Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein (i want to read a book .txt) ๐
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Ludwig Wittgenstein is considered by many to be one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century. He was born in Vienna to an incredibly rich family, but he gave away his inheritance and spent his life alternating between academia and various other roles, including serving as an officer during World War I and a hospital porter during World War II. When in academia Wittgenstein was taught by Bertrand Russell, and he himself taught at Cambridge.
He began laying the groundwork for Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus while in the trenches, and published it after the end of the war. It has since come to be considered one of the most important works of 20th century philosophy. After publishing it, Wittgenstein concluded that it had solved all philosophical problemsโso he never published another book-length work in his lifetime.
The book itself is divided into a series of short, self-evident statements, followed by sub-statements elucidating on their parent statement, sub-sub-statements, and so on. These statements explore the nature of philosophy, our understanding of the world around us, and how language fits in to it all. These views later came to be known as โLogical Atomism.โ
This translation, while credited to C. K. Ogden, is actually mostly the work of F. P. Ramsey, one of Ogdenโs students. Ramsey completed the translation when he was just 19 years of age. The translation was personally revised and approved by Wittgenstein himself, who, though he was Austrian, had spent much of his life in England.
Much of the Tractatusโ meaning is complex and difficult to unpack. It is still being interpreted and explored to this day.
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- Author: Ludwig Wittgenstein
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An a priori true thought would be one whose possibility guaranteed its truth.
3.05Only if we could know a priori that a thought is true if its truth was to be recognized from the thought itself (without an object of comparison).
3.1In the proposition the thought is expressed perceptibly through the senses.
3.11We use the sensibly perceptible sign (sound or written sign, etc.) of the proposition as a projection of the possible state of affairs.
The method of projection is the thinking of the sense of the proposition.
3.12The sign through which we express the thought I call the propositional sign. And the proposition is the propositional sign in its projective relation to the world.
3.13To the proposition belongs everything which belongs to the projection; but not what is projected.
Therefore the possibility of what is projected but not this itself.
In the proposition, therefore, its sense is not yet contained, but the possibility of expressing it.
(โThe content of the propositionโ means the content of the significant proposition.)
In the proposition the form of its sense is contained, but not its content.
3.14The propositional sign consists in the fact that its elements, the words, are combined in it in a definite way.
The propositional sign is a fact.
3.141The proposition is not a mixture of words (just as the musical theme is not a mixture of tones).
The proposition is articulate.
3.142Only facts can express a sense, a class of names cannot.
3.143That the propositional sign is a fact is concealed by the ordinary form of expression, written or printed.
For in the printed proposition, for example, the sign of a proposition does not appear essentially different from a word.
(Thus it was possible for Frege to call the proposition a compounded name.)
3.1431The essential nature of the propositional sign becomes very clear when we imagine it made up of spatial objects (such as tables, chairs, books) instead of written signs.
The mutual spatial position of these things then expresses the sense of the proposition.
3.1432We must not say, โThe complex sign โaRbโ says โa stands in relation R to bโโโ; but we must say, โThat โaโ stands in a certain relation to โbโ says that aRbโ.
3.144States of affairs can be described but not named.
(Names resemble points; propositions resemble arrows, they have sense.)
3.2In propositions thoughts can be so expressed that to the objects of the thoughts correspond the elements of the propositional sign.
3.201These elements I call โsimple signsโ and the proposition โcompletely analysed.โ
3.202The simple signs employed in propositions are called names.
3.203The name means the object. The object is its meaning. (โaโ is the same sign as โaโ.)
3.21To the configuration of the simple signs in the propositional sign corresponds the configuration of the objects in the state of affairs.
3.22In the proposition the name represents the object.
3.221Objects I can only name. Signs represent them. I can only speak of them. I cannot assert them. A proposition can only say how a thing is, not what it is.
3.23The postulate of the possibility of the simple signs is the postulate of the determinateness of the sense.
3.24A proposition about a complex stands in internal relation to the proposition about its constituent part.
A complex can only be given by its description, and this will either be right or wrong. The proposition in which there is mention of a complex, if this does not exist, becomes not nonsense but simply false.
That a propositional element signifies a complex can be seen from an indeterminateness in the propositions in which it occurs. We know that everything is not yet determined by this proposition. (The notation for generality contains a prototype.)
The combination of the symbols of a complex in a simple symbol can be expressed by a definition.
3.25There is one and only one complete analysis of the proposition.
3.251The proposition expresses what it expresses in a definite and clearly specifiable way: the proposition is articulate.
3.26The name cannot be analysed further by any definition. It is a primitive sign.
3.261Every defined sign signifies via those signs by which it is defined, and the definitions show the way.
Two signs, one a primitive sign, and one defined by primitive signs, cannot signify in the same way. Names cannot be taken to pieces by definition (nor any sign which alone and independently has a meaning).
3.262What does not get expressed in the sign is shown by its application. What the signs conceal, their application declares.
3.263The meanings of primitive signs can be explained by elucidations. Elucidations are propositions which contain the primitive signs. They can, therefore, only be understood when the meanings of these signs are already known.
3.3Only the proposition has sense; only in the context of a proposition has a name meaning.
3.31Every part of a proposition which characterizes its sense I call an expression (a symbol).
(The proposition itself is an expression.)
Expressions are everythingโ โessential for the sense of the propositionโ โthat propositions can have in common with one another.
An expression characterizes a form and a content.
3.311An expression presupposes the forms of all propositions in which it can occur. It is the common characteristic mark of a class of propositions.
3.312It is therefore represented by the general form of the propositions which it characterizes.
And in this form the expression is constant and everything else variable.
3.313An expression is thus presented by a variable, whose values are the propositions which contain the expression.
(In the limiting case the variable becomes constant, the expression a proposition.)
I call such a variable a โpropositional variable.โ
3.314An expression has meaning only in a proposition. Every variable can be conceived as a propositional variable.
(Including the variable name.)
3.315If we change a constituent part of a proposition into a variable, there is a class of propositions
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