The Method of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: Towards a New Interpretation

Southwest Philosophy Review 33 (2):197-212 (2017)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

This paper introduces a novel interpretation of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, a work widely held to be one of the most intricate in the philosophical canon. We understand the Tractatus not as the development of a theory but as the advancement of a new logical symbolism (a new instrument) that enables one to “recognize the formal properties [the logic] of propositions by mere inspection of propositions themselves” (6.122). Moreover, the Tractarian conceptual notation stands to instruct us in a better way to follow the logic of language, and by that token, enhances our ability to think. Upon acquiring the thinking skills that one can develop by working with this symbolism, one can “throw away [this] ladder” (6.54), as it were, and move on.

Links

PhilArchive

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

The Method of the Tractatus.Nikolay Milkov - 2003 - Contributions of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society 11:139-41.
Essays on Wittgenstein.Elmer Daniel Klemke - 1971 - Urbana,: University of Illinois Press.
Transcendental idealism in Wittgenstein's tractatus.Hao Tang - 2011 - Philosophical Quarterly 61 (244):598-607.
A Hertzian Interpretation of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus.Sara Bizarro - 2011 - Eidos: Revista de Filosofía de la Universidad Del Norte 13:150-165.
The new Wittgenstein: A critique.Ian Proops - 2001 - European Journal of Philosophy 9 (3):375–404.
Logical Syntax in Wittgenstein's Tractatus.Cora Diamond - 2005 - Philosophical Quarterly 55 (218):78 - 89.
Language and Logic in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus.Daniele Mezzadri - 2013 - Nordic Wittgenstein Review 2 (1):57-80.
Crítica da linguagem e misticismo no Tractatus.Paulo Roberto Margutti Pinto - 2002 - Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 58 (3):497 - 518.
On the 'resolute' reading of the tractatus.John Koethe - 2003 - Philosophical Investigations 26 (3):187–204.

Analytics

Added to PP
2013-09-05

Downloads
1,214 (#9,057)

6 months
123 (#24,718)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

Bertrand Russell’s Philosophical Logic and its Logical Forms.Nikolay Milkov - 2023 - Athens Journal of Philosophy 2 (3):193-210.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Was he trying to whistle it?Peter Ms Hacker - 2000 - In Alice Crary & Rupert J. Read (eds.), The New Wittgenstein. Routledge. pp. 353-388.
Ethics, imagination and the method of Wittgenstein's Tractatus.Cora Diamond - 2000 - In Alice Crary & Rupert J. Read (eds.), The New Wittgenstein. Routledge. pp. 149-173.
What is Analytic Philosophy?Hans-Johann Glock - 2008 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Letters to C. K. Ogden with comments on the English translation of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.Ludwig Wittgenstein - 1973 - Boston,: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Edited by C. K. Ogden, G. H. von Wright, Frank Plumpton Ramsey & Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Metaphysics and Nonsense.Warren Goldfarb - 1997 - Journal of Philosophical Research 22:57-73.

View all 10 references / Add more references