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The Tractatus

“The world is all that is the case”

José Zalabardo investigates which problem Wittgenstein is trying to solve.

For many contemporary interpreters of the Tractatus, its ultimate goal is not to answer philosophical questions or solve philosophical problems. Rather, Wittgenstein’s aim is therapeutic – to make his readers see that philosophy is not a legitimate pursuit: the problems are fictitious, the questions are meaningless, and engaging in the enterprise can produce nothing but nonsense.

This may well be the right account of Wittgenstein’s intentions. There are certainly things he says in the book that can only be understood in this light. However, it would be wrong to conclude that therefore we shouldn’t try to understand what philosophical questions and problems Wittgenstein was trying to address, and how he proposes to deal with them.

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