Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

The text of the “Logical-Philosophical Treatise” can hardly be called lengthy; still, it is difficult to overestimate its importance for all subsequent European philosophy, and its brevity in this case only shows how tightly, clearly, and precisely Wittgenstein formulated his thought. Seven short theses and a bit more than a hundred pages of commentary—yet in this minimal volume Wittgenstein managed to fit a translation into philosophical language of all the main ideas of logical analysis. “In the beginning was the Word,” the Bible says—and if that’s so, then Wittgenstein was one of the most devoted students of the Logos.