Tractatus: Logic and the Challenge of Ethics

Abstract

The subject of this thesis is primarily the ethical point of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. In the work, Wittgenstein investigates the connection between ethics and the world by examining the nature of the proposition. In the Lecture on Ethics, Wittgenstein reinvestigates this connection more directly by explaining the nature of the ethical expression. I argue that the ethical point of the book is to help one to understand the ephemeral characteristics of ethics insofar as they cannot be articulated by demonstrating what can be articulated. In the Lecture, Wittgenstein also points to a deep challenge encountering the Tractarian pictorial language. Logic reminds us that we are held captive by pictorial language and could never get outside it. Ethics, on the other hand, is a constant attempt to get outside of it by usage of simile. Although this attempt seems to be hopeless, it is unavoidable and significant. It characterizes the human condition.