Ludwig Wittgenstein
Philosopher born in Vienna (1889 to 1951); author of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, drafted during the First World War, and of Philosophical Investigations, published after his death.
From the book Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus19 korrents
Ludwig Wittgenstein did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
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Our reading
What can be said at all can be said clearly, and whereof one cannot speak one must be silent
Their wordsWhat can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent.
↗Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (tr. C. K. Ogden, 1922)en.wikisource.org All 19 from this book
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Their wordsOn the other hand the truth of the thoughts communicated here seems to me unassailable and definitive. I am, therefore, of the opinion that the problems have in essentials been finally solved.
↗Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (tr. C. K. Ogden, 1922)en.wikisource.org All 19 from this book
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Our reading
Their wordsThe world is everything that is the case.
↗Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (tr. C. K. Ogden, 1922)en.wikisource.org All 19 from this book
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Their wordsThe world is the totality of facts, not of things.
↗Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (tr. C. K. Ogden, 1922)en.wikisource.org All 19 from this book
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Their wordsMost 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.
↗Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (tr. C. K. Ogden, 1922)en.wikisource.org All 19 from this book
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Our reading
Philosophy is not a theory but an activity whose object is the logical clarification of thoughts
Their wordsThe object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a theory but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations.
↗Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (tr. C. K. Ogden, 1922)en.wikisource.org All 19 from this book
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Our reading
Their wordsWhat can be shown cannot be said.
↗Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (tr. C. K. Ogden, 1922)en.wikisource.org All 19 from this book
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Our reading
Future events cannot be inferred from present ones; superstition is belief in the causal nexus
Their wordsThe events of the future cannot be inferred from those of the present. Superstition is the belief in the causal nexus.
↗Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (tr. C. K. Ogden, 1922)en.wikisource.org All 19 from this book
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Their wordsThe limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
↗Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (tr. C. K. Ogden, 1922)en.wikisource.org All 19 from this book
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Their wordsThat the sun will rise to-morrow, is an hypothesis; and that means that we do not know whether it will rise.
↗Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (tr. C. K. Ogden, 1922)en.wikisource.org All 19 from this book
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Our reading
The modern view of the world rests on the illusion that the laws of nature explain natural phenomena
Their wordsAt the basis of the whole modern view of the world lies the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena.
↗Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (tr. C. K. Ogden, 1922)en.wikisource.org All 19 from this book
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Their wordsThe sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is and happens as it does happen. In it there is no value—and if there were, it would be of no value.
↗Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (tr. C. K. Ogden, 1922)en.wikisource.org All 19 from this book
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Their wordsIt is clear that ethics cannot be expressed. Ethics is transcendental. (Ethics and aesthetics are one.)
↗Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (tr. C. K. Ogden, 1922)en.wikisource.org All 19 from this book
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Their wordsThe world of the happy is quite another than that of the unhappy.
↗Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (tr. C. K. Ogden, 1922)en.wikisource.org All 19 from this book
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Their wordsDeath is not an event of life. Death is not lived through. If by eternity is understood not endless temporal duration but timelessness, then he lives eternally who lives in the present.
↗Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (tr. C. K. Ogden, 1922)en.wikisource.org All 19 from this book
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Our reading
How the world is does not matter to what is higher; God does not reveal himself in the world
Their wordsHow the world is, is completely indifferent for what is higher. God does not reveal himself in the world.
↗Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (tr. C. K. Ogden, 1922)en.wikisource.org All 19 from this book
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Their wordsWe feel that even if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all. Of course there is then no question left, and just this is the answer.
↗Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (tr. C. K. Ogden, 1922)en.wikisource.org All 19 from this book
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Their wordsMy propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.)
↗Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (tr. C. K. Ogden, 1922)en.wikisource.org All 19 from this book
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Their wordsWhereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
↗Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (tr. C. K. Ogden, 1922)en.wikisource.org All 19 from this book
The line under a date fills as the words age, a quarter at a time: past a month, six months, a year, and three years. Empty means said within the last month; full, more than three years ago. It says when, not whether it still holds — a change of mind is marked on the claim itself.
Dashed means we only know the words existed by that date; they may be older.