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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... result , a certain latitude has been possible in passages to which objection might otherwise be taken as over - literal . The proofs of the translation and the version of the original which appeared in the final number of Ostwald's ...
... result of this inquiry to various departments of tradi- tional philosophy , showing in each case how traditional philosophy and traditional solutions arise out of ignorance of the principles of Symbolism and out of misuse of language ...
... result from the fact that we do not understand the logic of our language . They are of the same kind as the question whether the Good is more or less identical than the Beautiful " ( 4.003 ) . What is complex in the world is a fact ...
... results from this view that nothing correct can be said in philosophy . Every philosophical proposition is bad grammar ... result of philosophy is not a number of philosophical propositions , ' but to make propositions clear . Philosophy ...
... results that nothing can be deduced from an atomic proposition . All the propositions of logic , he maintains , are tautologies , such , for example , as “ p or not p . " 9 The fact that nothing can be deduced from an atomic proposition ...