Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Ludwig Wittgenstein drafted this short, austere book while serving as a soldier and prisoner of war during the First World War, and it remains one of the most influential works of twentieth-century philosophy. Built from seven numbered propositions and their branching commentary, it argues that language pictures the world, that the limits of language mark the limits of thought, and that many traditional philosophical problems are really confusions about how words work. What can be said clearly, Wittgenstein insists, can be said plainly; the rest, including ethics and the meaning of life, must be passed over in silence. Dense, aphoristic and strangely poetic, it shaped logical positivism and analytic philosophy for generations. This free PDF and EPUB edition uses C. K. Ogden’s English translation.