Wittgenstein's 'Prototractatus' raises difficult textual questions concerning both its structure and the date of its composition. I provide an account of the structure of the 'Prototractatus' by investigating the hitherto unexplored connections between it and other early Wittgenstein manuscripts. I then consider the two most influential proposals on its date of composition, made by von Wright and McGuinness, and argue that neither of them stands up to scrutiny. I make an alternative suggestion, and discuss its implications for the significance of (...) the 'Prototractatus' in the study of Wittgenstein's early philosophy. -/- . (shrink)

Wittgenstein's _Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus_, first published in 1921, has had a profound influence on modern philosophic thought. _Prototractatus_ is a facsimile reproduction of an early version of _Tractatus_, only discovered in 1965. The original text has a parallel English translation and the text is edited to indicate all relevant deviations from the final version.

Intellectual diary of a thinker of the school of Logical Positivism showing the day-by-day development of his philosophical ideas.

This paper substitutes a structural hermeneutics for the sequential approach to the Tractatus and its manuscript, which leaves the manuscript completely unexplained. All the pieces come together only if we recognise that Wittgenstein's book is a hierarchical object that was composed following a top-down strategy. Therefore, we realise that the “summary on scattered sheets” represents the perspicuous version of the manuscript, the correlations with the Notebooks become obvious and the “supplements” can be reconstructed. A correct dating of the composition allows (...) us to understand how it was possible, without digital technologies except from an ingenious application of the decimal system, to achieve this formal masterpiece. (shrink)

The significance of the complicated numbering of the propositions in the Tractatus has occasioned much speculation. Wittgenstein's own explanation has, following Stenius, been generally regarded as misleading. But an examination of the Prototractatus reveals that the numbering system was for Wittgenstein principally an aid in the composition of his work. It allowed him to mark out certain propositions which required further work or supplementation, without disturbing the basic structure of the treatise. But the reworking of the Prototractatus to form the (...) Tractatus considerably changed the original order in which the ideas were connected, and thus made it more difficult to understand the Tractatus. Several specific examples make it clear that it is essential to look back at the context of the Prototractatus in order to achieve a correct interpretation of many of the propositions in the Tractatus. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein é unanimemente reconhecido como um dos pensadores mais marcantes do século xx, tendo influenciado decisivamente o debate filosófico da contemporaneidade. Apoiando-se não nas edições clássicas mas no espólio do autor, problematizando a formalidade sui generis característica daquele, esta obra propõe-se acompanhar o evoluir do pensamento wittgensteiniano, nos seus diferentes planos, determinando a metodologia que o vai definir, enquanto possibilidade concreta de compreensão da visão filosófica que lhe subjaz. Ao indagar toda a trajectória reflexiva que se estabelece entre o (...) anúncio inaugural do Tractatus e o do livro que no princípio dos anos 30 é projectado em contraposição àquele mas que nunca será concluído, Lógica, Ética, Gramática assume, na verdade, um carácter propedêutico, pretendendo lançar as bases para uma nova leitura da «segunda» filosofia wittgensteiniana, crítico-geneticamente definida em relação à «primeira». Este livro interessará, assim, a estudantes e investigadores de várias disciplinas filosóficas, nomeadamente Epistemologia, Ética, Filosofia da Linguagem, Lógica e Metodologia Filosófica, onde os apuramentos de Wittgenstein são incontornáveis, bem como a todos aqueles que trabalham em Filologia ou Teoria da Literatura. (shrink)