The Question of Linguistic Idealism in the Tractatus
-
Javier Vidal
Abstract
According to the doctrine of linguistic idealism in the version discussed here, there is an essential isomorphism between language and the world because the form of language determines the form of the world. In this paper, I will propose an argument in favor of the idealist interpretation of the Tractatus. From an examination of a certain imaginary scenario, I will conclude that the form of objects, that is, the possible combinations of them into facts, is determined by the form of their names, that is, the possible combinations of those names into propositions. Additionally, I will present an interpretation under which Tractarian solipsism is nothing other than a formulation of the idealist conception of the world in first-person terms.
© 2025 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Inhalt
- Hinweis für Leser / Note for Readers
- Tractarian Nonsense and Literary Language
- The Middle Wittgenstein on Aesthetics
- The Question of Linguistic Idealism in the Tractatus
- Waismann and Waismann’s Wittgenstein
- Die Grenzen welcher Sprache?
- Wittgenstein on Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams
- Wittgenstein über die Erkenntnis Anderer
- Shouldered In and Out of the Reality of Mortality
- On Deep Moral Disagreement Between Theists and Atheists
- Redrawing and publishing the graphics in Wittgenstein’s Nachlass
- Special Topic: Das erlösende Wort in dürftigen Zeiten – Wittgensteins Fortschritts-, Zivilisations- und Kulturkritik
- Einleitung
- Text und Kontext
- Wozu Philosophie und Kunst in Zeiten der Unkultur?
- „[I]ch sehe jedes Problem von einem religiösen Standpunkt.“
- Wittgensteins „erlösende Worte“
- Wittgenstein über die Bildung von Begriffen
- Buchbesprechungen / Book Reviews
- David R. Cerbone: Wittgenstein on Realism and Idealism
- Peter Eigner: Die Wittgensteins. Geschichte einer unglaublich reichen Familie
- Raimundo Henriques: Self-Understanding in the Tractatus and Wittgenstein’s Architecture: From Adolf Loos to the Resolute Reading
- Shunichi Takagi, Pascal F. Zambito (eds.): Wittgenstein and Nietzsche
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Inhalt
- Hinweis für Leser / Note for Readers
- Tractarian Nonsense and Literary Language
- The Middle Wittgenstein on Aesthetics
- The Question of Linguistic Idealism in the Tractatus
- Waismann and Waismann’s Wittgenstein
- Die Grenzen welcher Sprache?
- Wittgenstein on Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams
- Wittgenstein über die Erkenntnis Anderer
- Shouldered In and Out of the Reality of Mortality
- On Deep Moral Disagreement Between Theists and Atheists
- Redrawing and publishing the graphics in Wittgenstein’s Nachlass
- Special Topic: Das erlösende Wort in dürftigen Zeiten – Wittgensteins Fortschritts-, Zivilisations- und Kulturkritik
- Einleitung
- Text und Kontext
- Wozu Philosophie und Kunst in Zeiten der Unkultur?
- „[I]ch sehe jedes Problem von einem religiösen Standpunkt.“
- Wittgensteins „erlösende Worte“
- Wittgenstein über die Bildung von Begriffen
- Buchbesprechungen / Book Reviews
- David R. Cerbone: Wittgenstein on Realism and Idealism
- Peter Eigner: Die Wittgensteins. Geschichte einer unglaublich reichen Familie
- Raimundo Henriques: Self-Understanding in the Tractatus and Wittgenstein’s Architecture: From Adolf Loos to the Resolute Reading
- Shunichi Takagi, Pascal F. Zambito (eds.): Wittgenstein and Nietzsche
