Talk:Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

message: Regarding the following quotation from the article:
"It sets forth on an ambitious project to identify the relationship between language and reality and to define the limits of philosophy by articulating “…the conditions for a logically perfect language.” (Russell, p. 8 in the C. K. Ogden Translation)"
As far as I know that was exactly NOT what Wittgenstein had in mind. It was interpreted in that way by Russel. Wittgenstein disowned Russel's introduction and wanted to have the book revoked after he got out of the Italian POW camp. In Wittgenstein's own introduction he makes it clear that he is not busy with setting out the conditions for a logically perfect language, but rather to show that that which he DID NOT (indeed, could not) write, was the important part of the work. In proposition 6.54 he announces that the whole of the Tractatus actually is nonsensical, and therefore any "logically perfect language" is nonsensical.
I am only a student of philosophy, but I am sure that someone with better credentials can confirm that what is stated in this article's introdution is actually not the case. Oom Kosie 22:49, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: Would it be appropriate to add such a section? I am thinking in particular about the last episode of Fawlty Towers where Fawlty tells Manuel that the instruction he had just given him was "...not difficult, Manuel. This is not a proposition from Wittgenstein!"
:::My 2¢: All references to popular culture in Wikipedia articles have no value.Lestrade 21:32, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Wittgenstein in popular culture

message: After thinking about it for a few days, I've decided to remove the material on prop. 5.101. Mostly because I could not determine exactly what it was that Wittgenstein was being praised for, but also because the table was rather difficult to fathom. Banno 12:11, May 10, 2004 (UTC)
:I think Wittgenstein was being praised for proposition 5.101 for contributing to engineering, and that it should be kept. Wikiwikifast 18:57, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: 5.101

message: I have tried to clean up this article per the above request. Though it covered many important aspects of the text previously, it was a very jumbled and difficult to read article. I have provided a main theses section with subsections for the various propositions. I did not give every proposition its own heading though, because I felt that truly going in depth on each one would make the article far too long. I believe that it is quite a bit more readable now. Tyrell turing 17:15, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a complicated subject, because it gets to Wittgenstein's point that the soul is part of the category which language cannot express.  He is not explaining that the soul does not exist, only that as conceived by psychology it does not exist, because it is not part of the world.  This is illustrated in 5.641 "The philosophical I is not ... the human soul of which psychology treats, but the metaphysical subject, the limit—not a part of the world."  The logical positivists avoided the fact that their hero was a mystic. Such statements as 6.41 "The sense of the world must lie outside the world", 6.44 "Not how the world is, is the mystical, but that it is," and 6.522 "There is indeed, the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical" demonstrate his position.  To him the world (universe) and the language that describes it are by themselves incomplete (6.54 paraphrased: the world must be transcended to be entirely understood).  --Blainster 21:08, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleaned Up Article 

message: This article is not currently distancing the words 'meaning' and 'sense'. When I read it, I think 'Russell/meaning' and 'Frege/sense'. Although the words are related, there is a difference in the history of the usage, and where Wittgenstein uses the word 'sense' in Tractatus, I propose that commentary in this article about the corresponding Proposition use the word 'sense'. Thus in Propositions 3.3*, Wittgenstein indeed uses 'meaning'. But in Propositions 6.4*, Wittgenstein uses the word 'sense'. It would change the tone of the article if care were taken to preserve the distinction between the words 'meaning' and 'sense'. I propose to wait a week or so, before editing. Any objections? Ancheta Wis 00:26, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Distance / distinction between meaning and sense (Sinn)

message: 6.421 advertises the equivalence of ethics and esthetics. Some indication of the validity of this statement can be seen in the reaction of some people to a crime or to a transgression, such as disgust, horror, and other non-positive emotions. These reactions are visible even to a child, or to a family pet, such as a cat or dog. Rarely is pleasure or happiness ones reaction to a crime committed to one's self. Thus the 'sense of' (or reaction to) some happenstance in the world is due to something which transcends that happenstance. It appears that this is the 'sense' to which Wittgenstein appeals in 6.41 onward. Ancheta Wis 01:55, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Ethics and esthetics

message: "...whatever a man knows, whatever is not mere rumbling and roaring in his head, can be said in three words" - Ferdinand Kürnberger.
The motto is appropriate, perhaps all the more so because Kurnberger was an Austrian writer and revolutionary. I notice he doesn't rate a Wikipedia article of his own, but did he have three words in mind? He seems to have been rather vocal - Max Weber chooses to quote him as well ("They [Americans] make tallow out of cattle and money out of men").Adambisset 17:14, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Motto?

message: I think a little bit about this point may be appropiate as it is here that Wittgenstein denies the unifying quality of the soul and subsequently the soul, itself.
5.542: It is clear, however, that `A believes that p', `A thinks p', `A says p' are of the form "`p" says p': and this does not involve a correlation of a fact with an object, but rather the correlation of facts by means of the correlation of their objects.
 
5.5421: This shows too that there is no such thing as the soul--the subject, etc.--as it is conceived in the superficial psychology of the present day. Indeed a composite soul would no longer be a soul. 
Perhaps there is someone more qualified than me to make the addition? Aindriu 14:10 11 May 2006
:This is a complicated subject, because it gets to Wittgenstein's point that the soul is part of the category which language cannot express.  He is not explaining that the soul does not exist, only that as conceived by psychology it does not exist, because it is not part of the world.  This is illustrated in 5.641 "The philosophical I is not ... the human soul of which psychology treats, but the metaphysical subject, the limit—not a part of the world."  The logical positivists avoided the fact that their hero was a mystic. Such statements as 6.41 "The sense of the world must lie outside the world", 6.44 "Not how the world is, is the mystical, but that it is," and 6.522 "There is indeed, the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical" demonstrate his position.  To him the world (universe) and the language that describes it are by themselves incomplete (6.54 paraphrased: the world must be transcended to be entirely understood).  --Blainster 21:08, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The Soul and 5.5421

message: Could someone explain this sentence please: "In 5.101 Wittgenstein showed, possibly for the first time, that bit-patterns such as "TFTT" can be mapped directly to sentences such as "If C then A", much to the amusement of contemporary cyberneticists." (added by Banno in March 2005)
Who were these contemporary cyberneticists? Given that the term "cybernetics" was not introduced until 1948, does it mean "modern day cyberneticists" rather than "contemporary"? And why is this amusing to anyone, particularly cyberneticists? Definitely some more explanation needed here. --Spondoolicks 10:18, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: go with bemusement instead. or change to cyber-geneticists. or remove the whole thing. BingoBob 15:09, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  5.101 

message: It says he uses nand operators, but isn't it nor?  In 5.5 the bit pattern is -----T, not -TTTTT.  Nor is expressively adequate too, so it would do just as well. Michael Keats 11:32, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nand or nor? 

message: ====Propositions====
I am not sure whether or not Wittgenstein himself called the numbered statements in the Tractatus "propositions" or not, but even if he did, I can hardly see how linking the Wikipedia article on propositions is relevant here. The article in question mostly discusses (and rightly so) what philosophers of language and truth theorists refer to as propositions, in terms of their ontological status and their truth value. This sort of technical discussion of a proposition hardly relates to whatever term we choose to name the Tractatus' constituent statements.
====Translation====
In setting out the seven main theses, what translation was used? There are several apparent errors here:
(2) is rendered "What is the case (a fact) is the existence of atomic states of affairs."
This seems to conflate both the Ogden and the Pears & McGuiness English translations:
Ogden: "What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts."
P & M: "2. What is the case--a fact--is the existence of states of affairs."
Notice that in neither case is "a fact" parenthetical. I personally prefer the Pears & McGuiness rendering, as it seems less circular.
(3) is rendered "A thought is a logical picture of a fact."
This is perhaps an acceptable paraphrase, except for one thing:
Ogden: "The logical picture of the facts is the thought." (emphasis mine)
P & M: "A logical picture of facts is a thought." (emphasis mine)
Wittgenstein's language, particularly in the Tractatus, is very deliberate. Facts is plural for a reason, and any paraphrase should keep this, I would think.
(4) is rendered "A thought is a proposition with sense."
Again, a tiny detail is missing, because the two translations were misused (I think):
Ogden: "The thought is the significant proposition."
P & M: "4. A thought is a proposition with a sense." (emphasis mine)
A "proposition with sense" sounds like a sensible proposition. A "proposition with a sense" probably refers to the Fregean notion of sense. These are quite distinct.
The last half of (5) is missing: "(An elementary proposition is a truth-function of itself.)"
(7) is rendered "Where (or of what) one cannot speak, one must remain silent."
This statement, the closing statement of the Tractatus, is not only crucial (Wittgenstein himself saw it as the whole aim of the book), but fairly straightforward. Paraphrasing it is unnecessary and, I think, sloppy.
Ogden: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."
P & M: "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence."
As my reading group and I move through our discussion, I will revisit the following sections of the article and attempt also to improve them. In particular the first section strikes me as hugely oversimplified. That's enough for now. Heelan Coo 21:14, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In most cases, the Odgen translation is closer to the German original than the P&M translation. I was happy to find the Odgen translation in the main article.--Stefan Hartmann (talk) 11:29, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Section 1: "Main theses"

message: In setting out the seven main theses, what translation was used? There are several apparent errors here:
(2) is rendered "What is the case (a fact) is the existence of atomic states of affairs."
This seems to conflate both the Ogden and the Pears & McGuiness English translations:
Ogden: "What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts."
P & M: "2. What is the case--a fact--is the existence of states of affairs."
Notice that in neither case is "a fact" parenthetical. I personally prefer the Pears & McGuiness rendering, as it seems less circular.
(3) is rendered "A thought is a logical picture of a fact."
This is perhaps an acceptable paraphrase, except for one thing:
Ogden: "The logical picture of the facts is the thought." (emphasis mine)
P & M: "A logical picture of facts is a thought." (emphasis mine)
Wittgenstein's language, particularly in the Tractatus, is very deliberate. Facts is plural for a reason, and any paraphrase should keep this, I would think.
(4) is rendered "A thought is a proposition with sense."
Again, a tiny detail is missing, because the two translations were misused (I think):
Ogden: "The thought is the significant proposition."
P & M: "4. A thought is a proposition with a sense." (emphasis mine)
A "proposition with sense" sounds like a sensible proposition. A "proposition with a sense" probably refers to the Fregean notion of sense. These are quite distinct.
The last half of (5) is missing: "(An elementary proposition is a truth-function of itself.)"
(7) is rendered "Where (or of what) one cannot speak, one must remain silent."
This statement, the closing statement of the Tractatus, is not only crucial (Wittgenstein himself saw it as the whole aim of the book), but fairly straightforward. Paraphrasing it is unnecessary and, I think, sloppy.
Ogden: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."
P & M: "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence."
As my reading group and I move through our discussion, I will revisit the following sections of the article and attempt also to improve them. In particular the first section strikes me as hugely oversimplified. That's enough for now. Heelan Coo 21:14, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In most cases, the Odgen translation is closer to the German original than the P&M translation. I was happy to find the Odgen translation in the main article.--Stefan Hartmann (talk) 11:29, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Translation

message: Is this really a good translation? Wouldn't "one should pass over in silence" be a better one?
I don't know the language, but "should" would make more sense, as many people don't do this "must" as evidenced by the fact that I'm questioning the translation without knowing the language. But of course, behind every "should" there is a "Why? Who says?" --Nerd42 (talk) 03:08, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: "Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen." - muß = must. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 16:42, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  "one must pass over in silence" 

message: I am unable to find this publication. Rolled back the contribution citing this publication. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 12:49, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''Journal of Rejected Philosophy'' 

message: There are now a number of citations with "Kenny, Anthony Same Title, etc up to page number. There is actually a method for identifying a reference by "Name, Year", so that you can just use for example  p.48 etc. in your <ref>s. First you need to create a citation   That gets rid of the multiple citations for Anthony Kenny  Same Title, etc up to page number. Look up Wikipedia:Citing sources for more information. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 00:15, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Soft-coded citations with baked-in page number 

message: As I understand it, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was written in German by Wittgenstein and then translated by others.  However this isn't clear from the introduction.  As the precision in Wittgenstein's work seems to me fndamental to it should not his propositions be given as quotations (and then translated) rather than as English translations presented as if they were quotations?  In my opinion the tendency to imagine a translation as the original, or to ignore as irrelevant the fact that a translation is a third-party's interpretation, is a significant flaw in our understanding of works from other cultures.  Providing actual quotations would seem easier than stating everywhere that the translation of propositions etc., are actually the work of someone else.  Currently there are no citations for the propositions apart from the notation in the Infobox.  LookingGlass (talk) 07:05, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not quite as bad as you fear: Frank P. Ramsey actually travelled to see Wittgenstein when W was teaching school in the Austrian mountains, to get personal instruction in how to translate the meaning of difficult passages from German. W. wanted side-by-side publ. in the German/English translation (viz., the 1922 Ogden translation of the 1921 German edition from Ostwald), which is the usual format even today (you can get this format, e.g., in the Barnes & Noble publ. , & on the web, as well. (W's Philosophical Investigations enjoys the same format) ). In TLP, W's style is transparent, at least to me (cf. the Swiss rejoinder about learning unfamiliar things: "You know German, don't you?", meaning ask questions of others.) Ramsey is credited as a translator of TLP; R is also known for the Ramsey-Lewis method for explaining scientific concepts to others. --Ancheta Wis    (talk  | contribs) 19:35, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting. You understand that I'm not contesting the translation merely observing that it is a translation and that imo therefore the original statements at least ought to be cited (unless there is some logic for NOT incliding them).  Translations = choices.  Why wasn't the side by side edition produced?  This doesn't seem to me to be an argument about the quality of the translation but about veracity. LookingGlass (talk) 18:39, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Translating and interpreting meaning 

message: The latest contribution was unverifiable. No authorname, no publication information. Reverted. --Ancheta Wis    (talk  | contribs) 03:26, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unknown ISBN 

message: On this page it reads: 
But on the Ludwig Wittgenstein page it says that:
Can we confirm where the Tractatus was completed? Was it completed at Como and later Cassino? or did he complete it at his family's Vienna sumer house? Christian Roess (talk) 22:31, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where was the ''Tractatus'' written and completed?  

message: Substituted at 09:07, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

message: I don't think it is clear from the article whether Wittgenstein himself approved of the title 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus' for the English translation.  It is stated that the title was suggested by G. E. Moore and adopted by Ramsey, the main translator of the first English edition.  Ramsey discussed his translation with W and I believe there is also some published correspondence between W and Ramsey and Ogden (the other credited translator, and the editor of the English edition), so I would guess that W did approve the choice of title, but if so it would surely be relevant to say so in the article.  It might also be relevant to point out that, apart from the allusion to the 'Tractatus' by Spinoza, at the time of publication the two most famous recent works on logic and philosophy in England were the 'Principia Mathematica' of Whitehead and Russell, and the 'Principia Ethica' of Moore himself, so the choice of a Latin title was somewhat in vogue. 86.179.155.16 (talk) 20:39, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  English (Latin) title  

message: I've created and uploaded an illustration which is meant to show, at-a-glance, the overall structure and scale of the Tractatus.  This general effort is similar to other efforts to "map" or "tree" the work.
This particular picture-upload is "brittle" in the sense that it is large, complex, and a single mistake ruins the whole thing (since only I have the source files, to produce just one large image file).
Shortly, it may happen that a user finds its wholesale takedown warrantable for whatever reason.  If so I'd like to know whether the image might be improved or whether a different approach is warranted.  MinnesotanUser (talk) 04:23, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Illustration of text 

message: Currently, the first paragraph of the "Introduction" and "Description and Context" are exactly alike. Does anybody with more knowledge of this topic want to make those two sections look more different? Breadteam (talk) 01:56, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Beginning of "Introduction" and "Description and Context" duplicated 

message: Someone please clean up:
The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (widely abbreviated and cited as TLP) is a book-length philosophical work by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein which deals with the relationship between language and reality and aims to define the limits of science.
 
The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (widely abbreviated and cited as TLP) is the only book-length philosophical work by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein which was published during his lifetime. The project had a broad goal: to identify the relationship between language and reality and to define the limits of science. 2600:6C51:7FF0:350:89CF:C90A:6C08:F716 (talk) 01:14, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Repeated paragraph