Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Wittgenstein and the Tractatus

Written by a leading expert, this is the ideal guide to the only book Wittgenstein published during his lifetime, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Michael Morris makes sense of Wittgenstein's brief but often cryptic text, highlighting its key themes. He introduces and analyzes: - Wittgenstein's life and the background to the Tractatus - the ideas and text of the Tractatus - the continuing importance of Wittgenstein's work to philosophy today, Wittgenstein is the most important twentieth-century philosopher in the English speaking world. This book will be essential reading for all students of philosophy of language and metaphysics.

Michael Morris is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sussex.

Introduction  1.  The nature of the world  2. The legacy of Frege and Russell  3. The general theory of representation  4. Sentences as models  5. Logic and compound sentences  6. Solipsism, idealism and realism  7. Metaphysics, ethics and the limits of philosophy  Appendix: The substance argument  Bibliography