The Seven Main Propositions of the Tractatus

[Fledgist]

1. The world is all that is the case.

2. What is the case -- a fact -- is the existence of states of affairs.

3. A logical picture of facts is a thought.

4. A thought is a proposition with a sense.

5. A proposition is a truth-function of elementary propositions.

(An elementary proposition is a truth-function of itself.)

6. The general form of a truth function is [p, eta, N(eta)], this is the general form of a proposition.

7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.

[fiver]

Re: The Seven Main Propositions of the Tractatus

"...Wittgenstein was a beery swine..."

[img]/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

sorry. i'll go away now...

[jedi]

Re: The Seven Main Propositions of the Tractatus

"...Wittgenstein was a beery swine..."sorry. i'll go away now... [img]/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Hmmmm!!! Thanks kiddo.

[jedi]

Re: The Seven Main Propositions of the Tractatus

Wittgenstein's later thought is radically postmodern in the sense that it dispenses with this central and comforting trope of modernity. It no longer clings to the seductiveness of the idea that something remains hidden -- a crystalline, pure, logical essence -- which directs our thought, language and culture, and which can be revealed through a form of analysis. Instead, Wittgenstein embraces the thought that everything already lies in plain view before us; that there is no one method of analysis which reveals a hidden structure.

Yeah I kinda agree with the statement in bold. [img]/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[Fledgist]

Re: The Seven Main Propositions of the Tractatus

Originally posted by fiver:
[qb]"...Wittgenstein was a beery swine..."

[img]/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

sorry. i'll go away now...[/qb]

A Monty Python fan stands revealed.

[Fledgist]

Re: The Seven Main Propositions of the Tractatus

Originally posted by Jedi:
[qb]"Wittgenstein's later thought is radically postmodern in the sense that it dispenses with this central and comforting trope of modernity. It no longer clings to the seductiveness of the idea that something remains hidden -- a crystalline, pure, logical essence -- which directs our thought, language and culture, and which can be revealed through a form of analysis. Instead, Wittgenstein embraces the thought that everything already lies in plain view before us; that there is no one method of analysis which reveals a hidden structure."

Yeah I kinda agree with the statement in bold. [img]/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [/qb]

Really? What's that got to do with the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus which was Wittgenstein's early work? The Tractatus is Heraclitean rather than post-modern (whatever that may mean), which is, perhaps, why I find it attractive. It takes us towards a dialectical, rather than linear, approach to the world.

[jedi]

Re: The Seven Main Propositions of the Tractatus

Ketch yuh latah. Mi gawn a mi bed but I will respond in the latahs. [img]/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[servant]

Re: The Seven Main Propositions of the Tractatus

"It takes us towards a dialectical, rather than linear, approach to the world."

Which leads us to :

"We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be asnwered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all"

[RollinCalf]

Re: The Seven Main Propositions of the Tractatus

""he who understands me finally recognizes my propositions as nonsensical when by means of them ...he has ascended beyond them".

[Dyoll]

Re: The Seven Main Propositions of the Tractatus

Originally posted by Fledgist:
[qb]1. The world is all that is the case.

2. What is the case -- a fact -- is the existence of states of affairs.

3. A logical picture of facts is a thought.

4. A thought is a proposition with a sense.

5. A proposition is a truth-function of elementary propositions.

(An elementary proposition is a truth-function of itself.)

6. The general form of a truth function is [p, eta, N(eta)], this is the general form of a proposition.

7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.[/qb]

I recall that Wittgenstein abondoned this view - certainly logical atomism - that he propounded in his earlier work, Tractacus logico-Philosophicus. I think we have a better sense of the later Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations.

[Dyoll]

Re: The Seven Main Propositions of the Tractatus

Originally posted by servant:
[qb]"It takes us towards a dialectical, rather than linear, approach to the world."

Which leads us to :

"We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be asnwered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all"[/qb]

Well, according to Wittgenstein's own thinking, perhaps those "problems of life" are really not problems at all.

[fiver]

Re: The Seven Main Propositions of the Tractatus

6.5
For an answer which cannot be expressed the question too cannot be expressed.
The riddle does not exist.
If a question can be put at all, then it can also be answered.

6.52
We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life
have still not been touched at all. Of course there is then no question left, and just
this is the answer.

6.54
My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.)
He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly.

i reckon these full segments together give a clearer idea of where he was coming from.

maybe it's just me, but together they remind me of when the Buddha likened his teachings to a raft. once one crossed the river there was no more need for it. one saw the world rightly in their awakened state.

that Wittgenstein's later thinking changed seems consistent with him surmounting his propositions.

[Fledgist]

Re: The Seven Main Propositions of the Tractatus

Originally posted by servant:
[qb]"It takes us towards a dialectical, rather than linear, approach to the world."

Which leads us to :

"We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be asnwered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all"[/qb]

That's incomplete.

[Fledgist]

Re: The Seven Main Propositions of the Tractatus

Originally posted by RollinCalf:
[qb]""he who understands me finally recognizes my propositions as nonsensical when by means of them ...he has ascended beyond them".[/qb]

This is, I think, a perfectly Heraclitean statement on a par with 'the Keraunos steers all things'.

[jedi]

Re: The Seven Main Propositions of the Tractatus

(((Fiver)))stole my response.

7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.
This statement could also be applied to the tractatus. Seeing as how he also revised his own logical anaylysis later on.