Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus - Softcover

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1614278032 ISBN 13: 9781614278030

Publisher: Martino Fine Books, 2015

Synopsis

2015 Reprint of 1922 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition. Not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. The "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" (Latin for "Logical-Philosophical Treatise") is the only book-length philosophical work published by the German-Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein in his lifetime. It was an ambitious project - to identify the relationship between language and reality and to define the limits of science - and is recognized as a significant philosophical work of the twentieth century. Considered by some to be the greatest philosopher of the 20th century, Ludwig Wittgenstein played a central, if controversial, role in 20th-century analytic philosophy. He continues to influence current philosophical thought in topics as diverse as logic and language, perception and intention, ethics and religion, aesthetics and culture. Contains an introduction by Bertrand Russell.

About this title

About the Author:

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (1889–1951) was an Austrian philosopher who held the professorship in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947. He is known for having inspired two of the century's principal philosophical movements, logical positivism and ordinary language philosophy, though in his lifetime he published just one book review, one article, a children's dictionary, and the 75-page Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921). In 1999 his posthumously published Philosophical Investigations (1953) was ranked as the most important book of 20th-century philosophy. Born into one of Austria-Hungary's wealthiest families in Vienna at the turn of the century, he gave away his inheritance, and was at one point forced to sell his furniture to cover expenses when working on the Tractatus. Three of his brothers committed suicide, with Wittgenstein and the remaining brother contemplating it too. Bertrand Russell described him as the most perfect example of genius, "passionate, profound, intense, and dominating", while Richard Rorty wrote that he took out his intense self-loathing on everyone he met. He grew angry when his students wanted to teach philosophy, and was famously overjoyed when G.E. Moore's wife told him she was working in a jam factory—doing something useful, in Wittgenstein's eyes. He tried to leave philosophy himself several times, serving during the First World War on the front lines with the Austrian Army, and commended for his courage; teaching in schools in Austrian villages, where he found himself in trouble for hitting the children; and working during the Second World War as an orderly in Guy's Hospital, London, where only a few of the staff were told that the new porter was the professor of philosophy at Cambridge.

Language Notes:

The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus first appeared in 1921 and was the only philosophical work that Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) published during his lifetime. Written in short, carefully numbered paragraphs of extreme compression and brilliance, it immediately convinced many of its readers and captivated the imagination of all. Its chief influence, at first, was on the Logical Positivists of the 1920s and 30s, but many other philosophers were stimulated by its philosophy of language, finding attractive, if ultimately unsatisfactory, its view that propositions were pictures of reality. Perhaps most of all, Wittgenstein himself, after his return to philosophy in the late 1920s, was fascinated by its vision of an inexpressible, crystalline world of logical relationships. The posthumous publication of other writings has, therefore, only served to reawaken interest in the Tractatus and to illuminate its more neglected aspects. In this present edition Mr. Pears and Mr. McGuinness have been able to revise their translation in the light of Wittgenstein's own suggestions and comments in his correspondence wit hC. K. Ogden about the first translation.

About this edition

• Publisher: Martino Fine Books
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1614278032
• ISBN 13: 9781614278030
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 122