Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Since most of the reviews of the Tractatus here contain either fawning praise or vituperation without much expository content, it may perhaps be useful to give an account, in reasonably clear terms, of what this book is actually about. Granted that my account is somewhat simplified, it will still be better than quasi-mystical gushing praise or bitter unargued criticism. The central idea of the Tractatus is expressed very clearly at proposition 4.01 and certain comments following it: "A proposition is a picture of reality. A proposition is a model of reality as we imagine it." [4.01] "At first sight a proposition--one set out on the printed page, for example--does not seem to be a picture of the reality with which it is concerned. But neither do written notes seem at first sight to be a picture of a piece of music . . . And yet these sign-languages prove to be pictures, even in the ordinary sense, of what they represent." [4.011] "A gramophone record, the musical idea, the written notes, and the sound-waves, all stand to one another in the same internal relation of depicting that holds between language and the world. They are all construed according to a common logical pattern." [4.014] So, Wittgenstein's basic view in the Tractatus is simple: statements ("propositions") are pictures or models of the situations they are about. The sequence of words "The cat is on the mat" would be taken by him to picture the situation that consists in one object (the cat) standing in a certain relation (being on) to another object (the mat). Or rather, this would be the way to understand this proposition if the cat and mat themselves were indivisible atoms, without any smaller parts. Since, actually, the cat is made up of a great many smaller parts, as is the mat, the full analysis of "The cat is on the mat" would be much more complicated. But basically, a proposition is a picture of the situation it describes just as the notes on a sheet of music depict a melody, and just as the written letters "pop" depict a certain sound. In breaking down the cat and the mat, we must eventually come to a point where things can't be broken down any further, with objects that are the basic constituents of reality. The relationships between these basic objects, which Wittgenstein just calls "objects", but which others have called "logical atoms", constitute the most elementary situations. These situations are described by what he calls "elementary propositions". Given a bunch of elementary propositions, we can combine and re-combine them by certain basic operations, called truth-functional operations, which are explained in any textbook of elementary formal logic. Two such operations are conjunction and negation. So, given three atoms, a, b, and c, and a relation R (R might be the relation "being on", as with the cat and the mat), we have, as elementary propositions, for instance: aRb ("a is on b") bRc ("b is on c") aRc ("a is on c") Then we can make new, compou

There's a lot going on in this little book. I take it, though, that at its core the thesis of the book is fairly straightforward (even if controversial): What can be said (i.e. what can be meaningfully uttered, i.e. what can be said in such a way as to have an unambiguous meaning) can be said clearly (i.e. can be said in such a way as to make perfect sense and be easily understood). Nothing else should be said. This has the implication that instead of doing philosophy, we should let scientists do their things, we should talk about things around us ("warm weather today, huh" "There is a red tailed sparrow on the top of that tree!"), and not sully our feeling that there is something more by talking about it in ways that will not make sense. The argument fits nicely with a style of poetry and art that is contemporary with Wittgenstein, that consists of simply painting things as they are seen, and calling attention to the ordinary everyday around you in such a way as to summon its power to astound (e.g. Rilke or Proust). The aim ultimately, for W., is to stop theorizing about things and to just live in the moment. In that way, it is close to Buddhist and other insights. Great book, well worth reading. Not an easy read though.

That is the only word to describe this book, even if some of the ideas are erroneous. That is not the only basis to judge a book's importance. His work seems to be an expansion of an aphorism found in Nietzsche's All Too Human, that people have always assumed words have an unchanging meaning, or have meaning at all in some cases. Ludwig compares our language to a mirror, which must represent something in reality to be truthful. This is not a rejection of what is thus deemed "mystical," but in fact is more respectful of it, in freeing it from refutations or proofs based in language. Ludwig perhaps states this better in his later work. He also shows that the idea of an absolute is nonsensical, that something must exist in relation to something else; to prove an absolute you would have to find a symbol that would no longer be a symbol. Not every proposition can be based on the criterion of truth or falsehood. This makes all previous philosophy nonsense. The symbols used are used to say something that cannot be said. His style is impressive in its force and simplicity. The book is an eclectic mix of logical proofs and regular prose. Now whether all philosophy is made suspect by Wittgenstein is debatable. There are some philosophies that do not repeat the previous errors of the Platonic tradition, such as existentialism. In any case, the study of language is profoundly shown to be integral to a full study of philosophy. Some knowledge of logic would be helpful, but not absolutely necessary to understand the import of his main ideas.

I read this book in college and loved it. It's beautiful, but you have to know a bit about symbolic logic to appreciate it. The last few pages are really elegant. He writes of ethics: "the world of an evil man must be different than the world of good man." And of mysticism that "the fact that the world exists, that is the mystical."Wittgenstein's mysticism can be summed up like this. The word "hornet" connects somehow with the real insect, but, when I try to explain what the connection is, I am left with nonsense--this is the mystic--it is how the world is "this is the mystical."He writes only a few lines about God, but I think he acomplishes more than most writers on this subject, since, as he points out in his "motto": "All that a man knows can be said in three words."

Wittgenstein's first published work. Should be as famous for Russell's misunderstanding of it, made obvious in his introduction, as for it's effect on the positivists and modern philosophical logic. Absolutely essential reading for studying Wittgenstein's later work. The Investigations can be read as a refutation of the Tractatus, and thereby, as a refutation of much of contemporary philosophy of language. While Wittgenstein doesn't help his readers with either references or explanatory preamble, the effort of reading this book will be well rewarded to anybody studying contemporary issues in philosophical logic, philosophy of language or philosophy of science. Whatismore, Wittgenstein's poetic style is a joy to read and many of his aphorisms will come back to you in other studies.