Tractatus Logico-philosophicusThe Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (widely abbreviated and cited as TLP) (Latin for Logical Philosophical Treatise or Treatise on Logic and Philosophy) is the only book-length philosophical work by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein that was published during his lifetime. The project had a broad goal: to identify the relationship between language and reality and to define the limits of science. It is recognized by philosophers as a significant philosophical work of the twentieth century. G. E. Moore originally suggested the work's Latin title as homage to the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus by Baruch Spinoza. Wittgenstein wrote the notes for the Tractatus while he was a soldier during World War I and completed it during a military leave in the summer of 1918. It was first published in German in 1921 as Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung. The Tractatus was influential chiefly amongst the logical positivist philosophers of the Vienna Circle, such as Rudolf Carnap and Friedrich Waismann. Bertrand Russell's article "The Philosophy of Logical Atomism" is presented as a working out of ideas that he had learned from Wittgenstein. The Tractatus employs an austere and succinct literary style. The work contains almost no arguments as such, but rather consists of declarative statements, or passages, that are meant to be self-evident. The statements are hierarchically numbered, with seven basic propositions at the primary level (numbered 1-7), with each sub-level being a comment on or elaboration of the statement at the next higher level (e.g., 1, 1.1, 1.11, 1.12, 1.13). In all, the Tractatus comprises 526 numbered statements. Wittgenstein's later works, notably the posthumously published Philosophical Investigations, criticised many of his earlier ideas in the Tractatus. |
From inside the book
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... propositions and questions that have been written about philosophical matters are not false but senseless . We ... proposition and the fact must have in common , if the proposition is to assert the fact . In certain elementary ways this ...
... propositions we must come to elementary propositions , which consist of names in immediate combination . The question arises here , how the propositional connexion comes to be . Even if the world is infinitely complex , so that every ...
... elementary propositions plus the specification , which of them are true and which false . n With regard to the existence of n atomic facts there are K2 = 2 ( " ) possibilities . y = 0 It is possible for all combinations of atomic facts ...
... elementary propositions mean their truth - possibilities in an easily intelligible symbolism ) . P q r p q T T Τ T ... elementary propositions . The truth - possibilities of the elementary pro- positions are the conditions of the truth ...
... elementary propositions expresses the truth - conditions of the proposition . The proposition is the expression of its truth- conditions . ( Frege has therefore quite rightly put them at the beginning , as explaining the signs of his ...