Free Download
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Perhaps this book will be understood only by someone who has himself already had the thoughts that are expressed in it--or at least similar thoughts.--So it is not a textbook.--Its purpose would be achieved if it gave pleasure to one person who read and understood it.The book deals with the problems of philosophy, and shows, I believe, that the reason why these problems are posed is that the logic of our language is misunderstood. The whole sense of the book might be summed up the following words: what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.
Book Excerpt
igns are their representatives. I can only speak about them: I cannot put them into words. Propositions can only say how things are, not what they are.
3.23 The requirement that simple signs be possible is the requirement that sense be determinate.
3.24 A proposition about a complex stands in an internal relation to a proposition about a constituent of the complex. A complex can be given only by its description, which will be right or wrong. A proposition that mentions a complex will not be nonsensical, if the complex does not exits, but simply false. When a propositional element signifies a complex, this can be seen from an indeterminateness in the propositions in which it occurs. In such cases we know that the proposition leaves something undetermined. (In fact the notation for generality contains a prototype.) The contraction of a symbol for a complex into a simple symbol can be expressed in a definition.
3.25 A proposition cannot be dissected any further by means of a definition: it i
Editor's choice
(view all)
Popular books in Short Story Collection, Mystery/Detective, Philosophy
Readers reviews
0.0
LoginSign up
Be the first to review this book