Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Ludwig Wittgenstein
"Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" by Ludwig Wittgenstein is a philosophical work written during World War I and published in 1921. This austere book seeks to define the relationship between language and reality and establish the limits of science. Composed of 525 hierarchically numbered declarative statements, it presents seven main propositions without traditional arguments. The work profoundly influenced twentieth-century philosophy, particularly logical positivism, though Wittgenstein later criticized many of its ideas. Its famous closing statement addresses the boundaries of meaningful expression.
About This Book
A young philosopher's attempt to solve philosophy once and for all, in a series of numbered propositions written partly in the trenches of WWI.
Wittgenstein's central claim — that language can only meaningfully describe facts about the world, and that most traditional philosophical questions (about ethics, God, the meaning of life) are literally nonsense, not because they're unimportant but because they're outside what language can say — ends with his famous instruction to throw away the book's own ladder once you've climbed it. It's short, aphoristic, and was intended by its author as the final word on its subject before he later disowned much of it himself.
Discussion Questions
- What does Wittgenstein mean by saying the important things in life are “shown,” not “said”?
- Why might Wittgenstein have later rejected much of his own argument here, in his subsequent work?
Audio-Only Edition
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