Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

by

Ludwig Wittgenstein


Perhaps this book will be understood only by someone who has himself
already had the thoughts that are expressed in it--or at least similar
thoughts.--So it is not a textbook.--Its purpose would be achieved if it
gave pleasure to one person who read and understood it.


The book deals with the problems of philosophy, and shows, I believe, that
the reason why these problems are posed is that the logic of our language
is misunderstood. The whole sense of the book might be summed up the
following words: what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we
cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.


Thus the aim of the book is to draw a limit to thought, or rather--not to
thought, but to the expression of thoughts: for in order to be able to draw
a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of the limit
thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought).


It will therefore only be in language that the limit can be drawn, and what
lies on the other side of the limit will simply be nonsense.