Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Wittgenstein and the Tractatus

by Michael Rowland Morris

Written by a leading expert, this is the ideal guide to the only book Wittgenstein published during his lifetime, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Michael Morris makes sense of Wittgenstein’s brief but often cryptic text, highlighting its key themes. He introduces and analyzes:

Wittgenstein’s life and the background to the Tractatus
the ideas and text of the Tractatus
the continuing importance of Wittgenstein's work to philosophy today,

Wittgenstein is the most important twentieth-century philosopher in the English speaking world. This book will be essential reading for all students of philosophy of language and metaphysics.

Genres: Philosophy

408 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Michael Kenan Baldwin]

A meticulous 400p guide to one of the notorious & difficult books of philosophy.
Chapters 1-4 were particularly good on modality, how W's famous statements about the world and facts are actually indeterminate metaphysically (they're compatible with idealism, anti-realism, or realism) & his famous model/'bild' theory of the proposition.

The style is inductive—thinking out loud even. 25% could’ve been cut in my opinion.

[Andrew]

My view is, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is a strange wee beastie. As the first major piece of secondary literature I've read on it, I would say Morris does a good job of clarifying the text and challenging the reader to think along with and/or against it. Morris assumes familiarity with quantitative symbolic logic - much more familiarity than I have; but I can't really complain about that - it wasn't Morris' intention to write a logic primer. 3 stars, not because the book wasn't very helpful, but because it was, and because I am not qualified to judge its merits in its field.

[Sebastián Briceño]

Una muy buena introducción a un texto críptico.
Morris explica con paciencia y claridad, sin sacrificar profundidad.
Me gustó mucho el apéndice sobre el argumento de la substancia.

[Cole Patten]

This book was essential for my reading the Tractatus as I had almost no knowledge of the Fregian-Russelian issues it is responding to. The book does an excellent job of elaborating on these details, but sometimes does so without making clear its intent, which can make it difficult to follow along with.

I would still highly recommend this to anyone who wants to read the Tractatus. Only I would suggest not getting too caught up in the weeds … after all, the propositions of the texts are senseless.

[Nyama]

Useful study material to interpret a notoriously difficult book. The book explains the authors interpretation of the Tractatus and also describes a brief history of logic too (although it’s limited to history that’s relevant to Wittgenstein’s thesis). The material requires pre-existing knowledge of modal logic so it’s not for beginners.

[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart]

What you cannot speak about clearly you must stfu and pass over in silence

[Cal Davie]

Really fantastic guide to read alongside the Tractatus, I truly would have been lost without it!

[zimu]

written really clearly and enormously helpful. i couldn't enjoy it fully because i found the part on frege and russell to be a bit confusing but i'm pretty sure that was my problem.