Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of abbreviations of works by Wittgenstein
- Introduction: Wittgenstein's provocation
- 1 Critical philosophy
- 2 The argument
- 3 Thought experiments
- 4 Tense and mood
- 5 The senses of sense
- Conclusion: a sense of familiarity
- References
- Index of names and subjects
- Index of passages
3 - Thought experiments
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of abbreviations of works by Wittgenstein
- Introduction: Wittgenstein's provocation
- 1 Critical philosophy
- 2 The argument
- 3 Thought experiments
- 4 Tense and mood
- 5 The senses of sense
- Conclusion: a sense of familiarity
- References
- Index of names and subjects
- Index of passages
Summary
Wittgenstein's short preface to the Tractatus emphasizes twice that thoughts are expressed in his book:
This book will be understood perhaps only by those who themselves have thought at one time or another the thoughts that are expressed in it – or at least similar thoughts. … If this work has a value it consists in two things. First that in it thoughts are expressed, and this value will be the greater the better the thoughts are expressed.
As we have seen in the previous two chapters, the thoughts expressed in the Tractatus concern a limit to the expression of thought, namely the limit of expression in language. At the very end of his book, Wittgenstein points out that sentences like these lie beyond this limit – and what this means is that the thoughts to be expressed by his sentences are not contained in them. Indeed, they have no meaningful content at all because we cannot specify how the world would have to be different in order for these sentences to be considered false. They cannot properly be understood since they are nonsensical. However, Wittgenstein allows that the person who utters them can be understood: “anyone who understands me eventually recognizes [my sentences] as nonsensical” (TLP 6.54).
This sounds puzzling, indeed: supposedly, we are able to understand the thought of a person who produces nonsensical sentences. And lest we imagine that Wittgenstein speaks loosely here, he makes the very same suggestion in his preface.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Wittgenstein's TractatusAn Introduction, pp. 92 - 125Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005