“Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” by Ludwig von Wittgenstein (translated by Frank P. Ramsey)

This short book of logic was the only work of Wittgenstein’s published in his lifetime. He warns in the preface, “this book will perhaps only be understood by those who have themselves already thought the thoughts which are expressed in it.” Despite this dire warning, the book, nonetheless, does prove useful, even to those not so immersed in formal logic and philosophical conjecture. He states that the aim of his book is to “draw a limit to thinking, or rather- not to thinking, but to the expression of thoughts; for, in order to draw a limit to thinking we should have to be able to think on both sides of this limit (we should therefore have to be able to think what cannot be thought). The limit can, therefore, only be drawn in language, and what lies on the other side will simply be nonsense.” A main theme of Wittgenstein’s is to parse out the purpose and limits of language. “Everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly. Everything that can be said can be said clearly.” Furthermore, he delineates, “colloquial language is a part of the human organism and is not less complicated than it. From it it is humanly impossible to gather immediately the logic of language.” On formal logic, specifically, he states, “a logical entity cannot merely be possible. Logic treats of every possibility, and all possibilities are its facts.” Later he clarifies, “logic is not a theory but a reflexion of the world.” On theoretical reasoning, he comments, “an a priori true thought would be one whose possibility guaranteed its truth. Only 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).”

Wittgenstein has quite a lot to say about the true nature of philosophy. “Most propositions and questions, that have been written about philosophical matters, are not false, but senseless. We cannot, therefore, answer questions of this kind at all, but only state their senselessness…. Philosophy is not one of the natural sciences. (The word “philosophy” must mean something which stands above or below, but not beside the natural sciences)…. Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations. Philosophy does not result in ‘philosophical propositions’, but rather in the clarification of propositions. Without philosophy, thoughts are, as it were, cloudy and indistinct: its task is to make them clear and to give them sharp boundaries.” As was Wittgenstein’s nature, he later complicates his own thoughts, “philosophy is the discipline that deals with all those propositions that are assumed to be true without proof by the various sciences…. The inexpressible is contained- unexpressed- in the expressed…. There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.” Wittgenstein’s riddles often leave quite a handful to ponder. He ends his book with another warning, “my propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly.” Finally, Wittgenstein cautions, “whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”