Private talk:Task: "About Wittgenstein" page/Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung
[Ongoing edit and comments, initiated by JE. 27 Nov 2023.]
“Don’t worry, I know you’ll never understand it”, Wittgenstein once told Russell and Moore, talking about the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. And indeed, since its appearance, the book has aroused continuous and strong interest because of its enigmatic appeal as much as it did because of its undisputed brilliance. The work for which Wittgenstein is best known, the Tractatus is the only philosophical book the author published during his lifetime. In spite of its brevity (just 75 pages in the first English edition), the book is one of the greatest masterpieces of 20th century philosophy. It consists of 526 propositions organised by an intricate decimal numbering system. There are seven main propositions, each of which is followed by a variable number of subpropositions, with the number indicating a hierarchical structure: every lower-level proposition serving as a comment on the higher-level proposition above it. Wittgenstein outlines his early philosophy, establishing a relationship between the themes of logic and language, newly developed by logicism between the 19th and 20th centuries, and the traditional problems of ethics and value, which lie at the intersection of philosophy and religion.
The genesis of the Tractarian ideas can be attributed to the unique blend of influences absorbed by the author during the early phase of his intellectual production. Well before engaging with academic philosophy, Wittgenstein assimilated the contributions of, among others, Schopenhauer, Tolstoy, Hertz, polemical literature, and Jewish thought, [curious about "polemical literature, and Jewish thought" - could you say what you have in mind? JE, 27/11/23] which were prevalent in the intellectual discourse of fin de siècle Vienna. This culturally vibrant environment was deeply committed to envisioning a reform of communicative, ethical, and aesthetic codes that would provide the proper space for existential reflections. Upon his exposure to the philosophies of Frege and Russell, Wittgenstein adopted the conviction that symbolism, serving as a unifying instrument, could integrate his understanding of the interplay between language and the world with the belief that essential problems could not be the subject of intellectual discourse. [This last sentence bears thinking about... hard to say something accurate, neutral, etc. JE 27/11/23]
The first attempts to organize the material he developed in Cambridge took place between 1913 and 1914, during a period of self-isolation he spent in Skjolden (Norway). There, Wittgenstein built himself a cabin in order to find the solitude he needed to write his first notes (among them, texts that were later published as the Notes on Logic and the Notes Dictated to G.E. Moore). [I'm not sure if this is an accurate way of summarizing the formation of the Notes on Logic. I think Wittgenstein dictated these while in the UK? He might have been reading from notes he'd written in Norway - I should check. JE 27/11/23] With the outbreak of the First World War, Ludwig voluntarily enlisted in the Austrian army. The decision to subject himself to the harsh trials of military life in pursuit of a heroic effort to perfect himself and find definitive solutions to logical and existential problems is undoubtedly a testament to the romantic and anguished nature of the Austrian genius, which is reflected in Wittgenstein's war diaries. ["undoubtedly a testament to the romantic and anguished nature of the Austrian genius" - is this relevant to an intro on the TLP? JE 27/11/23] Alongside some private and introspective notes, Wittgenstein's Notebooks (1914-1916) contain logical-philosophical observations, many of which were preserved with little or no alteration in the Tractatus following various stages of revision, selection, and organization, of which a key step was the composition of an early version which later became known as the Prototractatus.
The final version of the Tractatus was completed in 1918, but difficulties arose in finding anyone willing to publish it. willing to print a work too long to be a journal article and too short to be a standalone book. Additionally, Wittgenstein insisted on not publishing the book at his own expense, considering it an affront to what he regarded as the work of his life. [I understood that W's motivation was not to force his book on the world. I think he says as much in a letter to someone, perhaps Russell. We could find that and quote it here. JE 27/11/23] A German edition dated 1921, but actually published in early 1922, appeared in the journal Annalen der Naturphilosophie under the title of Logisch-Philosphische Abhandlung, but Wittgenstein repudiated it as a "pirated edition" because of mistakes and alterations made during the printing process. Therefore, the edition he considered correct was the one published in London by Kegan Paul in 1922, whose iconic title was suggested by G. E. Moore. This edition had a parallel English text translated by F. P. Ramsey, edited by C. K. Ogden, and reviewed and approved by Wittgenstein. It was also accompanied by an Introduction written by Russell, but one which Wittgenstein regarded as containing many confusions.
Despite their remarkable depth, the fundamental ideas of the Tractatus can be summarized in relatively few lines. "The world is everything that is the case" (1) is the proposition that opens the book, dedicated to the relationship between reality and language. Wittgenstein essentially suggests that all meaningful propositions speak of "atomic facts" (2), which are possible situations [can't use the word "situation" to translate Sachverhalt (atomic fact/state of affairs) because that's the word that is used as the translation of Sachlage, corresponding to a *non-atomic* possible situation. JE 11/12/23], that is, configurations of objects. Language reproduces these connections by designating each object with a simple sign, and a propositional sign is a "picture of reality" (4.01) formed by combining these simple signs. The possibility of representation that links the world, thought, and linguistic expression reveals the presence of structural relationships among these entities, which Wittgenstein qualifies as "the logical form, that is, the form of reality" (2.18). This “picture-theory”, as it has been called, leads to the idea that logic is the common foundation of the world and language, by which every statement is connected to the state of affairs it represents. However, the symbolic expression that transforms pure representational logical connections into communications within everyday language often generates distortions of the representational projection; these distortions constitute “the most fundamental confusions (of which the whole philosophy is full)” (3.324). In other words, “language disguises the thought” (4.002).
The purpose of philosophy, which Wittgenstein qualifies as the "activity" of "the logical clarification of thoughts" (4.112), is thus the dissolution of philosophical problems themselves through the simple elucidation of the "logic of language" (4.002). Adhering to the logicist program, Wittgenstein expresses the belief that this activity can be better conducted through the analysis (that is, the examination and reduction into further indivisible signs, 2.0201) of the propositions that give rise to misunderstandings, ultimately aiming to develop an unambiguous logical ideography (which he himself employed in a form he developed) that renders errors and misinterpretations impossible. While it is evident that Wittgenstein adopts a rational approach, he maintains that philosophy cannot be regarded on par with science. Instead, "all philosophy”, he writes, “is ‘Critique of language’" (4.0031): its task it to examine and clarify the language used in philosophical discourse rather than constructing a separate body of knowledge akin to scientific theories.
What is illustrated by Wittgenstein here follows what he anticipates in the Preface when he asserts that "what can be said at all can be said clearly": philosophy delimits the thinkable and, therefore, what can be spoken of, by circumscribing meaningful combinations of signs within language and drawing a limit between everything that can be meaningfully expressed and what is mere nonsense. Since language and the world have symmetrical formal relationships, "the limits of my language mean the limits of my world" (5.6), a famous aphorism with which the author introduces a series of brief and striking reflections on the theme of solipsism and the "metaphysical subject" (5.633), expressing scepticism towards any form of sound philosophical discussion about the self. In fact, Wittgenstein adds, the peculiarity of the philosophical endeavour is that the limit of language (and hence of the world) is itself not susceptible to a meaningful linguistic representation because "propositions […] cannot represent what they must have in common with reality in order to be able to represent it—the logical form" (4.12).
Not only those propositions that deal with the logic of language but also any proposition formulated with the intent of expressing something supernatural ultimately turn out to be nonsensical. Essentially, this applies to every proposition that, against the laws of assertion, does not aim to represent a state of affairs but rather to formulate a value judgment about the world, because "the sense of the world must lie outside of the world" (6.41), that is, outside of the realm of what is linguistically representable. Therefore, at the end of the book, in a series of deliberately aphoristic and emotionally powerful statements, Wittgenstein argues that the propositions of ethics, aesthetics, and religion are equally nonsensical ("it is clear that ethics cannot be expressed", 6.421). What this kind of propositions would like to convey, interpreting the human instinct to go beyond the limits of language, belongs to the realm of the “inexpressible”, which "shows itself" and which Wittgenstein designates as "the mystical" (6.522). The crucial distinction between "saying" and "showing" is introduced by Wittgenstein to illustrate that "what can be shown cannot be expressed" (4.1212) by means of language; thus, Wittgenstein also acknowledges a certain allusive power in his elucidatory propositions, that are capable of conveying inherently incommunicable ideas ("he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them", 6.54). Nevertheless, he reiterates in concluding the book that the "only strictly correct method" (6.53) of philosophy as a practice of clarification is to abstain from any "metaphysical" discourse; he therefore invites the reader to recognize the nonsensical nature of the Tractarian propositions, to "surmont" them, and to rid oneself of them, throwing away the ladder after climbing up on it (6.54). Once the right view of the world and language that the Tractatus proposes is attained, the only task remaining is to give concreteness to its theses and to refrain from any nonsensical philosophical discourse: "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent" (7).
The assertive tone and the lack of further explanatory propositions after the well-known final statement of the Tractatus betray Wittgenstein's confidence in having "essentially solved the problems" (Preface). In his view, the book offered a definitive solution to the philosophical problems of language, value, and existence, and both areas (logic and ethics) held equal importance as they carried the same significance for the author. The sense of the book, as stated in a letter sent by Wittgenstein to the publisher Ludwig von Ficker, is an ethical sense: "my work consists of two parts: of the one which is here, and of everything which I have not written. And precisely this second part is the important one. For the Ethical is delimited from within, as it were, by my book [...] In brief, I think: All of that which many are babbling today, I have defined in my book by remaining silent about it". Indeed, it is a rather paradoxical result that the thoughts which fill the book, despite their "unassailable and definitive" truth (Preface), are, strictly speaking, incommunicable! The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus presents a unique challenge in that it grapples with the limits of language and the boundaries of meaningful communication on “what is higher” (6.432). Wittgenstein must have been aware of this when, sanctioning the proverbial futility of philosophy, he wrote in the Preface that the value of the work lies “in the fact that it shows how little has been done when these problems have been solved".
Considering all this, it would be reductive to limit the legacy of the book to its influence on the development of neologicist philosophy, as is often still done today. It is true that the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus contains the fundamental theoretical elements (from logical atomism to truth-functionality to the verification principle) that were later elaborated by the Vienna Circle (although Wittgenstein began to suspect that some of his statements lent themselves to misunderstandings precisely because of the neo-positivist interpretation offered by the Circle). However, thanks to the ease with which the author moves between logic and epistemology, ontology and ethics, the book is an irreplaceable document not only as a basis to access Wittgenstein's thought and his later production but also, more generally, for understanding the intellectual landscape of Europe in the 20th century, which remained deeply fascinated by this philosophical masterpiece.
Go to Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
In the only footnote of the book, Wittgenstein himself provided instructions for understanding the numerical hierarchy underlying the lines of reasoning presented in the Tractatus. Each of the main propositions is accompanied by sequentially numbered subpropositions with a single decimal place; in turn, these incorporate sub-subpropositions with two decimal places, and so on. Nowadays, many digital tools have attempted to display the tree-like structure at the base of the book in the form of a diagram (as in the case of the University of Iowa Tractatus map) or through collapsible "drawers" that allow hiding or showing the commentary subpropositions. The Ludwig Wittgenstein Project has developed its own version of the tree-like view of the Tractatus to offer users a reading experience that is more closely aligned with Wittgenstein's indications than the traditional, linear presentation provided by paper editions. Go to Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (tree-like view)
Furthermore, with the aim of facilitating the comparison between the original edition and translations of the work, we have developed a multilingual interface that displays the original text and the translations which are currently available on the website side by side. Go to the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (side-by-side view)