Author: Ludwig Wittgenstein
_Ludwig Wittgenstein_
Reading time: 19 minutes
Synopsis
With his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921), Ludwig Wittgenstein wanted to find the limits of what makes sense. His main idea is very simple: Our language shapes our world. We can only talk about things that can be shown logically. Everything else, from big questions about meaning to mystical experiences, cannot be put into words. We will look at how Wittgenstein sees language as a tool, why he thinks many philosophy discussions are not needed, and why some of the most important things in life cannot be described with words.
What’s inside for you: A very different view on language, philosophy, and meaning.
For a long time, philosophy has tried to answer life’s big questions. Why are we here? What is the meaning of our existence? What gives life purpose? But what if all this complex talk and deep thinking does not help at all? What if, for thousands of years, philosophy has misunderstood the limits of what can actually be expressed with language? This is exactly one of the main ideas that made the Logical-Philosophical Treatise by the Austrian thinker Ludwig Wittgenstein so important over a hundred years ago: There are things that simply cannot be expressed with language.
This Blink tries to give you a clear introduction to the complex and a bit mysterious Tractatus. Its strong main idea also brings a comforting thought: It’s useless to try to answer big questions about meaning and morals using logic and language. Some things you just have to feel and experience. With that, let’s begin.
Blink 1 – The Limits of Language
“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” With this famous sentence, Wittgenstein clearly states one of the main ideas of his Tractatus: Where our language stops, what makes sense to us also stops. We can only imagine things that we can put into words.
But where is this limit? Language can show simple facts. It can also show logical connections between them. But it cannot grasp what is beyond these facts that we can see. It cannot answer big questions about existence, set moral rules, or discuss personal ideas of beauty.
Because of this, Wittgenstein thinks traditional philosophy discussions about existence and morals are useless. Not because these topics are unimportant. But they simply cannot be discussed properly using language. Language is linked to facts. Everything that cannot be seen or experienced cannot be described.
This would mean that some of life’s most important questions are outside of what can be named. Big life questions like “How should I live my life? What makes a good life? Why do we have consciousness?” Even though these thoughts are urgent and real, for Wittgenstein they are not part of what can be said: “There are indeed things that cannot be put into words. This shows itself; it is the mystical.”
Imagine you experience a moment of deep connection with another person. Or you have a spiritual experience you cannot explain with reason. Or you hear or see art that completely moves you. All these are valuable and meaningful experiences. But as soon as you try to put your feelings into words, the words sound empty and fake. This is where Wittgenstein draws the line for what can be said: “What can be shown cannot be said.” This means that everything that goes beyond what language can describe is certainly beyond what we can know or understand.
With this idea, Wittgenstein questions philosophy in a basic way. He believes it has too often tried to put what cannot be said into words. From this, he makes a strong but simple demand: Philosophy must finally understand what can be discussed with words, and when it is better to be silent. Our world reaches as far as we can give it meaning with language. Everything beyond this limit belongs to all the mystical things that we can only guess at.
Blink 2 – What Can We Actually Say?
But exactly where is this limit? How far can we use language to describe meaning? A main goal of the Tractatus is to use logic to make clear what we can truly say in a meaningful way. For Wittgenstein, philosophy is not just abstract ideas, but a practical tool to explain ideas logically. Its job is to tell sense from nonsense. Everything that can be named with language has meaning. Everything beyond that is nonsense.
Wittgenstein believes that traditional philosophy does not fulfill this job. This is because it always tries to describe things that cannot be described, and in doing so, always ends up with meaningless language. Philosophy discussions about existence, morals, or religion may sound academic. They pretend to show logical conclusions and facts. For Wittgenstein, they are not necessarily wrong or invalid, but still totally meaningless from the start. Even the most basic question about the meaning of our simple existence cannot be answered meaningfully with words.
That is why, for Wittgenstein, philosophy is more like a therapy. Not a theory, but an activity. It should not “make” new discoveries, but help to solve problems we already know. It should help us to relate to meaning in the world.
Logic alone does not make language meaningful. One can argue logically and clearly without creating meaning or naming a real fact. Wittgenstein calls such statements that are not facts tautologies and compares them to math equations. They do not describe real situations, but only what is possible in theory.
All these ideas form the base for Wittgenstein’s linguistic atomism. The real world is made of unbreakable fact-atoms. Language can and should only show these smallest “truth-capable” parts. Everything beyond that – from ideas about existence to moral values – cannot be shown meaningfully in language. Or, to use Wittgenstein’s own words: “What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.”
Blink 3 – Math Has No Direct Link to the World
We have already learned one of the most challenging ideas from the Tractatus: Wittgenstein’s idea that logical tautologies are like mathematics. Or, in simpler words: The idea that mathematics has no direct link to reality. It can only show logical relationships that are separate from reality, but cannot show facts useful for life.
Tautologies are statements that are logically correct but say nothing about the world. A logical tautology like “If it rains, then it rains” tells us nothing about the weather outside. For Wittgenstein, it is similar with equations like “2 + 2 = 4”. They follow the clear rules of a logical system, but they do not show a reality that can be experienced.
Math symbols are like pieces in a game: They follow fixed rules, but they do not point to the actual combination of real objects. In math, it does not matter if we add apples, stones, or houses – but in the real world, it does. So, math has no direct connection to the physical world.
For Wittgenstein, numbers have no meaning on their own outside their math system. They only get a useful function from the inner structure of math statements. But outside of that, they have no meaning on their own in language. From this, he concludes that the “stuff” of reality is not made of math parts. Numbers are not fact-atoms. Math can describe possibilities, but not show how the world really is.
Wittgenstein thus disagrees with thinkers like Galileo, who saw math as the language of nature. For him, math is not a window to reality, but a system separate from the real world, based on logic. This is exactly why it can be used everywhere: It tells us something about how we think, but not about how the world is structured.
Blink 4 – The Mystical Self
In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein also looks at solipsism. This is the idea that a person can only see their own self as real. There is no clear proof that the world and other people really exist. Wittgenstein truly believes this idea has some truth. But he also thinks that this truth cannot be described with language.
For him, the main mistake is that the solipsist tries to understand the link between their self and the world using logic. But the main idea of solipsism cannot be put into words. It can only show itself or be revealed. We cannot prove with logical arguments that the world and other people truly and really exist outside of us. And yet, the simple fact that language exists suggests this is true. A shared language is the best sign that we truly live in a shared reality with other people.
But the real nature of the self and the world cannot be described by facts. We all feel a kind of mystical link between our inner life and the outside world. In such moments, we have a quiet, deep, and old feeling that we are actually one with the universe. That everything is truly connected, and we are made of the same particles as the stars and planets. But this understanding happens beyond language. It shows itself as a wordless and formless feeling of connection and peace. We cannot grasp this deep feeling with words.
This is exactly where, according to Wittgenstein, philosophy is on the wrong track: When it tries to express unspeakable truths about reality. The idea of solipsism points to where the limits of what can be named with facts are, and where the indescribable, mystical begins. The true job of philosophy is to accept these limits and to use logic to analyze only what can be clearly named and described.
Blink 5 – The Myth of Moral Cause and Effect, and Meaning
Many people believe that good actions eventually lead to good things. In a similar way, in many cultures there is the idea of karma or cosmic justice, which punishes bad behavior sooner or later. But for Wittgenstein, such ideas are not deep truths; they are just human ways of seeing things.
He even deeply doubts that events in the world are truly linked by cause and effect. Yes, we observe patterns and facts, but we cannot know for sure what is truly behind it. The idea of cause and effect is just human wishful thinking. It is not a basic building block of reality. It is a useful tool that helps us understand what we experience. But it is not a physical force that guides what happens in the world. And the same is true for karma, cosmic justice, and other moral ideas.
There is no logical or physical proof that reality follows some hidden rule of fairness. Nature does not have a “give and take” balance. For Wittgenstein, this thought leads to a more basic truth: The universe, and with it our human existence, has no objective or built-in meaning. Only humans try to find meaning in life using language and stories. But language alone cannot prove that nature follows patterns we have made up, like cause and effect or cosmic justice.
Wittgenstein thinks it is possible that beyond the limits of what language can describe, a deeper meaning exists. A quiet, personal experience that cannot be shared. But whoever looks for it must accept that there will always be a gap that cannot be crossed between what language describes and the indescribable truth of reality.
Karma and cosmic justice are and remain human attempts to organize the confusion of what we see and give life meaning. They describe useful statistical patterns and the comforting hope that the basically meaningless machinery of existence actually has some kind of meaning. But reality itself does not care about this. It simply is, no matter how hard we try to understand it.
Blink 6 – The Difference Between Saying and Showing
Another challenging idea in the Tractatus is that color and the personal feeling of color also cannot be clearly defined by language. For Wittgenstein, colors are not real objects, but personal feelings. Their quality cannot be described by language alone.
Let’s explain this with an example like: “This rose is red.” The word “red” does not describe a specific color detail. It separates the named color from other colors. But it does not describe the color’s richness, shade, or brightness. The word “red” is only an approximation of reality. Language words for colors are like self-referring math functions without a true link to reality.
We experience colors as sensory impressions. But language logic cannot describe this personal feeling alone or define its quality. It can only place it in relation to other color feelings, and so get closer to our personal experience. And this is where Wittgenstein returns to his famous idea: “What can be shown cannot be said.” Colors reveal themselves through what we sense. We see how they appear. One could also turn Wittgenstein’s idea around: What cannot be said must be shown.
This is also true for language itself. A correctly formed sentence shows its built-in logic when we speak it and use this logic to change something in the world. And the real meaning of grammar is not that we think about it and explain its function again in a complex way with every word of a sentence. Grammar shows its meaning naturally by structuring our sentences so others can understand them.
And exactly the same is true for language and its limits in general. We don’t need to spend a long time thinking about where the limits of what can be said are. Our daily use of language shows us this on its own: Everything that can be named clearly and understandably with language is logical. Language itself carries the limits of what can be said within it. It shows us what can be expressed with language. And it makes us feel what we experience but cannot put into words.
Conclusion
Language gives form to our thoughts. It helps us to express our thoughts about the world. It helps us to compare what we see with what others see and so give it meaning. But language has limits. Its power to create meaning only goes as far as it describes facts that all people can observe. But these facts do not cover the full complexity of human feelings in their personal depth. According to Wittgenstein, philosophy has too often misunderstood these logical limits of language and tried to describe the indescribable. Instead, we should accept what can be spoken about meaningfully, and when words are not needed to experience meaning and purpose.
Source: https://www.blinkist.com/https://www.blinkist.com/de/books/tractatus-logico-philosophicus-de