Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

"Philosophy is not a theory, but an activity," asserted Austro-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) in his 1921 opus, the only philosophical work published during his lifetime. In this work, Wittgenstein defined the object of philosophy as the logical clarification of thoughts and proposed the solution to most philosophic problems through a critical method of linguistic analysis. By proclaiming philosophy as a matter of logic rather than of metaphysics, Wittgenstein created a sensation among intellectual circles, influencing the development of logical positivism and changing the direction of 20th-century thought.

Beginning with the principles of symbolism and the necessary relations between words and objects, the author applies his theories to various branches of traditional philosophy, illustrating how mistakes arise from inappropriate use of symbolism and misuses of language. After examining the logical structure of propositions and the nature of logical inference, he discusses the theory of knowledge as well as principles of physics and ethics, and aspects of the mystical.

This translation from the German by C. K. Ogden, supervised by the author himself, is regarded as the definitive text. In a magisterial introduction, the distinguished philosopher Bertrand Russell hails Wittgenstein's achievement as extraordinarily important, "one which no serious philosopher can afford to neglect".

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