Why hello seminar paper....
Ludwig Wittgenstein book ‘The Tracatus Logico-Philosophicus’ was first published in German in 1921. The book is the only book- length piece published by the philosopher Wittgenstein. The published piece was the results of a large project where he attempted to identify the relationship between language and reality and to define the limits of science. Wittgenstein began to write the book during World War 1 while he was a soldier and prisoner of war.
The layout of the book is quite different to other books written by philosophers making his book very unique to others; the work contains no arguments but statements which are meant to be self-evident. Throughout the book each statement is numbered.
The book contains an introduction written by Bertrand Russell who discussing the work of Wittgenstein. Russell discusses that the results by Wittgenstein are various departments of philosophy and he looks at how traditional philosophy and traditional solutions arise out of lack of knowledge about the subject, from this looking into what the principles of symbolism and literature are. According to Wittgenstein there are many problems with the use of language. These problems concern psychology and there is a difference between the language we use in our minds and that of what we speak, using certain language to explain or express something. Another problem that he identified is that the relationship between words and thoughts of sentences which refer to or meaning and this is a problem called epistemology. Epistemology is a type of philosophy which refers to looking into knowledge. Wittengenstein also believed that the use of sentences and clarifying the truth or falseness of a statement is a problem. A final problem identified is that he is concerned with the conditions of accurate symbolism when referring to using sentences. This identified by Russell ‘Mr Wittengenstein is concerned with the conditions for a logically perfect language- not that any language is logically perfect, or that we believe ourselves capable, here and now, of constructing a logically perfect language, but that the whole function of language is to have meaning, and it only fulfils this function in proportion as it approaches to the ideal language which we postulate’ I agree with Russell that it would be extremely hard to have a absolute perfect language, the meaning of language and the understanding of language, specially today, has changed and will always change. Language evolves as time goes on therefore traditional or logical language is forgotten as the language we use in the present is what we understand and is by what we communicate our ideas. However could it be possible to introduce a perfectly logical language? Would we have to go back to a traditional language or start again from scratch so that everyone would have an understanding?
Gathered by Russell, Wittengenstein believes that ‘that which has to be in common between the sentence and the fact cannot, so he contends, be itself in turn said in language. It can, in his phraseology, only be shown, not said, for whatever we may say will still need to have the same structure’ There has to be a common understanding of how sentencing and structure works, however he is saying here that the understanding or common knowledge of structure cannot be identified by speech.
(After the introduction there are seven main propositions which are shown in the book and its statements. 1. The world is everything that is the case. Number 2 is that what is the case (a fact) is the existence of states of affairs. 3. A logical picture of facts is a thought. 4. A thought is a proposition with sense. 5. A proposition is a truth- function of elementary proposition. 6. The general form of a proposition is the general form of a truth function. 7. Where of one cannot speak, one must pass over in silence. )
In the opening pages of the book after the introduction it begins with the theory of ontology which is what the world is fundamentally made up of. This links to the idea of structure and he talks about the structure of state. He states that the building blocks of reality are simple objects which when put all together form states of affairs. These states can then be put together to form facts.
It appears that language is basically a build up of many different factors each individually needing to be understood. Wittengenstein proposition is a logical picture of realty. The different elements of a proposition resemble the reality that they represent. This is how each proposition should be made up to show.
Signs and symbols are also important to the build up of proposition. Signs are given meaning through their use in proposition so if a sign is used in different ways you can be using two different types of signs. You can use a sign to create different meaning in a sentence.
When looking at an image or picture they represent a fact, we acknowledge this fact through sharing logical understanding. Without having a logical form it would not be understood. Wittengenstein states that we can’t say what the logical form of proposition is, but a logical form is shown in a way that a proposition is held together.
Wittengenstein identify that most of the problems of philosophy appear when people to try to talk about things that cannot be shown for example the logical structure. This shows how philosophy and science differs through understanding things such as structure. He says that philosophy should be seen as an activity of clarifying logical structure of language and thought.
In the final statements of his book he talks about the correct method in philosophy is to just keep silent about philosophical question and to let others know who try to discuss and talk about issues concerning philosophy that they don’t know what they are talking about. ‘The proposition of the tractatus themselves makes general statements about the nature of the world, and so they too are nonsense’. Therefore he says ‘what we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence’.
