Ludwig Wittgenstein · Philosophy

The Tractatus: The Limits of Language

In his first masterpiece, the young Wittgenstein argues that language pictures the world, that the limits of language are the limits of thought and world, and that most philosophy is nonsense - the attempt to say what can only be shown. The book ends in a famous silence about everything that matters most.

What you'll be able to recall

You learned that in the Tractatus Wittgenstein holds that meaningful propositions are pictures of possible facts, that the limits of language are the limits of the world, and that the most important things (ethics, value, the mystical) cannot be said but only shown - so ‘whereof one cannot speak, thereof one mus…

Leads to Bertrand Russell.

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