While in Ireland Wittgenstein's health began to deteriorate, and in 1949 he was diagnosed with cancer. He continued to work on his ideas until a few days before his death, on April 29, 1951, at the age of 62. He is buried in St. Giles Churchyard, Cambridge.

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His Homosexuality

Ludwig Wittgenstein seems to have been uncomfortable with his homosexuality. Certainly, he was very secretive about his sexual interests and activities. His secretiveness is not altogether surprising, considering the fact that homosexuality was illegal in Austria and Britain during his lifetime. Therefore, details of his emotional and sexual life are sparse.

William W. Bartley first broached the subject of Wittgenstein's homosexuality in his 1973 biography and received considerable censure and disapproval from the philosophy establishment.

Apparently, in his student days in Vienna, Wittgenstein occasionally cruised the Prater, a large public park, where he met rough trade youths; he seems to have continued this activity later in England. However, Wittgenstein is also believed to have had long-term affairs with men of his own class, such as the philosopher Frank Ramsey and the architect Francis Skinner.

The Cambridge Apostles, founded in 1820 as a secret society at Cambridge University, is significant for the glbtq cultural legacy because it fostered frank discussions of homosexuality, promoted Platonic love, and helped establish Bloomsbury.

The United Kingdom has a rich and vibrant legacy of queer cultural expression despite a long history of severe legal sanctions against male-male sexual acts and other manifestations of sexual and gender deviance.

A feminist and a lesbian, Québécoise writer and editor Nicole Brossard creates texts that are radical in their approach to gender, sexuality, and literary convention.

The thought of John Maynard Keynes, the most influential economist of the twentieth century, was influenced by his experience as a homosexual.