A Companion to Wittgenstein's Tractatus (Cornell Classics in Philosophy) [Paperback]

Max Black (Author)

Book Description

Series: Cornell Classics in Philosophy | Publication Date: April 2004

"It is one of the merits of Max Black’s Companion to the Tractatus that he emphasizes the continuity of Wittgenstein’s philosophical development by frequent quotation from his later writings."—New York Review of Books "Black’s book is, in effect, two books in one, and each of them is very good. First, there is the useful Companion to the Tractatus: the store of information that anyone who picked up the Tractatus would want to have. . . . Second, there are the interpretive essays: always judicious, frequently illuminating. It is hard to see how [this book] could have been more complete."—Philosophical Books

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

The late Max Black was Susan Linn Sage Professor of Philosophy and Human Letters at Cornell University and President of the International Institute of Philosophy. His other books include Language and Philosophy and The Labyrinth of Language.

Product Details

• Paperback: 472 pages
• Publisher: Cornell University Press (April 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801489326
• ISBN-13: 978-0801489327
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,184,531 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Adds depth and richness to a most important book, April 21, 2004

By 

W. Jamison "William S. Jamison" (Eagle River, Ak United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Companion to Wittgenstein's Tractatus (Hardcover)

Companion to Wittgenstein's Tractatus
by Max Black

This is an excellent source for exploring the Tractatus in depth. Black offers a wealth of insights as, for example, the following quotations and remarks:

p. 2 "Don't worry about what you have already written. Just keep on beginning to think afresh as if nothing at all had happened yet" (Notebooks, 30 (6)).

p. 3 "The baldest summary of Wittgenstein's conception might run as follows: Reality (`the world') is a mosaic of independent items - the `atomic facts'; each of these is like a chain in which `objects' (logical simples) `hang in one another'; the objects are connected in a network of logical possibilities (`logical space'); the simplest `elementary' propositions are pictures of atomic facts, themselves facts in which names are concatenated, and all other propositions are truth-functions of the elementary ones; language is the great mirror in which the logical network is reflected, `shown', manifested. If we add the notions of names deputizing for objects, of logical propositions as limiting cases of contingent propositions, and the pervasive notions of logical form and of essence, we shall have a serviceable list of Wittgenstein's chief leitmotifs."

p. 7 "It was one of Wittgenstein's distinctive innovations to consider thoughts only as embodied in what he calls the `significant proposition' and so to transform the question of the relation of thought to reality...into the more promising question of the relation of language to reality."

My thoughts on page 11 - would "logical space" be something very like Plato's world of ideas?

In short, this is a book that serves as a useful and constant companion to the Tractatus. It would certainly be best to read the Tractatus first, perhaps in conjunction with a reading of Monks' book on Wittgenstein, but then the companion certainly functions in magnificent ways to expand an understanding of the Tractatus.