A Better Appraisal of W ittgenstein's T ractatus Manuscript

Abstract

Abstract This paper substitutes a structural hermeneutics for the sequential approach to the Tractatus and its manuscript, which leaves the manuscript completely unexplained. All the pieces come together only if we recognise that Wittgenstein's book is a hierarchical object that was composed following a top‐down strategy. Therefore, we realise that the “summary on scattered sheets” represents the perspicuous version of the manuscript, the correlations with the Notebooks become obvious and the “supplements” can be reconstructed. A correct dating of the composition allows us to understand how it was possible, without digital technologies except from an ingenious application of the decimal system, to achieve this formal masterpiece.

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