By: Ludwig Wittgenstein Publisher: Routledge Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Routledge Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 128 Publication Date: September 01, 2001
Product Description: Perhaps the most important work of philosophy written in the twentieth century, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was the only philosophical work that Ludwig Wittgenstein published during his lifetime. Written in short, carefully numbered paragraphs of extreme brilliance, it captured the imagination of a generation of philosophers. For Wittgenstein, logic was something we use to conquer a reality which is in itself both elusive and unobtainable. He famously summarized the book in the following words: 'What can be said at all can be said clearly; and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.' David Pears and Brian McGuinness received the highest praise for their meticulous translation. The work is prefaced by Bertrand Russell's original introduction to the first English edition.
Not for the average reader but thorough, if not at times tedious, in acomplishing its task... The `Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus' is the German monk and philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein's commentary on language and its logical failures. This not only applies to its uses in philosophy but in all fields. He explains in length how a logical proposition, by definition, cannot carry any weight because logic itself is only a framework, consisting of no substance. It can therefore only lead us to a simplification of what we already know; much in the same way that the mathematics, as a method, can lead to a simplification, if data and relationships are given but not create numbers where they didn't exist before. Because of their interchangeable nature, he often applies mathematics as a way of explaining his principles within language. These are laid out in step by step framework of propositions preceded by numbers and decimal places signifying their order and importance.
Although his book deals with an issue of great importance to philosophy and has received excellent reviews from many great philosophers, including an enthusiastic introduction by Bertrand Russell, I found this book to be, for the most part, pretty dull. After his general criticism of language is understood it seems that he spends most of the book going into an unnecessarily detailed proof of this being the case. As a foundational work, maybe this approach was necessary in order to explain away any grey areas and gaps through which criticism could be made. For the average reader however, who is interested in understanding new principles and gaining new philosophical insight, this book may come across as overly tedious, and overcomplicated. Wittgenstein's propositions on language could, I believe, be explained, still persuasively, but in much more understandable and readable manner, and in a great deal less space.
If you are interested in a step by step, text book style read, then maybe this book will interest you. If like me, however, you prefer to cut through the jargon and onto understanding the core principles, I would encourage you to skim-read through the first two thirds of the book picking out what makes sense and not spending too much time trying to understand what can in places seem like impossibly mind boggling equations, knowing that at the heart the principles themselves are pretty simple. From around page 60 onwards I found that the book got more interesting as Wittgenstein moves from proving the validity of his propositions to their implications. For me it was this end that made the book. Had I given up half way through, as was tempting, I would have missed the best part. It was in these last pages that the genius of Ludwig Wittgenstein really shone through.
What there is After this book, a sort of spa treatment for the over philosophical mind, deep cleaning our comprehension of the world into a notion of propositions and the relation between them, Wittgenstein himself cast off the training ladder of the Tractatus, as he advised his readers to do at the end of the book. He argued that the logical positivists he had inspired were mistaken in demanding excessive precision from human expressions. This led to his later theory of language games - picturing of reality is often only incidental to the success of language. On you go folks, good luck...
ow, my brain...awesome. stick an alfred north whitehead lecture and a collection of hegel quotes into a blender and...it will make a mess. instead, i'd suggest reading a book. this one has lots of mathmematically themed explanations of what we know (or don't) and what we can express or understand (or can't). a little migraine-inducing at times, but then again no one said it was a stephen king novel. it's actually quite short, but since he fits such expansive theories into such neat little stanzas, it seems like 'war and peace' after someone dropped it from the sears tower. if you like thinking about thinking for thinking's sake, this guy is one pimped out g-money hustlah. or not. great stuff.
Worth a PHD for the writer. "That which we cannot speak of we must pass over in silence".
'The world is all that is the case' The Tractatus was Wittgenstein's attempt to solve all philosophical problems. Believing he was successful, he retired from Philosophy after publishing this text to become a schoolteacher for several years in Austria, before returning to philosophy.
The Tractatus is one of the most important intellectual works of the 20th century, arguably as important as Bertrand Russell's and Whitehead's 'Principa Mathematica', Heidigger's 'Being and Time', and Husserl's 'Logical Investigations.' This little work, beautiful in its logical simplicity and purity, can be regarded as the manifesto of analytical philosophy in the 20th century.
The Tractus is essentially a work dealing with epistemology, what we can and cannot know about the world. However, rather than looking at the mind or conciousness or sensations, Wittgenstein instead looks at how we use language and logic to describe the world. If we can solve the inherent logical ambiguity of language, we can then solve philosophical problems which are in fact simply faults which come from lack of logical coherence or clarity when we use language to make certain statements about things and the relationship between things.
Wittgenstein's approach is somewhat reductionistic. The propositional format of the work mirrors the Ethics of Spinoza, though for Wittgenstein the world is made of certain basic atomistic components which have fairly simple relations to each other. These arrangements may change in space and time but the world remains the same.
A number of propositions deal with logical problems explored by Russell, Frege and others. Some of these are very abstract and subtle and require careful study to properly understand.
Towards the end of the treatise Wittgenstein's concerns seem to border on the mystical. 'It is not what the world is, but that it is, which is mystical' and 'What we cannot speak of, we have to pass over in silence.' These Zenlike statements seem to hint at a deep mystery about things which crops up when we reach questions beyond the scope of language and logic, which can only be approached with silent contemplation, somewhat like Nicholas of Cusa's approach to the mystery of God. While Wittgenstein was not a religious man, his statements in this sense have often been quoted by philosophers and scientists whenever a metaphysical question which seems unanswerable arises in their discourse.
Wittgenstein later abandoned many of the statements he made in the Tractatus when he returned to philosophy, instead focusing more on problems with language rather than logic. This is somewhat unfortunate, given the elegance and beauty of this work from the philosophical viewpoint.
While the ambitions of Wittgenstein to solve all problems by clearing up our usage of language may seem excessive looking back, the clarity and precision of this work is admirable and the project worthwhile. For this and for many other reasons, it remains a work worth studying carefully and with sympathy, even after a century or so after its publication.
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