My book Passed over in Silence, on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-philosophicus and its system, has appeared as Volume 28 in Dov Gabbay’s Studies in Logic, College Publications.

At this page I give an impression of what the book is about, and introduce the site tractatus.nl that I developed to support the research of the Tractatus. Errata to the book come last.

Passed over in Silence

“This is the book I always wanted to read but could not, because no-one had yet written it: an in-depth, comprehensive investigation of Wittgenstein's views on language and logic in the Tractatus. Jaap van der Does combines technical prowess and philosophical sensitivity, and thereby gives us a much needed addition to the many existing introductions. His book provides thoughtful analyses of core conceptions as they appear in the text, investigates their consequences, both formal and philosophical, and, where needed, places them in their historical context.  An invaluable companion for anyone who really wants to master Wittgenstein's early masterpiece.” Martin Stokhof, University of Amsterdam

A hunderd years ago, October 18th 1911, a still young Wittgenstein rushed into Russell's room to start studying with him. Seven years later he had finished the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus; a highly orginal ethical deed that involves presenting a logical system in literary fashion.
    My book aims for a strong interpretation of Wittgenstein’s text, both philosophically and technically. It makes clear how Wittgenstein's early views on ethics and logic are related to his symbolic turn. The symbolic nature of contingent propositions is charted in detail, and logical propositions are characterized as empty forms.
    Apart from treating of the relationship between ethics and the symbolic turn, the book gives insight into how objects compare with typed-entities; into the nature of signs in logical space; into the different ways in which the notion of projection can be interpreted; into the nature of truth-operations and how they compare with truth-functions; into the notion of sense for contingent and logical propositions; into the niceties of logical consequence; into substitution in a representation of sense; into how the tractarian system solves Russell's paradox. The finite system is covered but also an infinite generalization that the text just hints at. It is argued that Wittgenstein anticipates the elegant tableaux methods developed much later; his treatment of quantification is shown to be correct.
     Still, all that is of value in life is inversely related to the system and its ontology, which purports to give a clear view on what can be said and what must be passed over in silence.

   

    A more detailed impression of the book’s content can be found here. And this is an interview
(in Dutch) that has appeared July 7th, 2011 in the Soester Courant.

Passed over in Silence costs €22.99 and can be ordered with Amazon (click cover).

Cover-illustrations: Ellis van der Does. ISBN 978-1-84890-008-0.

Website tractatus.nl

To support my research of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus, I have developed the website tractatus.nl that combines the German text with some virtues of webtechnology.

Besides the text itself, there are several functions that are grouped according to three possible views one may take on the text; cf. the buttons on the left.

The tree view is based on the thesis-numbers. This numbering gives the text a tree structure with, e.g., parent of 1.1 and 1.2, and 1.2 parent of 1.21. The green buttons provide the functions for this view.

The sequential view is the usual one, where the text is seen as a linear sequence of theses preceded by a motto and an introduction. The golden buttons provide the functions for this view.

The text can also be seen as a searchable object. Here we have but one function provided by the red button that starts a search for the string in the input field. The key 'Enter' starts a search, too. The search capability is quite powerful; e.g. JavaScript regular expressions can be used.

Finally, the light yellow buttons provide some control functions: restore initial state (i.e., this welcome), go to a previous or next text shown, give help.

The input for the functions, if any, should be typed into the white field that is initially set to '1'. The tree and the sequence functions can be hidden using the corresponding menu buttons. In general the function of a button may be detected by moving the cursor over it, which makes a short description pop up. The site is best viewed fullscreen (often: F11).

Although I tried the utmost, this site is surely not flawless. Suggestions for improvement can be sent to jvddoes <å> me.com with subject: tractatus.nl .

Erratum to Passed over in Silence

Page 94, 3rd paragraph:
‘Notice, by the way, that the variable’ should read: Notice, by the way, that .
(For as argued the barred p is a sequence but not a variable.)