Wittgenstein's famous Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is written in a style that is austere and sometimes aphoristic. 'The world is everything that is the case.' 'A picture presents a possible situation in logical space.' 'A logical picture of facts is a thought.' 'We cannot think of anything illogical, for to do so we should have to think illogically.' 'The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.' 'Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.'

LRB 21 February 1980 | PDF Download