Books

Half title with a comprehensive list of other books in this series on the verso + TP + [5] = Note page + 7-23 = Bertrand Russell's "Introduction" + [25] = half title + 26-189-189 + 1 blank leaf . Octavo. First Edition, American Issue (Fr/McG: Tract., p. 42). The First American Issue of the Tractatus - Published simultaneously by Harcourt Brace in the US from British sheets."Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity"Wittgenstein tried to briefly explain his book to Russell in August of 1919: "The main point is the theory of what can be expressed by propositions - i.e. by language - (and, which comes to the same, what can be thought) and what cannot be expressed by propositions, but only shown; which I believe is the cardinal problem of philosophy." In short, he was claiming to present a comprehensive account of the natures of language, logic and reality and thereby solve all of the major problems then confounding professional philosophers. Organized with an ever-fragmenting numbering system that runs from 1 to 7, the 525 short remarks are presented without arguments. Each proposition is put forward, as Bertrand Russell once said, "as if it were a Czar's ukase." Wittgenstein claims in his "Preface" that: "This book will perhaps only be understood by those who have themselves already thought the thoughts which are expressed in it� The book deals with the problems of philosophy and shows, as I believe, that the method of formulating these problems rests on the misunderstanding of the logic of the language. Its whole meaning could be summed up somewhat as follows: What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent� the truth of the thoughts communicated here seems to me unassailable and definitive. I am, therefore, of the opinion that the problems [of philosophy] have in essentials been finally solved." This final solution to the "problems of philosophy" - articulating the relationship between language and reality and thus defining the limits of science - are to be found in the sum total of those short declarative, numbered statements which make up the book. They present (among other things) Wittgenstein's Picture Theory of Language (highlighting especially what language can say as opposed to what it can show), his Truth-Table showing the true nature of propositions (and thus delimiting the scope of science) and what was later termed his Theory of Logical Atomism (defining not so much the nature of objects, but rather the absolute foundational basis of logical analysis). In relation to the more mystical elements (which are mostly concentrated in the final few pages of the book), Ludwig wrote to a friend: "My work consists of two parts: the one presented here plus all that I have not written. And it is precisely this second part that is the important one. My book draws limits to the sphere of the ethical from the inside as it were, and I am convinced that this is the ONLY rigorous way of drawing those limits. In short, I believe that where many others today are just gassing, I have managed in my book to put everything firmly into place by being silent about it." This is then both a philosophical and a literary work; one which ultimately claims that "there are indeed things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical" [TLP, 6.522] and it is exactly these "things that cannot be put into words" that finally must turn us away from philosophy as we embrace Wittgenstein's final conclusion that "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." [See our Catalog 24: Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Man and His Thought for a collection of 81 books and pamphlets by and about Wittgenstein.] Original publisher's dark green boards with the publisher's device embossed on the front cover and fading gilt lettering to the spine. ADDITIONAL PHOTOS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST.