Wittgenstein's Tractatus

“An aspect of Wittgenstein's work which is certain to attract growing attention is its language.” Georg Henrik von Wright wrote this in a biographical essay about his teacher in 1955. The essay has been reprinted numerous times since then, with the prediction carried forward apparently unfulfilled. Indeed, philosophical readers of the Tractatus used to bracket or dismiss the idiosyncracy of Wittgenstein's language. They found a statement in its preface which seemed to indicate that considerations of language, method, and style can only obscure his philosophical point: “What can be said at all can be said clearly.”

Thanks are therefore due to Cora Diamond, James Conant, Matthew Ostrow, and others for drawing increased attention in recent years to Wittgenstein's method. In particular, they have established the need to take literally Wittgenstein's claim that his sentences are nonsensical. Though I disagree with them on nearly all of the particulars, they have prepared the way for my own attempt to take Wittgenstein literally in the context and tradition of analytic philosophy.

This book has been a long time in the making. Its beginnings can be traced to a seminar with Hide Ishiguro in the early 1980s. Accordingly, its intellectual debts reach equally far back. In ways entirely unbeknownst to them, Ernie Alleva, Lisa Leizman, and Veronica Vieland continue holding watch over my work – they are my philosophical conscience.