No entendí nada (tal y como predijo su autor) pero lo disfruté bastante. ( )

Trans. D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness. More understandable than I thought it would be. Very interesting, although I wonder if it solves a problem no one needed solving in any real sense. But W would agree as he determines philosophy is an action, not a problem solving mechanism and even the action is suspect, at least so far as logic is concerned because nothing can be said linguistically about the world with any logic. But did we need to prove that logic is not complete? Goedel obviously proved it can not be, but even on a practical level, philosophy can analyze ideas without needing to conform to mathematical logic. One doesn’t need the other necessarily. Still his dismantling of the idea of the logic of language was fascinating.
From intro by Russel: a philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations. The result of philosophy is not a number of “philosophical propositions” , but to make propositions clear “. (Xiii)
3.328 if a sign is useless, it is meaningless. That is the point of Occam’s maxim. (If everything behaves as if a sign had meaning, then it does have meaning.)
5.6 the limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
7 what we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence

The solution of the riddle of life in space and time lies outside space and time. [...] Not how the world is, is the mystical, but that it is. ( )

Perhaps one of the only philosophical masterpieces that you can read in a couple of days, or perhaps even in one afternoon if you're a quick reader. I cannot pretend that I understand everything about this book, neither can I pretend that I even get the essence of it right. However, I feel amazed by the brave attempt of Ludwig to literary 'cut the crap' out of the philosophy. His insight that the laws of logic are tautologies is brilliant. We cannot talk about the things that matter most to us (and we can realize this). I think this is the idea that Wittengenstein explains and proves in the last dramatic statements of the Logico-Philosophicus. And of course, those last two statements are nearly poetry. 'Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen.' This is an anti-climax and a climax at the same time: the disappointing note with which Wittgenstein throws us back to our own worlds and our inability to understand reality. ( )

I have read through this one three times: once hastily to get a feel for it; and twice carefully with Bertrand Russell's 1922 introductory text in between. During this last reading I kept some notes and constructed a diagram. It was this diagram that began to homogenize my scattered thoughts. At first, I didn't even realize that I applied Wittgenstein's point 2.1: "We make to ourselves pictures of facts" (9).



Looking at my elementary little diagram, I began to see something familiar. This dualistic metaphysics has its root in Kant's transcendental idealism from [b:Critique of Pure Reason|18288|Critique of Pure Reason|Immanuel Kant|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1348663530s/18288.jpg|1072226]. For Kant, there are two worlds: the noumenal and the phenomenal. As regards my diagram, Kant's noumenal world is the analog of the box labeled WORLD and the phenomental world has its analog in my box labeled CONCEPTUAL MODEL. These names aren't exactly synonymous, but I don't feel like changing them. The main point is that the noumenal world is reality as it is in itself, and we cannot access it. We cannot access, for example, the substance of objects. The phenomenal world, on the other hand, is the reality we experience through our senses.

For Wittgenstein, the main composite object we construct in order to interact with facts in the noumenal world are pictures. We picture facts, as he says early on. But this picture is the amalgamation of thoughts which make up propositions which make up a language. Yet herein lies one of the main thrusts of the tractatus: how do we assert a logically complete and infallible language with which to deal with phenomena? This was a major sticking point for me during my first two readings, because it seemed to me (especially at the very end of the text) that the whole argument ended with the destruction of metaphysics. This I based chiefly on point 6.54: "...he who understands me finally recognizes [my propositions] as senseless...." (82; and, indeed, many critics feel cheated at this point--the end--of the text).

Perhaps, though, this interpretation was due to my heightened skepticism for the usefulness of philosophy these days. I took a note at some point that says "the purpose of philosophy is to clarify thoughts and nothing more." And, indeed, one of Wittgenstein's goals is to use Occam's razor to excise any bit of symbolism/grammar/syntax/etc. deemed unnecessary. Which then causes my question to resurface: what would be left? Towards the end of the work, it seemed to me that Wittgenstein proposed the area of the mystical being the destination for of Occam's shavings.

But for the sake of argument, let's say endeavor to list the totality of things that are the case. We would happen upon Russell's paradox, which proves a self-referential error that occurs when trying to assert a set of all possible sets, because said set would have to include itself. This same type of issue arises when Wittgenstein proposes a language that includes everything that is the case--the facts; the pictures; the symbols. And even disregarding the paradox of Wittgenstein's friend, could we achieve this infinite language of symbols?

One thinks of Borges's story of the Aleph, a symbol and object in the story used to represent a point of infinite knowledge. Of its description, the narrator says:

"And here begins my despair as a writer. All language is a set of symbols whose use among its speakers assumes a shared past. How, then, can I translate into words the limitless Aleph, which my floundering mind can scarcely encompass? Mystics, faced with the same problem, fall back on symbols...."

Couple this with Wittgenstein's point 6.45: "The contemplation of the world sub specie aeterni is its contemplation as a limited whole. The feeling that the world is a limited whole is the mystical feeling." Indeed a "limited whole" is a paradox, an oxymoron. Yet, in another light, it isn't, for the adjective "limited" really describes our finite cognitive ability, while the "whole" refers to the totality we wish to propose as the complete system.

In conclusion, I propose that the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is the endgame for an attempt at a full system of metaphysics. As Kant put forth his [b:Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics|80324|Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics|Immanuel Kant|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1405624515s/80324.jpg|2648679] as an indispensable beginning for any system of metaphysics, Wittgenstein's 82-page tractatus stakes its claim as perhaps the new launching pad. When we consider the very real limitations of our thinking and our ability to establish a system that encompasses such a transendental whole, the very last point is properly fitting: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent" (82).

Checkmate. ( )