A Companion to Wittgenstein's 'Tractatus'

by Max Black

"It is one of the merits of Max Black's Companion to the Tractatus that he emphasizes the continuity of Wittgenstein's philosophical development by frequent quotation from his later writings." New York Review of Books "Black's book is, in effect, two books in one, and each of them is very good. First, there is the useful Companion to the the store of information that anyone who picked up the Tractatus would want to have. . . . Second, there are the interpretive always judicious, frequently illuminating. It is hard to see how [this book] could have been more complete." Philosophical Books

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

468 pages, Hardcover

First published January 3, 1964

Reviews

[Jacob Hurley · Rating 3 out of 5]

An optimal companion; provides a summary of each section; sentence-by-sentence annotations with drafts, responses, continuations, translation clarifications; and small essays digressing on various topics. No doubt it's 'dated' in the sense that Black's alternate 'contemporary' viewpoints are limited to Carnap, Tarski, early Quine (I noticed none of the Two Dogmas stuff or later, just like his 40s logic papers)... of course any larger scope would make this book even more smothering. No errors as far as I can tell, he presents the various alternatives in matters where there's been controversy, even if he does offer his own viewpoint (though I'm sort of stupid so I can't be sure; his ethics stuff is a bit lacking but that's really ok). A perfect secondary as far as I am concerned