Throwing away the ladder | Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Routledge Classics)

Explication of the propositional calculus. | Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Routledge Classics) | Ludwig Wittgenstein

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	• Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Routledge Classics) Ludwig Wittgenstein Routledge, 2001 - 128 pages average customer review:based on 42 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Keep it real

Tractatus is LW's best work. Do not buy the hype that Phil. Investigations is a better book- or that there are 2 LWs (it's the same guy!). While LW's ideas developed in the Investigations, the ideas were in development at the time of Tractatus. LW's only completed work during his lifetime. It is polished, coherent, poetic, and a classic in philosophy (Phil. Investigations is patchy, excessively long, and most likely incoherent).

Throwing away the ladder

Much that has been written about Wittgenstein has been wildly irrelevent. I would ignore commentaries and concentrate on the fact that Wittgenstein himself calls the propositions in the book nonsense - no doctrines are given only the idea that we are prey to philosophical confusion. The Tractatus in engaged in what it calls "elucidation" - an activity of showing disguised nonsense (what we think make sense) to be in fact plain old nonsense. How - by offering us nonsense we believe we can make sense of and then trying to show us that it is nonsense.

Definitive reading, to understand Wittgenstein is to realise the book teaches us nothing except about ourselves.

When read in this light the later Philosophical Investigations become not a refutation of this work but rather a different view of how elucidation can be used in a philosophical work.

Enjoy!

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Explication of the propositional calculus.

Those not familiar with the proprositional calculus may not like the symbolic logic involved, but it is worth understanding because it is quite simple and makes the rest of the text very easily understandable. Wittgenstein's most important terms like 'elementary proposition' come essentially from viewing natural languages as an imperfect version of the propositional calculus. This idea is quite wrong, in fact even Wittgenstein himself was struck by his own naivety in believing that all language did was put forward propositions capable of truth or falsity. His later view that to understand language you must look at it, seems blindingly obvious, but he was just reacting to the general view of the logical positivist who only saw meaning in propositions capable of truth or falsity, which does not in any way match up with how we actually use language in everyday life. The idea of "pictoral form", a mysterious connection between the object relations of the real world, and the grammatical structure of the sentence is a beautiful and impressive idea, but lacks any real grounding in fact.

Many would disagree, but I say ignore the numbered paragraphs and just read it through, Wittgenstein was just using a technique he learnt from engineering textbooks, and the structure doesn't help understanding. Many people will be frustrated by the lack of argument, and its almost biblical tone, but trust me, anyone familiar with Wittgenstein's life will know that he thought over these problems for a long time.

Philosophical Investigations is a more important work, but shares nearly all the concerns of the Tractacus. Read the section in the Investigations on broomsticks and logical atomism, it will show the bankruptcy and arbitraryness of atomism in linguistic practise.

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heavy

This work of complex philosopical thought is said to have (in the author's words) solved all of the philosophical prolbems of the time. Reportedly, three philosophy instructors resigned, feeling that there no longer existed a reason to philosophize as a consequence after having read the work. This, in itself, should be reason for inquiry into the text.

Seminal

That is the only word to describe this book, even if some of the ideas are erroneous. That is not the only basis to judge a book's importance. His work seems to be an expansion of an aphorism found in Nietzsche's All Too Human, that people have always assumed words have an unchanging meaning, or have meaning at all in some cases. Ludwig compares our language to a mirror, which must represent something in reality to be truthful. This is not a rejection of what is thus deemed "mystical," but in fact is more respectful of it, in freeing it from refutations or proofs based in language. Ludwig perhaps states this better in his later work. He also shows that the idea of an absolute is nonsensical, that something must exist in relation to something else; to prove an absolute you would have to find a symbol that would no longer be a symbol. Not every proposition can be based on the criterion of truth or falsehood. This makes all previous philosophy nonsense. The symbols used are used to say something that cannot be said. His style is impressive in its force and simplicity. The book is an eclectic mix of logical proofs and regular prose. Now whether all philosophy is made suspect by Wittgenstein is debatable. There are some philosophies that do not repeat the previous errors of the Platonic tradition, such as existentialism. In any case, the study of language is profoundly shown to be integral to a full study of philosophy. Some knowledge of logic would be helpful, but not absolutely necessary to understand the import of his main ideas.

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