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First, there is the problem what actually occurs in our minds when we use language with the intention of meaning something by it; this problem belongs to psychology. Secondly, there is the problem as to what is the relation subsisting between thoughts, words, or sentences, and that which they refer to or mean; this problem belongs to epistemology. Thirdly, there is the problem of using sentences so as to convey truth rather than falsehood; this belongs to the special sciences dealing with the subject-matter of the sentences in question. Fourthly, there is the question: what relation must one
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In practice, language is always more or less vague, so that what we assert is never quite precise.
A logically perfect language has rules of syntax which prevent nonsense, and has single symbols which always have a definite and unique meaning. Mr Wittgenstein is concerned with the conditions for a logically perfect language—not that any language is logically perfect, or that we believe ourselves capable, here and now, of constructing a logically perfect language, but that the whole function of language is to have meaning, and it only fulfils this function in proportion as it approaches to the ideal language which we postulate.
He compares linguistic expression to projection in geometry.
The logical picture of a fact, he says, is a Gedanke.
Every philosophical proposition is bad grammar, and the best that we can hope to achieve by philosophical discussion is to lead people to see that philosophical discussion is a mistake.
The object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a theory but an activity. A
The result of philosophy is not a number of ‘philosophical propositions,’ but to make propositions clear.
Philosophy should make clear and delimit sharply the thoughts which otherwise are, as it...
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We here touch one instance of Wittgenstein’s fundamental thesis, that it is impossible to say anything about the world as a whole, and that whatever can be said has to be about bounded portions of the world.
What we cannot think we cannot think, therefore we also cannot say what we cannot think.
The world is the totality of facts, not of things.
The facts in logical space are the world.
The world divides into facts.
An atomic fact is a combination of objects (entities, things).
In logic nothing is accidental: if a thing can occur in an atomic fact the possibility of that atomic fact must already be prejudged in the thing.
Just as we cannot think of spatial objects at all apart from space, or temporal objects apart from time, so we cannot think of any object apart from the possibility of its connexion with other things.
In order to know an object, I must know not its external but all its internal qualities.
Every statement about complexes can be analysed into a statement about their constituent parts, and into those propositions which completely describe the complexes.
Objects form the substance of the world. Therefore they cannot be compound.
It is clear that however different from the real one an imagined world may be, it must have something—a form—in common with the real world.
Substance is what exists independently of what is the case. 2.025 It is form and content.
Space, time and colour (colouredness) are forms of objects.
The object is the fixed, the existent; the configuration is the changing, the variable.
The form is the possibility of the structure.
The total reality is the world.
We make to ourselves pictures of facts.
The logical picture of the facts is the
The totality of true thoughts is a picture of the world.
Only facts can express a sense, a class of names cannot.
States of affairs can be described but not named. (Names resemble points; propositions resemble arrows, they have sense.)
Only the proposition has sense; only in the context of a proposition has a name meaning.
A symbolism, that is to say, which obeys the rules of logical grammar—of logical syntax.
The sign determines a logical form only together with its logical syntactic application.
The proposition determines a place in logical space: the existence of this logical place is guaranteed by the existence of the constituent parts alone, by the existence of the significant proposition.
The thought is the significant proposition.
The proposition is a picture of reality. The proposition is a model of the reality as we think it is.
Reality is compared with the proposition.
Philosophy is not one of the natural sciences.
The object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a theory but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations.
The logical forms are anumerical. Therefore there are in logic no pre-eminent numbers, and therefore there is no philosophical monism or dualism, etc.
The simplest proposition, the elementary proposition, asserts the existence of an atomic fact.
The specification of all true elementary propositions describes the world completely. The world is completely described by the specification of all elementary propositions plus the specification, which of them are true and which false.
The truth-conditions are self-contradictory
The proposition shows what it says, the tautology and the contradiction that they say nothing.
The tautology has no truth-conditions, for it is unconditionally true; and the contradiction is on no condition true.
Tautology and contradiction are without sense.
Tautology and contradiction are, however, not senseless; they are part of the symbolism, in the same way
Tautology and contradiction are not pictures of the reality. They present no possible state of affairs. For the one allows every possible state of affairs, the other none.
Propositions are truth-functions of elementary propositions.
