Product Description

Perhaps the most important work of philosophy written in the twentieth century, this was the only philosophical work Wittgenstein published during his lifetime.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8874 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

Review
'The Tractatus is one of the fundamental texts of twentieth-century philosophy - short, bold, cryptic, and remarkable in its power to stir the imagination of philosophers and non-philosophers alike.' - Michael Frayn

'Among the productions of the twentieth century the Tractatus continues to stand out for its beauty and its power.' - A.J. Ayer

'Mr Wittgenstein, in his preface, tells us that his book is not a textbook, and that its object will be attained if there is one person who reads it with understanding and to whom it affords pleasure. We think there are many persons who will read it with understanding and enjoy it. The treatise is clear and lucid. The author is continually arresting us with new and striking thoughts, and he closes on a note of mystical exaltation.' - The Times Literary Supplement

'Quite as exciting as we had been led to suppose it to be.' - New Statesman

'Pears and McGuinness can claim our gratitude not for doing merely this (a better translation) but for doing it with such a near approach to perfection.' - Mind

From the Back Cover
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.

About the Author
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 - 1951) is regarded by many as the most outstanding philosopher of the twentieth century.

Customer Reviews

Worth a struggle!
Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was meant to put an end to philosophy. As it turned out, it didn't, because he continued to write later on in life, although after reading it, most of his contemporaries had to keep silent for a bit. It undermines much thought of the early 20th Century. It's a hard one to read. You need to go over these short aphoristic mind explosions slowly. So it's a good thing that the whole text only amounts to about 70 pages. If you do get to the end, though, you can not read philosophy in the same way again. It is worth it for the final lines. The Tractatus is something you grow into. You love it or you hate it. If you get it, you can't ignore it. If you don't, you probably will.

did he mean anything at all?
"This book will perhaps only be understood by those who have themselves already thought the thoughts which are expressed in it -- or similar thoughts", so begins Wittgenstein at the start of this confusing piece of work. He later went on to contradict much of it in his Philosophical Investigations. Russell tells us in his introduction, "In order to understand Mr Wittgenstein's book, it is necessary to realize what is the problem with which he is concerned." I have to say at the outset that I am not a trained Philosopher but I am university educated and reasonably intelligent. However I am still struggling to understand exactly what problems Wittgenstein was trying to solve never mind what the solutions are that he is proposing. Anything else I read about this work is also shrouded in confusing language which doesn't actually seem to refer to anything other than itself. The difficulties are compounded by the fact that even Philosophers themselves can't agree on what it is that he actually trying to achieve. Having said all this I, for reasons I can't fully explain, find both Wittgenstein and his work highly compelling. In parts the book seems like a very dry academic discussion on the rules of logic and yet in others reads more like The Toa Te Ching. I would appreciate it if someone would write a genuinely accessible account of his work with illustrated examples of atomic facts and the kinds of propositions he was talking about. Without a proper background it's too easy to mistakenly think you know what he's talking about. I do have a sneaking suspicion that there is something slightly tongue in cheek about Tractatus though. Consider the following quote, "My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them." Was he really just pointing out the futility of most if not all philosophical thinking? He states that, "The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of this problem". Perhaps Tractatus should be read in a similar way to a Zen Koan. A logical nonsense to illustrate the futility of trying to grasp reality by thinking about it. Perhaps not. I sure as hell don't know if this is what he intended and I get the feeling nobody else does either. Richard Feynman who hated philosophy used to say that if you can't explain an idea in a way that anyone can understand you haven't understood it yourself. If Wittgenstein couldn't explain himself in an accessible way did he have real insights to share or was it just nonsense? The jury is still out on that one for me. Either way there is something inexplicable remarkable about this book.

Not quite the end of philosophy
Before outlining the philosophical project of the Tractatus a cursory note about the style and structure of the text should be made. It consists of short supposedly self-evident aphorisms in the form 7 general statements as well as many supplementary sentences that explain or reveal the deeper meaning of the more general statement above, e.g. 7.1 is taken to be an explanatory proposition of 7, 7.1.1 supplements 7.1, and so on. There are no arguments per se in the text. This does not mean that the propositions are unreasoned, but the responsibility lies with the student in teasing the arguments out of Wittgenstein's subtle pointers. It is of necessity to point out that the Tractatus is not a work accessible to laymen or beginners: one does need some understanding of contemporary formal logic as well as the logical atomism of Russell and to a lesser extent the philosophy of Immanuel Kant.

Wittgenstein's aim with the Tractatus was to demystify philosophy through the conceptual clarification. Wittgenstein did not believe philosophical problems existed in the traditional sense, but resulted from confusions caused by a fundamental misuse and misunderstanding about the form and meaning of language. In this sense, the Tractatus, according to Wittgenstein, was to put an end to philosophizing in the ordinary sense and instead see philosophy as a process of clarification of fundamental concepts that would aid those subjects that seek genuine answers in terms of facts, e.g. the sciences.

Central to this new definition of philosophy is the picture theory, for which the Tractatus is most famed. In the preface Wittgenstein alludes to the Kantian principle that the limits of language (thought) are the limits of the world. This link between language and reality lies at the heart of the metaphysics of the early Wittgenstein's philosophy. The picture theory borrows heavily from Russellian referentialism and can be briefly stated as the view that language represents reality. The first statement of the Tractatus is that the world is everything that is the case - or the totality of facts as the supplementary statements explain. Facts can be broken down into constituent parts (objects), which can be further broken down. Facts are expressed in language by propositions, which too are divisible. In the Tractatus Wittgenstein adopted the logical atomism of Russell and claimed that the chain of divisibility must end somewhere - he postulates the existence of simple ideas underpinning reality. Furthermore, it is by denoting real world objects that words gain meaning. So the words `chair', `table', `computer' all have meaning only because they denote objects in the world. So if words have meaning because they denote objects, propositions too only have meaning if they denote possible states of affairs (which are constituted of actual objects in a possible configuration). The result is that only propositions that can be subjected to tests of truth and falsehood have any meaning (or sense), everything else can be cast aside as nonsense. Wittgenstein's claim is that the sorts of propositions philosophers have used throughout history in the fields of metaphysics, epistemology and ethics & religion are nonsense since they use words and concepts such as `God', `Justice', `Knowledge' that do not denote objects in reality. They do fit within the boundaries of our language, according to Wittgenstein's model, therefore cannot form part of our meaningful reality and are nonsense.

The rest of the Tractatus can be separated into two parts. The first consists of the statements between 4 and 6.241 and outlines Wittgenstein's theory of an ideal language of logic. His analysis is done mostly through the use of truth-tables (a standard model of semantics in modern sententional logic). There is also a theory on the essential form of sentences, as well Wittgenstein expressing the view that mathematical and logical sentences are tautological and transcendental and therefore are themselves nonsense (and also re-iterating the Russellian thesis that all mathematic propositions are derivative of logical propositions). The purely logical language reflects the world and can only derive meaning from this and is in possession of none in itself (My lack of detail here does not reflect the opinion that I consider these parts of the Tractatus of lesser importance, but is due to my inability to render the technical features lucidly and with the justice they deserve).

The second part is of particularly interesting in light of what has gone before it and has sparked much intrigue and debate since (see the New Wittgensteinians). Beginning at around 6.3 it consists of statements that are taken to confront religion, ethics and the mystical. There is also to be found the claim by Wittgenstein that what one has just read (the Tractatus) is itself nonsense, expressed mischievously by the metaphor of the ladder (6.54). I leave the intrigued student to seek and figure this out for themselves.

The Tractatus is an incredible work in its scope considering its short length; its conclusions are profound, groundbreaking and contain serious implications for philosophers. However, as with any work of philosophy there are flaws. Most of these were ruthlessly exposed and criticised by Wittgenstein himself in his posthumously published Philosophical Investigations. The picture theory is now taken as an ultimately incorrect account of the relationship between language and reality - it is too narrow and the `use theory' of the mature Wittgenstein appears more versatile and far more robust to challenges. There is the work itself: Wittgenstein aimed to redefine philosophy as a therapeutic process of dispelling the myths of metaphysics that were caused by the muddyness of language; he rejected metaphysical doctrines as nonsense, yet a large chunk of the Tractatus is devoted to a positive metaphysical theory.

Nevertheless, the Tractatus constitutes a very noble attempt at establishing its theories in their own right, even if it fails to deliver on its promise to reduce philosophy to a process of conceptual clarification in aid of the sciences. Its influence remains strong and there are many scholars who consider the Tractatus the pinnacle of Wittgenstein's philosophical output.