A Focus on Logic

Abstract

I contend that what is characteristic of Wittgenstein’s method throughout his writings finds early clear expression in the approach to logic espoused in the Tractatus. In support of this claim, this chapter makes a start on identifying what made his approach unique and how it relates to his overall philosophical end: a task that will be pursued in greater detail in subsequent chapters. Rather than simply outlining its internal features, I believe the best way to achieve this is to lay his understanding of logic against that of certain other major thinkers, thereby bringing its distinct aspects into sharp relief. My aim is, therefore, to locate it ideologically. This is possible precisely because Wittgenstein was far from the first to realise that how one understands logic ought to determine the very character of one’s philosophy. Recognising the centrality of logic to philosophical inquiry brings together such otherwise strange bedfellows as Kant, Hegel, Russell and to a lesser extent Frege.

The answer to the request for an explanation of negation is really: don’t you understand it? Well, if you understand it, what is there left to explain, what business is there left for an explanation?

Wittgenstein, Philosophical Occasions, p. 177