Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus

Ludwig Wittgenstein
Shazia Khokhar
14 Eng-Linguistics-38

What we say will be easy,

but to know why we say it
will be very difficult.
L. Wittgenstein

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Aim of Tractatus
1) Solve the problems of philosophy
2) Understand how language works.

Typical Problems in Philosophy

What is reality?
What exists?
What is knowledge, and how is it acquired?
What is reasoning? What is mind?
What is morally right to do something, and why?
What is free will? Do we have it?

How to Solve Philosophical Problems?

Wittgenstein: those problems are illusory,

arising as a result of misunderstanding
about language; the proper task of
philosophy is to clarify our language and
thoughts such that those problems can
dissolve themselves (this is true of both
early and later Wittgenstein).

Main Ideas of Tractatus

1. Language, by which thoughts are
expressed, has an underlying logical
structure, an understanding of which
shows the limits of what can clearly and
meaningfully be said. Philosophical
problems are those propositions that go
beyond the limit of language, and thus
become nonsense.

Main Ideas of Tractatus

2. The proper task of philosophy is to say
nothing except what can be said, i.e., the
propositions of natural science, i.e., something
that has nothing to do with philosophy, and
then, whenever someone else wanted to say
something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him
that he had failed to give a meaning to certain
signs in his propositions (T6.53)

Main Ideas of Tractatus

3. Matters as ethics and aesthetics, religion, and
the problems of life (T6.52) are not ruled out
as nonsensical, even though they are not
propositions of natural science; it is only the
attempt to say something about them which is
so. They are things that cannot be put into
words. They make themselves manifest. They
are what is mystical. (T6.522)

How to Achieve the Aim?

The aim of Tractatus is to reveal the nature of
language and its relation to the world, which is
to explain how the propositions we assert have
senses or meanings. This task amounts to
identifying the limits of language and thought.
To achieve this aim, logic and philosophy of
Frege and Russell are crucial.

The Core Idea of the Tractatus

The arrangement of the names logically mirrors or

pictures the arrangement of the objects in states of
affairs.
It is in virtue of this picturing relation that the
propositions compounded out of elementary
propositions have sense.
This is how language and the world are connected,
and hence how meaning attaches to what we say by
using language correctly.
The only significant discourse is factual discourse.