Abstract

How is it that false statements, such as “horses have eight legs”, can be just as meaningful as true statements, such as “horses have four legs”? Where does logical structure come from? We can describe what the world would be like if the laws of physics were different – could we do the same for the laws of logic? Are there facts about ethics? If we ever managed to answer the philosophical questions that humans have pondered for thousands of years, what would life look like on the other side? All of these questions and more are addressed in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s early work, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus…which was first published 100 years ago.