[Copied over from my old blog] Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is a century-old this year. It deserves its reputation as one of the most difficult books in modern philosophy. Part of the difficulty is down to its subject matter. The book is about how language represents reality: how sentences like ‘The cat is on the mat’ manage to tell us something about the world. Exactly because we’re so accustomed to using these kinds of sentences, it can be hard to grasp just what Wittgenstein’s worry is. We’re like fish reading a book about the nature of water.
Wittgenstein's Tractatus: Now With Examples
Wittgenstein's Tractatus: Now With Examples
Wittgenstein's Tractatus: Now With Examples
[Copied over from my old blog] Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is a century-old this year. It deserves its reputation as one of the most difficult books in modern philosophy. Part of the difficulty is down to its subject matter. The book is about how language represents reality: how sentences like ‘The cat is on the mat’ manage to tell us something about the world. Exactly because we’re so accustomed to using these kinds of sentences, it can be hard to grasp just what Wittgenstein’s worry is. We’re like fish reading a book about the nature of water.