Introduction
Ludwig Wittgenstein was one of the most enlightening forerunners for “logical positivism” and “ordinary language philosophy”. In this paper we will examine some of his main arguments as illustrated in Tractatus Logico- Philosophicus (1921) concerning meaning and language’s contribution in shaping meaning. Lastly, as reading the Tractatus, it is quite clear that he was highly influenced by Frege and Russel as far as meaning and language are concerned.
1.1 à Language is the most representational system of reality. We picture reality with facts and facts stand for units (= objects). The objects are the words we use in order to describe reality.
2.01 & 2.011 & 2.012à A fact represents a particular state or situation. Each situation is composed of words and each single word has its own meaning and it is further interrelated with the meaning of the other words in order to describe a complete state of affairs. However, an object (=word) cannot have meaning outside a proposition because its meaning is dependent to the meaning of the proposition in which it occurs.
2.0231à Structure reflects meaning through the form and the content. This means that a proposition pictures reality because meaning shapes language; therefore meaning must be represented in a structured proposition.
2.222à Sense stands for meaning and meaning is associated with reality (=truth); however meaning is not always associated with reality (=falsity).
3.203 & 3.3à A name is like a point and it has a meaning. In order to use language we must be able in advance to tell whether something has sense or nonsense. To put it more simply we can understand if a proposition has sense or nonsense by recognizing its internal properties (the property of each constituent).
4.431& 4.46à The truth conditions of a proposition refer to its possibility to express something true or false. This means that truth conditions should not be tested as Frege has analyzed them, but in an alternative way. They can be either tautological (true possibilities= truth) or contradictive (false possibilities= truth rather than falsity).
6.2322à If we consider that two expressions are identical we cannot that easily suppose that they also share the same meaning. They can have the same meaning (=identical) only if they have the same reference. Thus, meaning reference and identity are all interrelated.
Implications
In conclusion, all the above aphorisms conclude to Wittgenstein’s main claim that “what can be said can be said clearly” and “what we cannot talk must pass in silence”. As far as I can comprehend his claim I could assume that if we try to produce a pictorial representation of reality (and if we also consider that language, logic and reality are interrelated) we can speak of what we have in mind when this particular thing corresponds to a particular situation, state, object, name, point, sign of reality.
