Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, Point of Intersection Between Two Traditions in Logic

Abstract

Traditionally there were two approaches to validity and analyticity: The idea that the predicate (consequent) is “analytically contained” in the notion of the subject (antecedents) and The idea that that validity consists in (the preservation of) truth (from antecedents to consequent (under all variation’s). The second idea is explicitly present in TLP in the early 5’s, whereas the first comes to the fore in that tautologicity is meant to be an analytical property of sentences, namely recognisability am Symbol allein. The lecture sketches the historical development of the two traditions in the history of logic and presents the TLP as the point of their intersection, and notes the failure of this Tractarian approach, since logical truth for “multiple generality” is not recognizable by means of mechanical calculation alone.