[lit-ideas] Tractatus
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2013 20:53:51 -0500 (EST)
Thanks to R. Paul for his post. Indeed, it was Moore, rather than Ogden,
who was concerned. And the ultimate source seems to be Spinoza.
Moore's, Wittgenstein's, Spinoza's...
Re: Omar K.'s query (as quoted below):
Well. Apparently Witters called his thing
Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung.
-- since I'm no Germanist, I wouldn't know where to start, but it seems
ab-handlung is like handling. The literal reference is to a 'hand'. So an
"abhandlung" would be like a "manual" (or "immanuel", as Grice prefers).
Now, Russell, as R. Paul points out, suggested some title.
And it was Moore who, after Spinoza, suggested the present, "Tractatus
logico-philosophicus".
So, the question would be, disregarding the German 'abhandlung', whether
what Wittgenstein is doing is 'handling' "logico-philosophical questions". I
provided the etymologies for 'tractatus' (from verb "tracto") which while
not literally referring to the 'hand' (as the "abhandlung" does), it
provides for an interesting semantic field.
The whole point relates to McEvoy's post about "Witters and the Child".
Seeing that we can see the TRACTATUS as some handling (or other) of questions
which belong to "philosophical logic", which Wittgenstein found
non-existent.
The idea was that the implication behind the word 'tractatus' (or indeed
'abhandlung') is that the author is knowledgeable of what he is writing
about.
Similarly, Spinoza, who wrote "Tractatus theologico-politicus" seems to be
posing himself as an expert on
BOTH
theology
and
politics.
So the immediate, transparent, meaning, is that Wittgenstein is posing
himself as an authority who self-claims some knowledge which is sufficient to
label his thing with the grandiose "Middle Latin" name of "tractatus" (or
treatise) on a subject which he has a few doubts (implicature: QUITE a few:
many) about!
Cheers,
Speranza
In a message dated 2/16/2013 11:19:24 P.M. UTC-02, omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx
writes in "Re: Moore's Tractatus":
>What is the question exactly, I don't see any
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