Abstract

This paper discusses certain anti-metaphysical readings of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The metaphysical and anti-metaphysical readings can be divided on the interpretations of textual fidelity. The anti-metaphysical readings can be differentiated in taking into account two different understandings with regard to Wittgenstein’s pronouncement of nonsense in Tractatus. One is the logical positivists’ understanding of nonsense and the other is the resolute reading of the text that emerged as an opposite to the orthodox or standard reading. The aim of discussing these anti-metaphysical readings is to highlight whether a metaphysical reading is possible.

Highlights

  • Wittgenstein is perhaps the most debated philosopher in contemporary times

  • Anti-Metaphysical Readings of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus in TLP give an indication that the methodological task of TLP perhaps aims at enabling the understanding of philosophy

  • The aphorism 6.54 claims that those who understand Wittgenstein eventually would identify as “nonsensical.” This sense of nonsensical is whether literal nonsensical as positivists claim for metaphysical propositions or significant nonsense that which is more significant than the intelligible propositions as standard readers would argue is the point of debate

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Summary

Introduction

Wittgenstein is perhaps the most debated philosopher in contemporary times. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (TLP) seems to be highly fertile for interpretational debates. One would comprehend the title, “treatise of logical philosophy” (the English translation of the title) It is a work of logical analysis of philosophy in the sense that there is an implied normative meaning of philosophy that TLP tries to define in the lines of what can be logically described and what goes beyond that description. The paper attempts to debate that the methodological task of TLP is not the sole point of Wittgenstein. His reservations about modernity and so called scientific or technological developments which are discussed mostly in Culture and Value, A Lecture on Ethics, and very briefly yet in a significant sense filosofijOS ISTORIJA. Anti-Metaphysical Readings of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus in TLP give an indication that the methodological task of TLP perhaps aims at enabling the understanding of philosophy.

The Structure of TLP
Intelligible Propositions
Making sense of self
See Hacker 1972: 18 3 Urmson 1966
See Perszyk 1987
TLP and Logical Positivism
See Biletzki 2003
Sayable and Showable
See McGinn 1999
Standard Reading
Resolute Reading
The Possibility of Metaphysics
Full Text
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