26 April 11

Today marks the birthday of Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), a "language analysis" philosopher. I chose my tie to signify the idea of "logical atoms." Wittgenstein's early work succeeded in showing how the principles of mathematical proofs could be applied directly to logical arguments. Here is the opening page of his "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus," first published in German in 1921. The first and seventh propositions are particularly wonder-ful and awe-ful.

1

The world is everything that is the case.

2

What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts.

3

The logical picture of the facts is the thought.

4

The thought is the significant proposition.

5

Propositions are truth-functions of elementary propositions. (An elementary proposition is a truth-function of itself.)

6

The general form of truth-function is: [, , N()]. This is the general form of proposition.

7

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.