新キェルケゴール研究第 19 号

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Kierkegaard in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus
Yusuke SUZUKI

1. Introduction
It was only recently (in 1993) that scholars confirmed the existence of Wittgenstein’s
manuscript MS183.＊1 The manuscript is a diary that Wittgenstein kept from 1930
to 1937, and reveals that he was an ardent reader of Kierkegaard’s work during
the early stages of writing his Philosophical Investigations. MS183’s publicationin several languages since 1997＊2 has caused a considerable increase in studies
examining Wittgenstein’s indebtedness to Kierkegaard.＊3
Many, though not all, of these studies seems to have been conducted inaccordance with the guiding principle advocated by Genia Schönbaumsfeld,
who is considered a leading researcher on the subject. Schönbaumsfeld says,‘these [Wittgenstein’s] reflections [about religious belief] themselves show suchremarkable affinities with those of Kierkegaard that it is nigh on impossible notto speak of a direct influence̶especially now that we know exactly how much
Kierkegaard Wittgenstein actually read’ (Schönbaumsfeld 2007, 36). That is to say,considering Wittgenstein’s eager reading of Kierkegaard, which is particularly
evident in MS183, we can now assert Kierkegaard’s influence whereverKierkegaardian elements are evident in Wittgenstein’s thoughts. Consequently, in
my view, scholars have perceived too much ‘influence’.
I refer to Wittgenstein’s Nachlass using von Wright’s catalogue number. ‘MS183’ stands
for Wittgenstein’s manuscript no. 183.
＊2
See Wittgenstein (1997, 2003 and 2005).
＊3
For example, Roe Fremstedal’s study is one of the earliest (Fremstedal 2006).
Perhaps the most influential study on this subject is that by Genia Schönbaumsfeld(Schönbaumsfeld 2007). Common views on the Wittgenstein’s relationship to
Kierkegaard are sketched out by Anthony Rudd (Rudd 2013).
＊1

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For example, regarding the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Thomas Miles
claims that,
Kierkegaard’s influence is evident in Wittgenstein’s holistic, existential
conception of ethics that he develops here [i.e. MS103, one of his manuscripts
for Tractatus] and repeats in the Tractatus. Like Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein
believed that ethical success or failure, goodness or badness, was mostimportantly a matter of one’s overall existential attitude towards life [. . .].
One’s fundamental existential attitude or ‘ethical will’ establishes the structureof one’s life-world as a whole. [. . .] this holistic approach to ethics and the ideaof different life-worlds both seem to be influenced by Kierkegaard’s notionof different existential ‘spheres’ or ways of life, each established by one’s
fundamental existential orientation. (Miles 2012, 219)
He also points out that,
Wittgenstein’s ethics of philosophy, even more than his ethics, seems to begreatly influenced by Kierkegaard. The central idea of an inability clearly
to express the profound, and of a silence that is the proper response to thisinability, is a main theme in several of Kierkegaard’s works, including works
Wittgenstein had likely read like Concluding Unscientific Postscript, “ThePresent Age,” and Fear and Trembling. (Miles 2012, 221)
Miles further claims that aspects of Wittgenstein’s idea of ‘language-game’ in
Philosophical Investigations can be traced back to Kierkegaard (Miles 2012,232-234).
Amidst this excessive insistence on Kierkegaard’s seemingly profoundinfluence on Wittgenstein, I propose that we pause and objectively reconsider
this assertion. In this paper, I wish to focus on Wittgenstein’s main early work,

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Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, and consider how much of Kierkegaard’s influence,
if any, is discernible therein.
According to Heiko Schulz, a ‘quite remarkable number of translated works[of Kierkegaard were] already circulating and available in Germany around 1915’(Schulz 2009, 331). In fact, Kierkegaard’s major works had already been translated
into German from an early period: Practice into Christianity was translated in 1878,
The Sickness unto Death in 1881, Fear and Trembling in 1882, Either-or in 1885,
Philosophical Fragments in 1889, and Postscript in 1910 (Schulz 2009, 388ff.). In
the following, I make the assumption that all of Kierkegaard’s major works had
already been translated into German and were available to Wittgenstein by thetime he completed Tractatus in 1918.

2. Kierkegaard’s Inﬂuence on Wittgenstein during
the Pre-Tractatus Period
First, I wish to consider whether or not Wittgenstein was influenced by Kierkegaard
before he began writing Tractatus around May 1912.＊4
It is widely recognized that Kierkegaard only became known to Austrian
intellectuals after 1914.＊5 However, the Wittgensteins were ‘at the centre ofViennese cultural life’ (Monk 1990, 9) and their house engendered ‘the allpervading atmosphere of humanity and culture’ during the early 1900s (Monk
1990, 8). Therefore, although Kierkegaard’s writings did not enjoy wide circulationin Austria during the pre-Tractatus period, the Wittgensteins may already haveowned some on the bookshelves in their salon.
According to Genia Schönbaumsfeld, ‘Wittgenstein was introduced into thewritings of Kierkegaard from a very early age’ under the guidance of his elder
In this paper, I accept Akio Kikai’s opinion that the Tractatus period is ‘the six and ahalf years from 1912, when Wittgenstein started his philosophical study on logic at
Cambridge, to August 1918, when he completed the final draft of Tractatus’ (Kikai 2003,
39).
＊5
See below in this paper.

＊4

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sister Margaret, the young Ludwig’s philosophical mentor and an avid reader ofKierkegaard (Monk 1990, 14).
We cannot, therefore, deny the possibility that Wittgenstein read the writingsof Kierkegaard having been introduced to them by Margaret. However, it isalso undeniable that no materials attest Wittgenstein’s actual contact with thewritings of Kierkegaard during the pre-Tractatus period. Furthermore, we should
consider that Wittgenstein himself expressed contempt for religion while he wasa schoolboy at Linz from 1903 to 1906 (Monk 1990, 18),＊6 when Margaret was his
mentor (Monk 1990, 16), and it was only after 1910 or 1911 that he changed his
attitude upon seeing the play Die Kreuzelscheiber (Monk 1990, 51), and not as aconsequence of having read Kierkegaard.
We may, therefore, reasonably conclude that it is possible but very difficult toinsist on Kierkegaard’s influence on Wittgenstein during the pre-Tractatus period.

3. Kierkegaard’s Inﬂuence on Wittgenstein during
the Tractatus Period
Now, I wish to consider whether Kierkegaard influenced Wittgenstein and how he
did so, if at all, when Wittgenstein was working on Tractatus.

3.1. Wittgenstein’s Contact with Kierkegaard
Yet again, Wittgenstein does not mention Kierkegaard anywhere in his
manuscripts or typescripts for Tractatus. However, the following circumstances
attest Wittgenstein’s actually having encountered Kierkegaard’s writings during
the Tractatus period.
In 1914, Wittgenstein contributed considerable amounts of money to Austrianartists through Ludwig von Ficker (1885-1919) (Monk 1990, 106), an Austrianjournalist editing Der Brenner. Around the same time, some of Kierkegaard’s
writings, translated into German by Theodor Haecker (1879-1945), were published＊6

Wittgenstein had been baptized into the Catholic faith (Monk 1990, 8).

新キェルケゴール研究第 19 号

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in the journal, which stimulated Austrian intellectuals’ interest in the Danish
philosopher, and his name became well known in Austria before the beginning of
the First World War (Monk 1990, 109). It is likely that Wittgenstein continued toreceive Der Brenner from Ficker until 1921,＊7 so he may have encountered someof Kierkegaard’s writings in the journal. In any case, the following pieces from
Kierkegaard’s writings were translated into German by Haecker and published in
Der Brenner by the end of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus period: ‘Prefaces’ (1914), ‘The
Thorn in the Flesh’ (1914), ‘Present Age’ in (1914), and ‘At a Graveside’ (1915),
from Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions (1845) (Schreiber 2015, 128).
Hermine, one of Wittgenstein’s elder sisters, wrote the following to her
youngest brother Ludwig, who was then serving in the war, in a letter dated 20
November 1917:
Thank you very much for your lovely card from the 13th of November. You
were perfectly right in your supposition that I didn’t receive the earlier cardwith your order for the books, but I have just gone out for them and someof Kierkegaard’s writings are already on the way. Hopefully they meet yourwishes, for I know nothing about him and his writings. I took a few volumes
at random. ‘The Seducer’s Diary’, which I bought in another bookstore, will
follow. (Wittgenstein 1996, 48)Thus, it would appear that Wittgenstein had access to at least a small number ofKierkegaard’s writings, including ‘The Seducer’s Diary’, as sent by Hermine. To
add to this, this letter seems to imply that at this point (just before the completionof Tractatus in the summer of 1918) Wittgenstein was not especially familiar with
＊7

In a letter to Engelmann dated 5 August 1921, Wittgenstein writes: ‘Ficker keeps on
sending me Der Bremmer, and I keep on wanting to write to him to stop it, as I believe,
Der Brenner is nonsense (a Christian journal is intellectual make-believe)̶ but I neverget down to sending the notice of cancellation to Ficker, as I cannot find sufficient peaceand quiet to write a lengthy explanation’ (Engelmann 1968, 43).

Kierkegaard in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus

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Kierkegaard, for he may have asked her to buy and send him not specific works
but any writings of Kierkegaard.
In the fall of 1916, Wittgenstein met the Viennese architect Paul Engelmann(1891-1965) (Monk 1990, 147). They conversed together about such things as
religion. In their correspondence, Kierkegaard is mentioned.
A side note to Stages on Life’s Way reads ‘[. . .] if I had had faith, then I would
have stayed with her. [. . .]’ [. . .] It seems to me as if you̶unlike the timein Olmütz, where I didn’t think so̶had no faith. (Somavilla 2006, 32) (FromEngelmann to Wittgenstein, the 8 January 1917)
When you say that I don’t have faith, you are perfectly right, only I didn’t haveit previously either. (Somavilla 2006, 33) (From Wittgenstein to Engelmann,the 16 January 1918)
Thus, Wittgenstein may have read with Engelmann, or may at least have been
introduced by him to Kierkegaard’s Stages on Life’s Way by the beginning of theyear 1918.
To sum up, Wittgenstein probably had infrequent but surely some contact
with Kierkegaard’s work during the Tractatus period, but when and what he readcannot be specified. I wish to proceed my consideration based on this assumption.

3.2. Kierkegaard’s Inﬂuence on Wittgenstein
At this point, I wish to turn to Wittgenstein’s manuscripts and typescripts for
Tractatus, in search of Kierkegaard’s presence there.
The formation history of Tractatus is shown in Table 1.

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Table1: The Formation History of Tractatus＊8
Script Period of Writing
Title
Remarks
ID＊9(Commonly known as)
TS201a 6. 1912 – 10. 1913 ‘Notes on Logic’D301 10. 1913 – 4. 1914 ‘Notes Dictated to G. E. Wittgenstein stayed at Skjolden in
Moore in Norway’
Norway.
Soon after the outbreak of the FirstMS101 9. 8. 1914 – 30.
Notebooks 1914-1916
10. 1914(pp. 2-21) and Geheime World War, Wittgenstein volunteered for
the Austrian Army. In August 1914, he
Tagebücher (Secretwent to the frontline aboard the patrol
Diaries) (s. 13-36)
ship Goplana.
MS102 30. 10. 1914 – 22. Notebooks 1914-1916
From around 10 December 1914,
6. 1915(pp. 21-71) and Geheime Wittgenstein served at the rear
Tagebücher (s. 37-66)(Wittgenstein 1991, 50).
MS103 28(?). 3. 1916 –Notebooks 1914-1916
Around June 1916, Wittgenstein went
10. 1. 1917
(pp. 71-91) and Geheime to the eastern frontline. ‘Under thisTagebücher (s. 67-76)
circumstance, “life” came up as the
subject of his philosophical thinking’(Kikai 2003, 42). After September
1916, he went to the Officers’ Training
School in Olmütz. ‘At this period, thedeficiencies of the thoughts on life andlanguage were covered, and the thoughts
to be organized as Tractatus was almost
completed’ (Kikai 2003, 42).
Prototractatus
MS104 7(?). 1918＊10
Tractatus was formed by re-arranging
the remarks in Prototractatus (Kikai
2003, 21 and von Wright 1971, 8),
and thus the differences seem to
be insignificant (Wittgenstein 1971,
221-253).
Wittgenstein was taken a prisoner byTS202 8. 1918
Tractatus
Logico-Philosophices
the Italian army in November 1911 (vonWright 1971, 7).

In Tractatus, the sections from 6.4 onward may be expected to reflect Kierkegaard’s
influence, in which Wittgenstein argues that the life in agreement with the will of
In compiling the table, I consulted Kikai (2003, 39-42).
Namely, von Wright’s catalogue number.
＊10
When Prototractatus was brought to completion is unclear. Here, I adopt von Wright’sview that it was completed around July 1918, because there is a dedication in
Prototractatus to David Pinsent, who was killed in the war on 8 May 1918, and Tractatus
was finished in August 1918. See G. H. von Wright (1971, 9).
＊8＊9

Kierkegaard in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus

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God is good and happy, and ethics (i.e., that which pertains to sense and value) is
transcendental and cannot be expressed.
I wish to clarify how the ethical thought in Tractatus evolved and was framed,through a close reading of Wittgenstein’s scripts, with the aim of considering
whether or not Kierkegaard had any role in the process and, if so, to what extent.

3.2.1. TS201a and D301 (6. 1912 ‒ 4. 1914)
In his first two scripts for Tractatus, Wittgenstein gives his consideration
exclusively to logic. So, although such ideas as the transcendentalism of logic (cf.
Tractatus 6.13) are present,＊11 no ethical thoughts immediately relevant to thosein Tractatus are to be found.
Moreover, Wittgenstein does not mention Kierkegaard (i.e., his name,writings, thoughts, etc.) at all in either of these scripts; therefore, we cannot affirm
Kierkegaard’s having played some role at this stage.

3.2.2. MS101 (9. 8. 1914 ‒ 30. 10. 1914)
Three manuscripts considered crucial in the formation of Tractatus are MS101,
102, and 103. The right-hand-side pages of each notebook consist mainly ofphilosophical considerations, which are published under the title of ‘Notebook
1914-1916’, while on the left-hand-side, the pages primarily contain Wittgenstein’s
considerations of his own life, written in code, which, as of 2019, have not yet been
published in English, though they have been published in German under the titleof Geheime Tagebücher (Secret Diaries).
From the first of the three manuscripts, it is known that Wittgenstein, who＊11‘Logical so-called propositions shew [the] logical properties of language and thereforeof [the] Universe, but say nothing. This means that by merely looking at them you can
see these properties; whereas, in a proposition proper, you cannot see what is true bylooking at it. It is impossible to say what these properties are, because in order to doso, you would need a language, which hadn’t got the properties in question, and it is
impossible that this should be a proper language. Impossible to construct [an] illogicallanguage’ (Wittgenstein 1979, 108 [‘Notes Dictated to G. E. Moore in Norway’]).

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had volunteered for the Austrian Army since August 1914, found Tolstoy’s The
Gospel in Brief by chance at a bookstore around September of that year (Kikai
2003, 131). Thereafter he ‘carries the explanation of Gospel [i.e. The Gospel in
Brief] as talisman always with’ (Wittgenstein 1991, 29) him on the battlefield,
probably throughout the entire period covered by MS101 to MS103.
The Gospel in Brief is Tolstoy’s reconstruction of the Gospels based on theprinciple that,the reader should remember that not only is there no harm in throwing out
the unnecessary parts of the Gospels and illuminating some passages withothers but that, on the contrary, it is reprehensible and godless not to do that,and continue considering some fixed number of verses and letters to be holy.
(Tolstoy 2011, xx-xxi)
In other words, Tolstoy ‘do[es] not look at Christianity as a strictly divine revelation,
nor as a historical phenomenon, but [. . .] look[s] at Christianity as a teachingthat gives meaning to life’ (Tolstoy 2011, xxi). According to Tolstoy, the heart ofChristianity is Jesus’ teachings such as ‘that life is not given to each person for
their individual use, but to fulfill the father’s will and that only the fulfilling of thefather’s will can save from death and give life’ (Tolstoy 2011, 54) and that ‘man is a
spirit in the flesh, and only the spirit gives life, the flesh does not give life. [. . .]The
spirit is life’ (Tolstoy 2011, 21).
The book’s influence on Wittgenstein is evident, for example, when he sayson the battlefield, ‘I always tell myself in my heart repeatedly Tolstoy’s words that“man is faint in the flesh but free through spirit”’ (Wittgenstein 1991, 21). The
theme of the first chapter of The Gospel in Brief is ‘Man, the son of God, is powerlessin the flesh and free in the spirit’ (Tolstoy 2011, 5). Therefore, it seems probablethat it was under the influence of Tolstoy’s The Gospel in Brief that Wittgenstein
thereafter held the idea that life in agreement with the will of God is good and that

Kierkegaard in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus10

it is bad when it goes in accordance with his own will.＊12
Considering the close parallel between the Tolstoyan thought seen above andpart of the ethical thought in Tractatus (i.e., the thought that life in agreementwith the will of God is good and happy), we may naturally suppose that Tolstoy’s
The Gospel in Brief was one of the key sources of the ethical thought in Tractatus.
By contrast, Wittgenstein doesn’t mention Kierkegaard at all in MS101. As
such, it is difficult to insist on Kierkegaard’s influence on the formation of thethought at that stage.

3.2.3. MS102 (30. 10. 1914 ‒ 22. 6. 1915)
It is noteworthy that, along with the idea that logic is transcendental＊13 (cf.
Tractatus 6.13), the thought that questions about the mystical are on a different
level to those that are scientific is found in the second manuscript of the three.
The urge toward the mystical comes of the non-satisfaction of our wishes byscience. We feel that even if all possible scientific questions are answered our
problem is still not touched at all. Of course in that case there are no questions
any more; and that is the answer. (Wittgenstein 1979, 51e)
This would later be rephrased in Tractatus: section 6.52 reads, ‘we feel that even
if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life have still notbeen touched at all. Of course there is then no question left, and just this is theanswer’ (Wittgenstein 1981, 187). So we may say that part of the ethical thought ofTractatus̶that ethics (i.e., that which pertains sense and value) is transcendental
For example, Wittgenstein says ‘thy will be done’ (30. 9. 1914 (Wittgenstein 1991,26)), ‘I must become resigned to my fate. [. . .] I live in the hand of fate’ (25. 1. 1915
(Wittgenstein 1991, 55)) and ‘not my, but thy will be done!’ (30. 3. 1916 (Wittgenstein
1991, 68))
＊13
‘What is mirrored in language I cannot use language to express’ (Wittgenstein 1979,
42e).
＊12

新キェルケゴール研究第 19 号

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and cannot be expressed̶is being awoken in MS102.
Although the question of whether somebody or something influenced
Wittgenstein in developing this thought remains unknown, it is undeniable that
Wittgenstein does not mention Kierkegaard at all in MS102. We can at least say,therefore, that it is again difficult to insist on Kierkegaard’s influence here.

3.2.4. MS103 (28. 3. 1916 ‒ 10. 1. 1917)
In the last of the three crucial manuscripts for Tractatus, Wittgenstein at thefrontline (‘the Brusilov Offensive’) gives earnest consideration to life. On 11 June
1916, he writes as follows:
What do I know about God and the purpose of life?
I know that this world exists.
That I am places in it like my eye in its visual field.
That something about it is problematic, which we call its meaning.
That this meaning does not lie in it but outside it.
That life is the world.
That my will penetrates the world.
That my will is good or evil.
Therefore that good and evil are somehow connected with the meaning of
the world.
The meaning of life, i.e. the meaning of the world, we can call God.
And connect with this the comparison of God to a father.
To pray is to think about the meaning of life.
I cannot bend the happenings of the world to my will: I am completely
powerless.
I can only make myself independent of the world̶and so in a certain sense
master it̶by renouncing any influence on happenings. (Wittgenstein 1979,
72e-73e)Kierkegaard in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus

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It is worth considering his speculations that follow:
in order to live happily I must be in agreement with the world. And that iswhat ‘being happy’ means. I am then, so to speak, in agreement with that alien
will on which I appear dependent. That is to say: ‘I am doing the will of God.’[. . .] Live happy! (Wittgenstein 1979, 75e)
I keep on coming back to this. Simply the happy life is good, the unhappy bad.
(Wittgenstein 1979, 78e)
Ethics does not treat of the world. Ethics must be a condition of the world, like
logic. (Wittgenstein 1979, 77e)
It is clear that ethics cannot be expressed! [. . .] Ethics is transcendental.
(Wittgenstein 1979, 78e-79e) ＊14
It is highly plausible that the whole of Wittgenstein’s ethical thought in Tractatus,
from 6.4 onward (i.e., life in agreement with the will of God is good and happy,
and that ethics (i.e., that which pertains to sense and value) is transcendental andcannot be expressed) was formed by/during the period of MS103.
I wish now to consider what caused Wittgenstein to frame these thoughts andwhat role Kierkegaard played in the process.
First, it was mainly his morbid experience at the frontline of the war, where
he pursued the purpose and meaning of life by venturing to face the possibility of
his own death. As a result, he came to find that what he had been pursuing wasnothing but ‘God’, and that it was when he was in agreement with the will of God,
and, as such, felt happy, that he was living a purposeful and meaningful life.
Second, we should pay attention to his thought, already formed by the timeMS101 and 102 were written, that logic is transcendental. Combined with the＊14

In the original German text, it reads ‘die Ethik ist transcendent’, not ‘transzendental’(Wittgenstein 1979, 79). In Tractatus, Wittgenstein rephrases the sentence with ‘die
Ethik ist transzendental’ (Wittgenstein 1981, 182).

新キェルケゴール研究第 19 号

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above-mentioned awareness of God as the purpose and meaning of life as well as
the only source of happiness, he came to realize that he had in fact been living with
God as a fundamental but inexpressible condition of life: ethics (i.e., that whichpertains to sense and value) is transcendental.
Third, we can discern once again the influence of Tolstoy’s The Gospel in
Brief. It is clear that Wittgenstein tried to free himself from his own will and alignhimself with the will of God.
Finally, the unignorable, considerable influence of Dostoevsky is also evident.
Wittgenstein says, during the same period in MS103, thatand in this sense Dostoevsky is right when he says that the man who is happy
is fulfilling the purpose of existence. Or again we could say that the man isfulfilling the purpose of existence who no longer needs to have any purpose
except to live. That is to say, who is content. (Wittgenstein 1979, 73e)
Around two months prior to this, Wittgenstein appears to have referenced
Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. Presumably citing the words of Father
Zosima, he wrote ‘the rightly-believing heart understands all’ (Wittgenstein 1991,
71).＊15 So when Wittgenstein expresses the view that ‘Dostoevsky is right when
he says that the man who is happy is fulfilling the purpose of existence,’ which
overlaps completely with the ethical thought in Tractatus, it is probably The
Brothers Karamazov that he had in mind.
It is important to clarify that Wittgenstein does not mention Kierkegaard
at all in MS103. Moreover, it is entirely plausible that Tolstoy and Dostoevsky,among others, were the greatest influences on Wittgenstein’s ethical thought inTractatus. Thus, it is again possible but clearly difficult to insist on Kierkegaard’s
influence here.
＊15

This may be a citation from Karamazov: ‘the orthodox heart will understand all’
(Dostoevsky 2011, 253).

Kierkegaard in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus

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3.2.5. MS104 (7(?). 1918) and TS202 (8. 1918)
Around one and a half years after his intense thoughts on life in MS103, Wittgensteincame closer to completing Tractatus by synthesizing his work up to that point.
Here, another manuscript takes shape: MS104, called Prototractatus. Wittgenstein
re-structured the ideas in Prototractatus, and finally completed typescript TS202,
which would be published as Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.
The writings contained in these two scripts are from MS101–103, so no
considerations appear to have been newly added to in MS104 and TS202.＊16
Again, Wittgenstein makes no mention of Kierkegaard at all.

3.2.6. Missing (?) MSs
Scholars speculate that some other manuscripts for Tractatus existed but are now
missing (von Wright 1971, 3-6). According to G. H. von Wright, it is certain that one
MS akin to MS101–103, which are constructing manuscripts, was written before
MS101, and that another akin to MS104, which is a summarizing manuscript, waswritten between MS102 and MS103. Furthermore, it is possible that other several
MSs akin to MS101–103 existed between MS102 and MS103 and between MS103
and MS104.
This is to say that the possibility that Wittgenstein referenced Kierkegaard
in these missing MSs is undeniable. However, evidence for this is difficult todiscern in the remarks in MS104 (Prototractatus), which represents every MS
for Tractatus, something beyond those in the existing MSs (i.e. MS101-103), andall the consideration from section 6.4 onward in TS202 (i.e., Tractatus) appears
to be traceable back to the existing MSs. Therefore, it would be unreasonable
to presume the existence of the missing MSs, and moreover, Wittgenstein’sreferences to Kierkegaard therein.
＊16

By the way, the remarks that don’t exist in MS104 but exist in TS202 are the sections
6.423 and 6.4321 of Tractatus. On the contrary, the remark that exists in MS104 but
doesn’t exist in TS202 is ‘thus the outward aspect of ordinary language makes every
kind of illusion and confusion possible’ (Wittgenstein 1971, 83).

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4. Conclusion
I wish to summarize what this paper has clarified, and to draw a conclusion.
Although we cannot wholly deny the possibility that Wittgenstein read someof Kierkegaard’s writings under Margaret’s guidance during the pre-Tractatusperiod, considering the absence of materials that attest Wittgenstein’s actual
contact with Kierkegaard’s work, including his contemptuous attitude toward
religion, it is difficult to assert Kierkegaard’s influence on Wittgenstein during
this period.
During the Tractatus period, there is a slim but certain possibility of
Wittgenstein’s actually having encountered some of Kierkegaard’s writings.
However, Wittgenstein makes no mention of Kierkegaard (i.e., his name, writings,
thoughts, etc.) anywhere in his scripts from this period. It is quite reasonable,
therefore, to argue that Wittgenstein formed the ethical thought he expressedin Tractatus under the influence of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, through his serious
consideration of the purpose and meaning of life on the battlefield, led occasionallyby his investigation of logic and language.
Therefore, it is not reasonable to insist on Kierkegaard’s incontestableinfluence on Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, in accordance with the principle of Occam’s
razor: ‘entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily.’＊17
We may add that the spirit of Tolstoy’s The Gospel in Brief, whose influence isevident in Tractatus, is remarkably un-Kierkegaardian: ‘I do not look at Christianity＊17

If we don’t obey the principle of Occam’s razor, there seem to be many other thinkers
that could be proposed as the sources of Wittgenstein’s ethical thought in Tractatus;
for example, young Wittgenstein earnestly read Otto Weininger (Monk 1990, 20), whosays ‘logic and ethics are fundamentally one and the same thing̶duty to oneself. Theycelebrate their union in the supreme value of truth, which is confronted on one side byerror and the other side by the lie; truth itself, however, is only one. Any ethics is only
possible in accordance with the laws of logic, and any logic is at the same time an ethicallaw. Man’s duty and task is not solely virtue, but also insight, not solely holiness, but also
wisdom: only two together provide the foundation for perfection’ (Weininger 2005, 139).
As we saw, Wittgenstein considers not only logic but also ethics to be transcendental in
Tractatus. Should we attribute this similarity to Weininger’s influence on Wittgenstein?

Kierkegaard in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus16

as a strictly divine revelation, nor as a historical phenomenon, but [. . .] look at
Christianity as a teaching that gives meaning to life’ (Tolstoy 2011, xxi). Therefore,
it seems possible but extremely unlikely that Wittgenstein would have adhered to
Tolstoy and Kierkegaard simultaneously.

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