parliamentarian soldier, official and politician * George Thomson, Baron Thomson of Monifieth (1921–2008), Scottish p ...

, future master of Corpus Christi College as "the most brilliant man of my year, among the most brilliant I have ever met". Pinsent then studied law.

Career

He met Wittgenstein, two years older, as an undergraduate at

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...

in 1912.''Loners: The Life Path of Unusual Children''

Sula Wolff Sulammith (Sula) Wolff FRCP FRCPysch (1 March 1924 – 21 September 2009) was a prominent and pioneering British child psychiatrist. She was amongst the first in her field to identify and define the characteristics of children on the autisti ...

, 1995, p. 161
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He acted as Wittgenstein's subject in psychological experiments on rhythm in speech and music, and he struck up a rapport, based on shared interests in music and mathematics. That led to holidays together, including trips to Iceland and Norway, which Wittgenstein paid for. His diary (1912–1914) mentions his times and travels with Wittgenstein.

First World War

During the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, Pinsent was deemed unsuitable for active military service. He trained as a test pilot instead and worked at the

Royal Aircraft Establishment The Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) was a British research establishment, known by several different names during its history, that eventually came under the aegis of the Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), bef ...

Farnborough Farnborough may refer to: Australia * Farnborough, Queensland, a locality in the Shire of Livingstone United Kingdom * Farnborough, Hampshire, a town in the Rushmoor district of Hampshire, England ** Farnborough (Main) railway station, a railw ...

, where he was killed in a flying accident in May 1918. His body was found in the Basingstoke Canal a week after the accident.

References

External links

Sunningwell War Memorial
— Brief biography of David Hume Pinsent

- Chronology of Ludwig Wittgenstein's life, with summaries of Pinsent's diary entries for the times they spent together. {{DEFAULTSORT:Pinsent, David 1891 births 1918 deaths Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge People from Edgbaston English test pilots Ludwig Wittgenstein Aviators killed in aviation accidents or incidents in England