Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Editor's preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I The semantic tradition
- Part II Vienna, 1925–1935
- 9 Schlick before Vienna
- 10 Philosophers on relativity
- 11 Carnap before Vienna
- 12 Scientific idealism and semantic idealism
- 13 Return of Ludwig Wittgenstein
- 14 A priori knowledge and the constitution of meaning
- 15 The road to syntax
- 16 Syntax and truth
- 17 Semantic conventionalism and the factuality of meaning
- 18 The problem of induction: theories
- 19 The problem of experience: protocols
- Notes
- References
- Index
13 - Return of Ludwig Wittgenstein
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Editor's preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I The semantic tradition
- Part II Vienna, 1925–1935
- 9 Schlick before Vienna
- 10 Philosophers on relativity
- 11 Carnap before Vienna
- 12 Scientific idealism and semantic idealism
- 13 Return of Ludwig Wittgenstein
- 14 A priori knowledge and the constitution of meaning
- 15 The road to syntax
- 16 Syntax and truth
- 17 Semantic conventionalism and the factuality of meaning
- 18 The problem of induction: theories
- 19 The problem of experience: protocols
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
I am today in disagreement with very, very many of the formulations of the book [i.e., the “essay”] … everything that has to do with “elementary propositions” or “objects” (or at least most of it) has now turned out to be incorrect, and must be completely reworked.
Letter from Wittgenstein to Schlick, 20 November 1931 (VCA)Mathematics is ridden through and through with the pernicious idiom of set theory. … Set theory is false because it apparently presupposes a symbolism that doesn't exist instead of the one that does exist (the only one possible).
Wittgenstein, Philosophische BemerkungenShortly after Schlick moved to Vienna in 1922, he must have heard about a strange little book written by an obscure Viennese philosopher. The book was impenetrable, but it came with a remarkably favorable introduction by Russell, the philosopher who commanded more respect than anyone else among scientifically minded people. Hahn and Reidemeister were apparently the first to have been impressed by the logicomathematical doctrines of the Tractatus, and in 1926 it was decided that Schlick's circle should hold special sessions to discuss the book, sentence by sentence (see Menger, “Introduction,” p. xii; and Carnap, “Intellectual Autobiography,” p. 24).
It is easy to see why the Tractatus would have struck many scientifically minded Viennese as extraordinarily attractive.
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- Information
- The Semantic Tradition from Kant to CarnapTo the Vienna Station, pp. 240 - 258Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1991