Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: A Reader's Guide

by Roger M. White

Wittgenstein's Tractatus - the only book he actually published within his lifetime - was an immensely important work which changed the direction of philosophy in the first half of the twentieth century. Highlighting the importance of the nature of language in philosophy and the problematic nature of metaphysics, it strongly influenced the work of Russell, the Vienna Circle and A. J. Ayer. An understanding of the ideas in the Tractatus is essential to fully grasp Wittgenstein's remarkable thought.




In Wittgenstein's 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus': A Reader's Guide , Roger White provides a thorough account of the philosophical and historical context of Wittgenstein's work. The book provides a detailed outline of the themes and structure of the text, guiding the reader towards a thorough understanding of this remarkable text. White goes on to explore the reception and influence of the work and offers a detailed guide to further reading. This is the ideal companion to study of this hugely important philosophical work.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, German Literature

163 pages, Paperback

First published October 24, 2006

About the author

Roger M. White is Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Leeds. He is an analytic philosopher whose books include The Structure of Metaphor (1996) and Talking About God: The Concept of Analogy and the Problem of Religious Language (2010).

Reviews

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

That cover though, ugh.

The question is: do you buy this guide or read the one at sparknotes.com for free?

This guide offers better definitions for basic terms Wittgenstein uses, like "facts" and "objects." That leads to a clearer understanding of certain propositions.

Sparknotes does a better job explaining the background--the work of Kant, Ferge and Russell--that Wittgenstein is responding too.

Both guides are great at grounding difficult concepts with examples.

On its own: this guide was perfect in that it explained his positions and I was able to follow it all the way through. Was it worth the purchase? I think so, but I'd recommend reading the spark notes first and if you still feel the need to dig deeper, then shell out the cash for this one.

[Heleen.A.H · Rating 4 out of 5]

It helped me so much to understand early Wittgenstein and Tractatus itself, its really informative, n I highly recommend it to Tractatus readers! But again you’ll need some basics in semantics, formal logic and linguistics!

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I don't think I got a ton of information out of this directly, it did provide some interesting new questions/framings, and was good to *have read* just to get a sense for what's going on with all this Wittgenstein business. On the Reader itself, the author (as far as I can tell) does a great job noting different perspectives and possible interpretations, providing context, etc.

Regarding the Tractatus, there's definitely a lot of unnecessary mystique because of Wittgenstein's inexplicable choices in writing style, but also lots of legit content. It seems to have a huge amount in common with GEB and A Human's Guide to Words. Witty G seems to have set out to eliminate semantic confusions from philosophy. Truths of math/logic are tautologies and therefore tell you nothing about the world. Witt wants a philosophical language that will make tautologies obvious - however, identifying tautologies requires a decision procedure for propositional logic, so Godel's result that came out ten years after publication stepped on our boi's toes a bit. Lots of interesting stuff comes out of this project to. In particular: how good can a heuristic for propositional theoremhood get? Is there a sharp line between intensional/extensional definitions? What measures can we practically take to remove what semantic confusions we can? Can evolution/anthropics be used to "ground out" the problem of intensional definitions?

Finally, I do think there are some important places Wittgenstein seems confused, which White didn't point out. His notion of what "cannot be said" seems to alternate between descriptive impossibility and a normative ban. His notion of "language" seems to alternate between representation in the abstract and human words specifically.

[Aidan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy cow, this is the TLP walk-through you've been looking for. White breaks down just enough of Wittgenstein's history and intellectual context to shed a huge light on what, exactly, the TLP was all about. White's interpretation is, of course, influenced by his own thoughts on the TLP, but he consistently marks when he's leaving the realm of accepted interpretation and pushing the boundaries by adding his own. I'm not saying White is without fault. There are certain sections of the book that he seems to have just gotten wrong. But on the whole, I found this a valuable tool for structuring my latest reading of the TLP.

[Jack Escowitz · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is absolutely essential to read this text along with the Tractatus; I would go as far as to say that an unguided reading of the (wildly differing) translations of Wittgenstein's early work is counterproductive. All the essential explanations of logical notation and prior developments in the field by Frege and Russell are provided. The most valuable elements are: clarification of terminology (a problem caused by inconsistent translation and Wittgenstein's own shortcomings), the pointing out of Wittgenstein's mistakes (and how they can be reconciled), and a detailed discussion of the Tractatus' core paradox (its most baffling aspect).

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best guide to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus

[Space Orlando · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very clear and concise.

[Mira Madsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Det, hvorom man ikke kan tale, om det må man tie.”

[Yusuf Hacking · Rating 5 out of 5]

Immensely helpful, allowed me to get so much out of the tractatus

[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Заебись

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

That’s a really good introduction, without it all my wittgenstein reads’ attempts would fail miserably.

[Paul H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read for my doctoral comps (in philosophy), long ago . . . not only is this book extremely clear and helpful, it might be the best secondary source on Wittgenstein that I've read. The author stays even-handed and open about his premises, and exposits the text with brilliance and clarity.