Introduction: problems and methods -- Habsburg Vienna: city of paradoxes -- Language and society: Karl Kraus and the last days of Vienna -- Culture and critique: social criticism and the limits of artistic expression -- Language, ethics and representation -- The Tractatus reconsidered: an ethical deed -- Wittgenstein the man, and his second thoughts -- Professionalism and culture: the suicide of the modern movement -- Postscript: the language of alienation.