Passed Over in Silence. on Wittgenstein's Tractatus and Its System

ISBN-13: 9781848900080 / Angielski / Miękka / 2011 / 306 str.

Van Der Jaap Does

Opis

A hundred years ago, October 18th 1911, young Wittgenstein invaded Russells room to start studying with him. Seven years later he had finished the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus; a highly original ethical deed that involved presenting a logical system in literary fashion. The current book sets out to show that despite its condensed literary presentation the Tractatus has a strong interpretation, both philosophically and in its technical fine-structure. It makes clear how Wittgensteins early views on ethics and logic are related to his symbolic turn. To this end, the symbolic nature of contingent propositions in logical space is charted in detail, while logical propositions are characterized as empty forms about nothing. Not only the finite system is covered but also a natural infinite generalization that Wittgensteins text just hints at. As it turns out, Wittgensteins early philosophy gives the sign of a symbol center stage in a way that anticipates the elegant tableaux methods developed much later. Also, Wittgensteins injective treatment of quantification is shown to be correct.