THE TRACTATUS LOGICO-PHILOSOPHICUS is the only book-length
philosophical work published by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig
Wittgenstein in his lifetime. The project had a broad aim - to identify
the relationship between language and reality and to define the limits
of science - and is recognized as a significant philosophical work of
the twentieth century. Wittgenstein wrote the notes for the Tractatus
while he was a soldier during World War I and completed it when a
prisoner of war at Como and later Cassino in August 1918. It was first
published in German in 1921 as 'Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung'. The
Tractatus was influential chiefly amongst the logical positivists of the
Vienna Circle, such as Rudolf Carnap and Friedrich Waismann. Bertrand
Russell's article "The Philosophy of Logical Atomism" is presented as a
working out of ideas that he had learned from Wittgenstein. (more on:
www.wisehouse-classisc.com)
