"'P' dice P"

Abstract

The paper is an interpretation of the critique of the Russellian theory of judgment, in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus [5.5422]. The author holds that the picture theory of language is the Wittgensteinian alternative to Russell’s theory of types, on which his theory of judgment is based. In other words, the idea that a picture cannot represent its own pictorial form, would avoid, with difficulties of its own, the vicious circle that Wittgenstein sees in the theory of types, namely to suppose that a description of the categorical structure of the world may establish the logical syntax of language. From this diagnosis, the author draws important consequences to illuminate the celebrated Wittgensteinian distinction between saying and showing, as well as the Wittgensteinian account of propositional attitudes.