Chapter 7 - The Tractatus and the First Person

Summary

The method proposed in the Tractatus is to find a perspicuous logic of our language. It thus seems to conform to Russell’s ideal of a scientific method in philosophy. Language, though, is for Wittgenstein essentially the language of the first person. This means that the central issues in the Tractatus, such as ‘What is a sentence?’ and ‘What is a judgement?’, have to be approached by means of a first-person method. Perhaps surprisingly, this method is less vulnerable to psychologism than Russell’s method. How are we to understand the use of the first-person indexical in the Tractatus? It is not used as a referring term: it does not stand for the author, a world-soul, or a transcendental subject. Its function is rather to engage the reader in applying the first-person method when aiming to understand the Tractatus.