Wittgenstein's Tractatus - Video 1 (English) - Preface & 1-1.21

In this series, we will look at Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I have just published a new Dutch translation of the book with Boom Uitgevers, which I will use in the Dutch version of these videos, but in these English videos we will be using the English translations.

[pxp]

You have the best explanation of the tractatus in YouTube!
You're a great teacher as well.
Much appreciated.

[aleksandravicus]

This is great example to every PHP lecturer how Wittgenstein should be taught! Our culture is ridden with unthinkable notions, such as God, I, Mind, Death and etc. which is cause of all the confusion not only in Philosophy. And Wittgenstein is great at explaining how people can write, imagine and think that 2+2=5, yet this is unthinkable, and simply a mistake in use of language. Nevertheless, it's very bizarre in how can our sciences, culture and inter-personal relationship work being based on mistaken use of language. In that we erroneously understand the way things really are, and behave on this erroneous understanding. And things still seem to work in one or the other way. Even the mistaken use of language does the work...

[asdasvelet]

i just discovered your playlists! they're amazing keep up the good work!

[genghisthegreat]

Excellent explanation of ' logical space ' and ' independence of facts '

[buckets]

Such a pleasant video so far. Look forward to watching all of these alongside my reading thank you.

I noticed u have only covered up to 3.5 as of a year ago, that’s okay as I expect I will be watching many of your videos new and old!!

[jonathanjonsson]

Amazing news! I loved your series on the Critique of Pure Reason and have recently started reading Wittgenstein, I was hoping for you to guide me through it like you did with Kant - and the universe delivers! Maybe Leibniz was right after all.

[stanislavnikolskiy]

What a great job! Thank you so much, professor!👏🏻🙏🏻

[ScarlettGreen-wb]

When I heard about the book, I realized that I had already thought about this, that's why I'm going to read the book.

[sleepingforever]

Why can't we simply think of logical space as a space where every every point (point being facts here) can take one of the two values, i.e., True or False (like in 2D space points can take 2 integers from an infinite set of integers). "The Facts in logical spaces are the world" would then mean that if we put any possible fact in logical space, i.e., assign the value of True or False to the possible facts we will get the totality of facts. This explanation seems more consistent because in the previous point Wittgenstein mentions that the totality of facts determines both what is the case and what is not the case. Please share your thoughts if you feel any discrepancy in this explanation

[anasfk]

thank you for much more making these videos available...very well explained!

[DavitVadatchkoria]

Hello Victor, Good job! do u have alike video about philosophical investigations ?

[aishpriyakaur]

I am from India, and I would like to pursue my research under you, if possible.

[AndreasFroestl]

YES!!! My favourite YT philosopher presenting my favourite philosopher! so looking forward to this!!

[rckyclnshrt]

this was exactly the video series i was looking for, appreciate you putting this knowledge out here for people!

[meowthedog]

The objection about memory is not trivial. The meanings - the actual commonly accepted "dictionary" meanings - of words do demonstrably change over time. So not just individual speakers but speaker communities as a whole do have a faulty memory. If the substance of the objection is that shifts in meaning make it impossible to establish stable truth conditions, then natural language in general is demonstrably faulty.

[willieluncheonette]

" This is for the real adepts in madness, who have gone beyond all psychiatry, psychoanalysis, who are unhelpable. This third book is again the work of a German, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Just listen to its title: TRACTATUS LOGICO PHILOSOPHICUS. We will just call it TRACTATUS. It is one of the most difficult books in existence. Even a man like G.E.Moore, a great English philosopher, and

Bertrand Russell, another great philosopher - not only English but a philosopher of the whole world - both agreed that this man Wittgenstein was far superior to them both.

Ludwig Wittgenstein was really a lovable man. I don't hate him, but I don't dislike him. I like him and I love him, but not his book. His book is only gymnastics. Only once in a while after pages and pages you may come across a sentence which is luminous. For example: That which cannot be spoken should not be spoken; one should be silent about it. Now this is a beautiful statement. Even saints, mystics, poets, can learn much from this sentence. That which cannot be spoken must not be spoken of.

Wittgenstein writes in a mathematical way, small sentences, not even paragraphs - sutras. But for the very advanced insane man this book can be of immense help. It can hit him exactly in his soul, not only in the head. Just like a nail it can penetrate into his very being. That may wake him from his nightmare.

Ludwig Wittgenstein was a lovable man. He was offered one of the most cherished chairs of philosophy at Oxford. He declined. That's what I love in him. He went to become a farmer and fisherman. This is lovable in the man. This is more existential than Jean-Paul Sartre, although Wittgenstein never talked of existentialism. Existentialism, by the way, cannot be talked about; you have to live it, there is no other way.

This book was written when Wittgenstein was studying under G.E.Moore and Bertrand Russell.

Two great philosophers of Britain, and a German... it was enough to create TRACTATUS LOGICO PHILOSOPHICUS. Translated it means Wittgenstein, Moore and Russell. I, on my part, would rather have seen Wittgenstein sitting at the feet of Gurdjieff than studying with Moore and Russell. That was the right place for him, but he missed. Perhaps next time, I mean next life... for him, not for me. For me this is enough, this is the last. But for him, at least once he needs to be in the company of a man like Gurdjieff or Chuang Tzu, Bodhidharma - but not Moore, Russell, not Whitehead. He was associating with these people, the wrong people. A right man in the company of wrong people, that's what destroyed him.

My experience is, in the right company even a wrong person becomes right, and vice-versa: in a wrong company, even a right person becomes wrong. But this only applies to unenlightened men, right or wrong, both. An enlightened person cannot be influenced. He can associate with anyone - Jesus with Magdalena, a prostitute; Buddha with a murderer, a murderer who had killed nine hundred and ninety-nine people. He had taken a vow to kill one thousand people, and he was going to kill Buddha too; that's how he came into contact with Buddha.

The murderer's name is not known. The name people gave to him was Angulimala, which means 'the man who wears a garland of fingers'. That was his way. He would kill a man, cut off his fingers and put them on his garland, just to keep count of the number of people he had killed. Only ten fingers were missing to make up the thousand; in other words only one man more.... Then Buddha appeared. He was just moving on that road from one village to another. Angulimala shouted, "Stop!"

Buddha said, "Great. That's what I have been telling people: Stop! But, my friend, who listens?"

Angulimala looked amazed: Is this man insane? And Buddha continued walking towards Angulimala. Angulimala again shouted, "Stop! It seems you don't know that I am a murderer,

and I have taken a vow to kill one thousand people. Even my own mother has stopped seeing me, because only one person is missing.... I will kill you... but you look so beautiful that if you stop and turn back I may not kill you."

Buddha said, "Forget about it. I have never turned back in my life, and as far as stopping is concerned, I stopped forty years ago; since then there is nobody left to move. And as far as killing me is concerned, you can do it anyway. Everything born is going to die."

Angulimala saw the man, fell at his feet, and was transformed. Angulimala could not change Buddha, Buddha changed Angulimala. Magdalena the prostitute could not change Jesus, but Jesus changed the woman.

So what I said is only applicable to so-called ordinary humanity, it is not applicable to those who are awakened. Wittgenstein can become awakened; he could have become awakened even in this life.

Alas, he associated with wrong company. But his book can be of great help to those who are really third-degree insane. If they can make any sense out of it, they will come back to sanity."

[stanmallison]

OMG thank you. Love your analysis - and currently in Sluga's Tractatus graduate seminar - couldn't be happier to see this now

[Bob-ilkk]

As many have said before me: These explanations are brilliant, thank you very much! I have not been through all the comments in the series, so you might have already answered the question I'm about to ask, and if that is the case (no pun intended), I apologize. What do you think about the Tractatus English translation made by the Gutenberg Project ?

[happyboy]

Thank you! Will you teach philosophical investigations?

[philipvlnst]

I just love your videos. Makes it easier to understand the philosophers you lecture. In this case, I have struggled with Wittgenstein for some time, and you have helped clarify some points (I don't think anyone in this world can fully say that he/she understands everything about Wittgenstein.