Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

INTRODUCTION
By BERTRAND RUSSELL
Mr Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, whether or
not it prove to give the ultimate truth on the matters with which it deals,
certainly deserves, by its breadth and scope and profundity, to be considered
an important event in the philosophical world. Starting from the
principles of Symbolism and the relations which are necessary between
words and things in any language, it applies the result of this inquiry to
various departments of traditional philosophy, showing in each case how
traditional philosophy and traditional solutions arise out of ignorance of
the principles of Symbolism and out of misuse of language.
The logical structure of propositions and the nature of logical inference
are first dealt with. Thence we pass successively to Theory of
Knowledge, Principles of Physics, Ethics, and finally the Mystical (das
Mystische).
In order to understand Mr Wittgenstein’s book, it is necessary to realize
what is the problem with which he is concerned. In the part of his
theory which deals with Symbolism he is concerned with the conditions
which would have to be fulfilled by a logically perfect language. There are
various problems as regards language. First, there is the problem what
actually occurs in our minds when we use language with the intention
of meaning something by it; this problem belongs to psychology. Secondly,
there is the problem as to what is the relation subsisting between
thoughts, words, or sentences, and that which they refer to or mean; this
problem belongs to epistemology. Thirdly, there is the problem of using
sentences so as to convey truth rather than falsehood; this belongs to
the special sciences dealing with the subject-matter of the sentences in
question. Fourthly, there is the question: what relation must one fact
(such as a sentence) have to another in order to be capable of being a
symbol for that other? This last is a logical question, and is the one with
which Mr Wittgenstein is concerned. He is concerned with the conditions
for accurate Symbolism, i.e. for Symbolism in which a sentence “means”
something quite definite. In practice, language is always more or less
vague, so that what we assert is never quite precise. Thus, logic has two
problems to deal with in regard to Symbolism: (1) the conditions for
sense rather than nonsense in combinations of symbols; (2) the conditions
for uniqueness of meaning or reference in symbols or combinations
of symbols. A logically perfect language has rules of syntax which prevent
nonsense, and has single symbols which always have a definite and
unique meaning. Mr Wittgenstein is concerned with the conditions for a
logically perfect language—not that any language is logically perfect, or
that we believe ourselves capable, here and now, of constructing a logically
perfect language, but that the whole function of language is to have
meaning, and it only fulfils this function in proportion as it approaches
to the ideal language which we postulate.
The essential business of language is to assert or deny facts. Given the
syntax of a language, the meaning of a sentence is determinate as soon
as the meaning of the component words is known. In order that a certain
sentence should assert a certain fact there must, however the language
may be constructed, be something in common between the structure of
the sentence and the structure of the fact. This is perhaps the most
fundamental thesis of Mr Wittgenstein’s theory. That which has to be
in common between the sentence and the fact cannot, so he contends,
be itself in turn said in language. It can, in his phraseology, only be
shown, not said, for whatever we may say will still need to have the same
structure.
The first requisite of an ideal language would be that there should be
one name for every simple, and never the same name for two different
simples. A name is a simple symbol in the sense that it has no parts
which are themselves symbols. In a logically perfect language nothing
that is not simple will have a simple symbol. The symbol for the whole
will be a “complex,” containing the symbols for the parts. In speaking
of a “complex” we are, as will appear later, sinning against the rules
of philosophical grammar, but this is unavoidable at the outset. “Most
propositions and questions that have been written about philosophical
matters are not false but senseless. We cannot, therefore, answer questions
of this kind at all, but only state their senselessness. Most questions
and propositions of the philosophers result from the fact that we do not
understand the logic of our language. They are of the same kind as the