Yes, but he doesn't make a matter of love only between him and Pinsent, but rather, in the motto above, includes everyone else, and whatever a man knows, with everything else being just rumbling. And if this is so, this makes the Tractatus, which is seen as an essay on logic and language, an essay on love, which carries the ethical weight that W mentioned to Ludwig von Ficker, that the point of the Tractatus was ethical.

But who was David Pinsent? Not much information on him, but the wiki page states:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Pinsent

David Hume Pinsent (24 May 1891 – 8 May 1918) was a friend, collaborator and platonic lover of the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922) is dedicated to Pinsent's memory.

So could it be that these three words were "Ich liebe dich", "I love you"?

Ok, first of all with the pre-preface:

Ludwig Wittgenstein
DEDICATED
TO THE MEMORY OF MY FRIEND
DAVID H. PINSENT

Mo t t o: . . . und alles, was man weiss, nicht bloss rauschen
und brausen gehört hat, lässt sich in drei Worten sagen.
Kürnberger.

“… and whatever a man knows, whatever is not mere rumbling and roaring that he has heard, can be said in three words.” Kürnberger

Who was this Kürnberger guy, and what are these three words Ludwig is referring to?

Whenever you are ready, I guess. Although i am pretty tired now to start a proper conversation.

But I think you missed the preface, and even before the preface, not Russells comments but W's. Well, what do you have to say about that?

For sure? You are not just saying that to get me off your back, right?

I tried to read N&N several times, but I always came to a stop, because of lack of meaning. I mean, what is the whole point of the book? Why is it important? Will I better myself reading and understanding it, or is it just a complete waste of time? I was unable to answer these questions, but then again people say it is important, yet I fail to see it. So, would anyone here care to explain its importance?

I could accompany you but as I am new, we would have to take it from the beginning. I studied and analysed the Tractatus, sentence by sentence, up to the start of chapter 3, so I could post all this here, but I have to translate it first since they are in greek! :)

hey, it says in the rules that bumps are not allowed!!

It's been a while since I studied Aristotle, and I don't have the time nor energy to go through it again, so I will answer by memory, whatever I remember, like I were on a desert island with no access to resources.

So he says that there are four causes, if I remember him correctly, efficient, formal, final and one more I think, which eludes me. When he discuses unmoved movers, he says that they are final causes, not efficient nor formal or whatsoever, probably owing to the fact that they are immaterial. But objects in the physical world that consist of matter, they ... are all four causes, I think he uses the example of a sculptor that makes a statue to explain better what he means. So I don't see a contradiction there, but one can say that he makes arbitrary and unsolicited distinctions, which is a different thing.

1. It is not our fault that Aristotle makes a distinction between the two, the immaterial/material I mean, but I don't see it as trickery. Apart from that, I agree with Πετροκότσυφας. And I think that A introduces the concept of unmoved movers out of necessity, logical necessity that is, that there has to be such entities, if motion in the world can be explained at all. He arrived there to avoid circular argumentation, as has already been said, but then again objects affected by the unmoved movers move in circular motion, so it seems that the circle has been transferred from the logical and the metaphysical to the physical.

2. Duly noted.

Yeah, you are probably right that they are not self caused.
Huh, the unmoved movers always troubled me!

Well first of all, to say that I dont really know how or what creates motion, we are just discussing here Aristotle's philosophy on the matter, to see what he was blabbering about.

Now, I think unmoved movers would have to be full actuality, having capitalized on and exploited their potential in full, so that to become or rather be actual. Like someone who aspires to become a pilot, but isn't yet, well when he becomes, we can say that he actualized his potential, so that he is now an actual pilot instead of a potential one, with potentiality having been stripped away from him and turned into actuality. The idea that moved him in the first place was that of a pilot, so this was his unmoved mover, forever immovable, static and speechless, but nevertheless inspired him to move accordingly. So this is how motion in the physical world is created.

I think that Aristotle takes unmoved movers to be immaterial by definition. So they are not affected by motion in the material plane, and are thus immovable in that sense. They do however cause motion by thought, intellect, love and inspiration, beings in the material world doing that towards them, so they are movers. As for their causes, i think we can say they are their own cause, causa sui, how is it called. All this might be wrong and totally unfounded, but i dont see how it is contradictory.

It matters because motion, according to Aristotle, happens only in, say, the material universe, not the immaterial one.

Hold on, aren't unmoved movers supposed to be immaterial in nature?

If mathematicians were like philosophers, trying to fully resolve an issue before advancing, then there would be no progress in mathematics. So, wherever there is doubt, they create an axiom and tell their colleagues to invoke it in their work, if and when they like. In this way, they avoid the search for truth, so that to focus solely on mathematical work, numbers and proof: they just need to say which axioms were used, and leave the 'what really is the case' to philosophers. Mathematical axioms, in the way they are used by mathematicians, do not have anything to do with 'truth' in the real sense, they are just there to help them in their games. After all, if something was obviously true and accepted by everyone, we wouldn't have an axiom for it, would we? :)

I think that for the unmoved movers, he meant them as a final cause.

It is the constructivist/finitistic approach to maths MO is supporting. But because there is not universal concensus in mathematical and philosophical communities alike, in maths we have axioms for this stuff, like the axiom of infinity or the axiom of choice.

It causes motion to others by being a final cause, to add.

Is this in contrast to Ancient Science, where belief in deities was common? Or else, when was science, modern or otherwise, ever concerned with deities?