\\"What we can't say we can't say, and we can't whistle it either\\". This simple yet profound statement holds a great deal of truth. There are certain things in life that are beyond the realm of our verbal or even whistling abilities to express. Maybe it's a complex emotion, a deep secret, or an ineffable experience. We may try to put it into words, but often find that they fall short. Whistling, too, is a limited form of communication. It can convey a tune or a simple message, but it lacks the precision and depth of language. So, when faced with those things that we can't say, we must learn to accept it. We can still try to understand and appreciate them in our own way, but we should also respect the limitations of our communication skills. After all, there are some things that are just meant to remain unspoken.

A beautiful little book about language and thought, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, was somewhat handicapped by Wittgenstein's lack of mathematical training at that time. It was written in the trenches of the Austro-Hungarian ostfront and in the Italian POW camps of Cassino, and was only published with the assistance of Russell and Ogden. In fact, Ogden gave the book its title.

For a more useful aspect of Ludwig's career (long after he had abandoned Logical Positivism), one should look to the Philosophical Investigations. However, the Tractatus contains some of the most breathtaking and heart-jarring pearls of the early century. It's not quite epigrams, nor does it follow the rules of deduction or constitute a valid derivation. But from that magnificent, syntactically-enigmatic first line:

The world is everything that is the case.

to the sweeping, single sentence of the seventh and final chapter:

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

you'll admire Ludwig for his verbal audacity, if nothing else. An excellent transcription is freely available online here, if you're interested.

It's a remarkable work that challenges our understanding of language, thought, and the world around us.

I don't agree with everything, and I don't understand everything, but this work is definitely worthy of appreciation - both in terms of the level of organization of thoughts and the coherence of form with content. I have the feeling that it couldn't have been thought up better. There are many quotes in Wittgenstein's considerations that "have something in them". Especially towards the end of the treatise.

"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world", or the famous "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence".

I am positively surprised because I thought that it would be just ordinary logical notations to endure during studies. Wittgenstein was an extremely intelligent person.

His ideas and thoughts presented in this work are truly profound and thought-provoking. They make us question our understanding of language, reality, and the world around us.

Although some of the concepts may be difficult to grasp at first, with further study and reflection, one can begin to appreciate the depth and significance of his work.

Overall, it is a remarkable piece of philosophy that continues to influence and inspire thinkers today.

Absolutely trite and unconvincing, this piece of work is truly a disappointment.

It comes across as a bloodless and conceited bore, as if it were organized by a severe autistic. The assumptions about cognition within it are laughably archaic, completely out of touch with modern understanding.

The very fact that this work has achieved any level of popularity is a thorn in my throat. It makes me wonder how such outdated and unsubstantiated ideas could gain any traction.

One would hope that in the realm of intellectual discourse, works of higher quality and more contemporary thought would prevail. But alas, this trite and unconvincing piece seems to have found its way into the spotlight, much to my chagrin.

Perhaps it is a sign of the times, or a lack of critical thinking among the masses. Either way, it serves as a reminder of the importance of discerning and evaluating the works we encounter with a discerning eye.

A friend once told me that whenever someone brought up Wittgenstein in a conversation, it was the very epitome of pretentiousness. Well, then I guess I'm pretentious. Deal with it.

Even though one of the reasons I delved into this was to make an impression on my friends, I also harbored the hope of reaping some benefits from it. After all, Wittgenstein is indeed an intriguing character.

In the end, I'm not entirely certain that I derived a great deal from the book. However, I don't feel too bad about this, considering that Wittgenstein himself told the philosophers of his era who had embraced the book that they completely missed the mark.

Other than this one fascinating perspective on the Universe: the Universe does not consist of mere things. It's not composed of a jumble of objects. Instead, what the universe truly is, is a collection of facts. The Universe is made up of truths. The things are present, but more fundamental than the things are the truths. Things simply cannot exist at all without facts.

I'm not sure whether this point of view is correct or incorrect (or perhaps neither), but it undeniably offers an interesting way of looking at things.

The name of the book truly aligns with its content.

This particular fellow made an attempt to elucidate philosophy by means of numbering. What this implies is the conversion of a three-dimensional object into a highly linear one.

I must say that it is rather good, even brilliant in a sense. However, it is nihilistic out of necessity.

The use of numbering to explain complex philosophical concepts is an interesting approach. It simplifies the otherwise intricate nature of philosophy and presents it in a more straightforward manner.

Nevertheless, the nihilistic aspect cannot be ignored. It may stem from the limitations of reducing a 3D object to a linear form.

Despite this, the book offers a unique perspective on philosophy and is worth exploring for those interested in the subject.

Overall, it is a thought-provoking work that challenges the reader's understanding of philosophy and the methods used to explain it.

This was definitely just my first read of this book.

I will need to come back many times to specific parts of it to say I have any understanding of it at all. So far, I have just a general grasp of parts of it.

My general impression is that I am simultaneously reading a book on the fundamentals of logic and a book of cryptic mystical knowledge. Buried among descriptions of atomic facts, logic functions, and truth tables, there are these nuggets of magical sayings about what God would have created, the purpose of philosophy, and how the ethical and the aesthetical are both mystical.

Moreover, these two aspects sometimes intersect. When delimiting what can be logically said about the world, anything else should either be left unsaid or be imbued with this mystical aura.

I have mixed feelings about the picture theory of language and the whole representational enterprise. It seems intuitive and useful, but ultimately it is backwards. Language is not essentially representational; rather, it becomes representational when we attempt to analyze it and make it logical.

These are just a few thoughts that crossed my mind. I'll have to return to this book later and fully explore its claims for a better philosophical understanding and critique of what Wittgenstein had to say.

I can write well about the life of Ludwig Wittgenstein, but I can't write a word about this book of his.

I understood only a little, and I think no one understands this book. Everyone approaches it from a different angle, so they either understand it in a certain way or don't understand it at all.

I think reading this work requires familiarity with some of Wittgenstein's ideas and concepts, perhaps also an acquaintance with logic, the philosophy of mathematics, and language.

And from this work, I quote (and I will try to adhere to it as much as possible): "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

This statement seems to imply that there are certain things that are beyond our ability to express in words, and in such cases, it is better to remain silent. It reflects Wittgenstein's view on the limitations of language and our understanding.

Overall, Wittgenstein's work is complex and thought-provoking, and requires careful study and reflection to fully appreciate.

This is the only text which got published during his lifetime.

The text comprises of 7 propositions extending over 90 pages with logical comments and subcomments for propositions. Its structure gives more of a feeling of reading a Math dissertation work rather than a philosophical one.

The seminal theme, as I think, is the inquiry of how traditional philosophy and traditional solutions arise out of ignorance of the principal uses of symbolism and out of the misuse and misunderstanding of the language. Thus, he comes up with the conditions on which a logically perfect language could function. There is some sort of underlying structure for thought and for its communication via language (a proposition, at least for the ideal perfect ones in theory).

Thought and the nature of the world in itself share a structure confined within the laws of logic and geometry (spatially and temporally), he proposes.

4.002 Man possesses the capacity of constructing languages, in which every sense can be expressed, without having an idea how and what each word means - just as one speaks without knowing how the single sounds are produced.

More references and citations from Kantian frameworks (like priori, intuitions, and concepts) are also taken into account and incorporated. We have thoughts and sometimes we have the urge to convey the manifested feelings and experiences to the other person. There, the limitation starts. Ludwig says that the idea and form one has about a particular thing may not be exactly the same as the propositions held by the other. Pardon me, I don't have the skillset to put it the way he did, for he used the first 40 pages to acquaint with numerous glossaries such as atomic facts, structure, constituents, propositions, forms, signs, names, object, and so it goes.

He holds logic and natural science for the rescue to get a plausible solution. Nevertheless, he conveys (rather very late in the book) that they have their limitations too. This book is taken for a Positivist's approach, which is quite baffling personally.

6.371 The whole modern conception of the world is founded on the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena.

This Tractatus is the weirdest work of Philosophy I've ever read. They say this is the most misunderstood text in the Western philosophical world of the 20th century. From the biographical background, I came to know that Wittgenstein was so satisfied with having written this to the extent he felt that there were no more philosophical conundrums left to analyze and solve regarding the language and our forms of expression.

All being said, clearly this book is not for a moment of one sitting kind of bulk reading. The more we read, the more it might make sense. Sense in the sense of finding validation of being true or false to the experiences and thoughts. Every proposition of our everyday understanding of 'making sense' and 'non-sense' are all confined within the logical possibilities, he says. So, I guess that makes sense.

5.6 The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

I certainly have this conundrum for a long while that the distorted use and abuse of language are deeply uprooted with the social / cultural conditioning. Maybe it's not possible for everyone of us to understand the limits of using the language in the same way. Yet, I may have to explore more on this topic of expression, perception of thought, and the world. The journey continues yet again.

7 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

You already know the key superficial facts: it's brief, poetic, cryptic, and it glorifies language. (Or is it damning language?) You might not know that it's intentionally cryptic.

As Ludwig Wittgenstein himself wrote in the preface of his work, "This book will perhaps only be understood by those who have themselves already thought the thoughts which are expressed in it - or similar thoughts... I should not like my writing to spare other people the trouble of thinking. But, if possible, to stimulate someone to thoughts of his own."

Moreover, it's considered the most beautiful piece of metaphysics ever. However, its author repudiated it entirely ten years later. In fact, the book seems to repudiate itself.

As Wittgenstein put it, "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."

Furthermore, aside from the pure logic results, it probably isn't true. And few people can possibly understand it without a lot of scholarly context, like without explanations five times the length of the original text. I recommend Anat Biletzki and Roger White. Grayling is also good for the language bit.

I spent maybe a year, on and off, trying to understand it. Some funny results can be found here.

I give it 5 stars for poetry - not for its system or its influence. (It has justified, or been appropriated in the service of, an awful lot of mystical poppycock. The author would be appalled to see this, while accepting that it was all his own fault.)

"For the things that you cannot speak about, you must remain silent."

As Wittgenstein himself prefaces in his work, if you haven't thought about on your own what the book wants to say, then this book is not for you. Therefore, first search on YouTube or generally on the Internet for the author and his philosophy before buying the book.

Certainly, this is by far the most difficult book I have encountered. No, it is not poorly written. However, it is the most mathematically written book I have read. Before purchasing it, I had watched many videos with presentations and lectures with the main theme being Wittgenstein's philosophy (where I almost agree in all of them) and I had listened to many Podcasts where his thought was analyzed (in total more than 6 hours). I almost didn't want to buy it because I believed that I had "finished" with Wittgenstein and that I had already discovered everything from his work.

And yet... although I had followed material of many hours of analysis of the author's thought and although the book is not more than 100 pages, it captured and bowled over my mind. There were many points where I had to change the way I have learned to use language in order to extract what the author wanted to say.

And this is the reason why the book was written and must be read as a text. This is Wittgenstein's point. That we continuously use language wrongly and we don't understand it. That it is extremely difficult to reach a point where language will function with perfect mathematical accuracy. And since language is not perfect, we cannot philosophize. There is still no perfect tool with which we will manage to describe reality. We must remain silent.

Wittgenstein himself believed that with this book he finished Philosophy and that no other philosophical text needed to be written. It will take many years until he writes his next book which is a complement/correction of this one...

In conclusion, perhaps the most MAGNIFICENT and MAGNANIMOUS book ever written on Philosophy (as the author himself also confirms) but unfortunately extremely difficult for the average reader. It requires a lot of patience and mathematical thinking to understand the greatness of Wittgenstein's logic and perhaps not everyone has it...

After reading the Tractacus, it is an absolute must to read Russel's summary.

What Wittgenstein says in 10 pages, Russel can convey in a paragraph, with half the difficulty.

Nevertheless, the small parts that I was able to understand were truly astonishing.

I will definitely come back to it at some point in the future.

Also, it is a fallacy to think that you can read this without having read anything before, as some online forums might lead you to believe.

Reading Frege and Principia Mathematica before reading the Tractacus is of utmost importance.

It provides a necessary foundation and context that enhances the understanding of Wittgenstein's work.

Without this prior knowledge, one may struggle to fully grasp the concepts and ideas presented in the Tractacus.

So, it is advisable to approach the Tractacus with a well-read background in related philosophical works.

This will enable a more in-depth and meaningful exploration of Wittgenstein's profound thoughts.