Happy 2026 from the Ludwig Wittgenstein Project!

The traditional New Year’s Eve message from the LWP’s founder.

Dear friends,

2025 draws to a close. Tomorrow is Public Domain Day—when, each year, different copyright terms expire on all kinds of creative works—and, by no coincidence, it is also the 4^th anniversary of the LWP’s go-live. As we start refrigerating bottles, then, let me look back on another successful year for our Project.

From an editorial point of view, the highlights of 2025 were the publication of the full German text of Wittgenstein’s Dictionary for Elementary Schools and of the collection of remarks known as Culture and Value; the publication of an Arabic translation of the letter that functions as a preface to the Dictionary; the publication of the Spanish translation of two among Wittgenstein’s most important writings, the Philosophical Investigations and On Certainty; the publication of a Hindi translation of the Philosophical Investigations; the thorough review of the LWP’s Italian translation of the Brown Book and the publication of this revised version as a second edition.

The Project’s technical infrastructure was modernised by migrating the website to a larger, more powerful and up-to-date server; the site’s performance also improved thanks to a substantial change in the way mathematical formulae are displayed.

The LWP’s blog, which had been launched at the end of 2024, gradually took off and became an integral part of the interface between the LWP’s volunteers and its readers. It seems to be working well as a way to keep our audience informed about some of what happens “behind the scenes”, but also as a platform where volunteers and readers alike can write about Wittgenstein, copyright, and other matters that are relevant to the LWP in a more informal way than elsewhere.

In November, we added another significant branch to our website—the “Events” homepage, which aims to provide an overview of all upcoming Wittgenstein-related events (conferences, seminars, workshops, etc.). While it is curated by LWP volunteers, this section, like the blog, welcomes submissions from all.

I am deeply grateful to the many friends—individuals and institutions—who have supported our work through their active participation or simply through their sympathy.

A lot of things are already in motion which make us think that 2026 will be another good year for the LWP. I wish the same could be said about the world. Luckily, the language game of offering wishes is not the same as that of describing states of affairs, and the bleakness of the letter should not prevent one from warmly engaging in the former.

I therefore wish you a 2026 of good health, peace, and joy.

Yours,

Michele

About the author

Michele Lavazza

Michele Lavazza is a translator, digital humanities enthusiast, learning technologies specialist, and free culture advocate. He holds a Master’s Degree in philosophy from the University of Milan; his thesis on Wittgenstein and transcendental philosophy was partly written in Milan and partly at the Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University. He founded the Ludwig Wittgenstein Project in 2020.