Tractatus Notes 1

Initial notes:

Representation is the characterizing of something in relation to its general form. What is the more general form of logic? Knowing this would allow us to represent logical propositions. But there is no "more general form of logic". Logic just are the relations represented by logical axioms.

As for rule following in elucidations of sense, it is more properly termed an identification of the terms by which one structure fits isomorphically with another. This identification is the act of fitting a specific framework of patterns within a more general and fine-grained fabric, and of identifying the patterns within both that represent the other.

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Russell's paradox is a contradiction between two predicates, one an explicit one, and the other a predicate which defines a subject. It is not a general problem, and has received more attention than it deserves.

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"As logic defines the limit of what can be thought, and as forms cannot represent themselves, one can only show, not speak logic."

Wittgenstein confuses sense and reference in defining the meaning of propositions. The picture theory of meaning allows him to claim that the limits of logic, which define the limits of reference, define the limits of what can be said. However, propositions point to sense also. Hence we can grasp the sense of "it is raining and not raining" or "purple is three years old" in order to point to its absence of reference.

At the level of sense, logic just is a set of rules for relationships between concepts, and is not a transcendental limit.