Questions like "how many souls do you have" and "what is the relationship between your objective mind and your subjective mind" would thwart his scheme however. Religious questions like that many of us feel are not meaningless — Gregory
Without a doubt the Tractatus is one of the most difficult works in philosophy to understand. — Sam26
In the preface to the Tractatus Wittgenstein tells us what the book is all about. “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 in 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.
“Thus the aim of the book is to draw a limit to thought, or rather—not to thought, but to the expression of thoughts: for in order to be able to draw a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of the limit thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought).
“It will therefore only be in language that the limit can be drawn, and what lies on the other side of the limit will simply be nonsense (Preface, p. 3).” — Sam26
The whole sense of the book might be summed up in 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. — Sam26
6.41 The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is and happens as it does happen. In it there is no value—and if there were, it would be of no value.
If there is a value which is of value, it must lie outside all happening and being-so. For all happening and being-so is accidental.
What makes it non-accidental cannot lie in the world, for otherwise this would again be accidental. It must lie outside the world.
Hence also there can be no ethical propositions. Propositions cannot express anything higher.
6.421 It is clear that ethics cannot be expressed.
Ethics are transcendental.
(Ethics and æsthetics are one.)
He believed in god, although not the sot that is found hereabouts. When asked if he believed in god, he replied "yes, I do, but the difference between what you believe and what I believe may be infinite". — Banno
Yet, somehow, from this, positivism then says that 'all metaphysics is meaningless' and that therefore the only meaningful statements are those which can be validated with respect to sensible experience. Which is pretty well the exact opposite of Wittgenstein's attitude, in my opinion. — Wayfarer
[Entry into the] inconceivable is most fully elaborated in the famous climactic scene [of the Vimalakirti Sutra] , in which Vimalakirti suggests that the assembled bodhisattvas tell about their own entry into full awareness of the reality of nonduality. Then thirty-one bodhisattvas present a seminar on the multifaceted aspects of nonduality. Such dualities as good and bad, saintly and profane, and birth and death are taken for granted and presumed real in our conventional management of our lives. The nondual awareness is important because our sense of estrangement and suffering arise and our lives become fragmented with these unquestioned habits of dualistic discrimination.
Each bodhisattva gives a brief but penetrating account of some apparent dichotomy or polarity and how they transcended it to enter into nondual awareness. One describes freedom from calculations of happiness and misery. Another describes equanimity about all conceptions of the pure and impure. Another describes distraction and attention as not separate in the mental process. Another declares that self and selflessness have no duality, since there is no fixed self to be made selfless.
Manjushri then congratulates all the bodhisattvas on their fine explanations, but declares that all their statements have been themselves dualistic. Manjushri says that the entrance into nonduality is not to express, proclaim, designate, or say anything.
Manjushri then turns to Vimalakirti and asks him to expound the principle of the entry into nonduality. Vimalakirti remains silent.
The logic in the Tractatus contains an exactness that is disposed of in the PI (at least for the most part). It’s this exactness, I believe, that leads Wittgenstein to believe that he has solved all the philosophical problems (in the T.) in one fell swoop. How has he solved all the philosophical problems? Well, if as Wittgenstein supposes one can analyze all propositions via their truth-functions (more on this later), and these line up with facts in the world, then we can determine what’s true and what’s false based on Wittgenstein’s a priori analysis. This is probably why Russell thought that Wittgenstein was creating a logically perfect language. — Sam26
Because you said that he solved all philosophical problems by analyzing propositions via their truth-functions. Philosophical propositions, pertaining to philosophical problems, and according to him, do not have a truth-function, they are neither true or false, right or wrong, but nonsensical, and so the best one can do with them, is to get rid of them. For example, the critique of pure reason by Kant, is a fine example of a nonsensical book. — Pussycat
Remember I'm talking mainly about the Tractatus, and it's clear if you read what he said about that book, that he believed he solved all the major problems of philosophy. It's in the Tractatus that Wittgenstein puts forward his theory of truth-functions, which I'll be talking more about as we go along. — Sam26
The right method of philosophy would be this. To say nothing except what can be said, i.e. the propositions of natural science, i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy: and then always, when someone else wished to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had given no meaning to certain signs in his propositions. This method would be unsatisfying to the other—he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy—but it would be the only strictly correct method. — w
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.