Book · 1921
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
by Ludwig Wittgenstein
Wittgenstein built a numbered ladder from logical atomism to the inexpressible, then said the ladder had to be discarded once you climbed it.
What does Reddit think of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus?
That sub doesn't treat the Tractatus as a text to read for pleasure — it treats it as the historical rupture that made analytic philosophy happen. The standard r/askphilosophy account (↑148) is precise: the book inspired Logical Positivism for fifty years, then Wittgenstein returned to Cambridge and spent the rest of his career dismantling it in Philosophical Investigations. The two-act structure of his career is the recurring frame. The exegesis gets specific. The ↑149 thread works through propositions 6.44 and 6.522 carefully: what natural science can say versus what is inexpressible, and why the inexpressible is not therefore meaningless. The ↑86 comment cuts to the point: "this is kind of Wittgenstein's whole project in the Tractatus." r/philosophy adds 19 mentions and reaches mainly to the God problem — the ↑283 comment there argues Wittgenstein believed personally but held that any philosophical argument for that belief was pointless by his own framework. r/Stoicism logged 1 mention in 2022.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · Picture theory of meaning and the limits of language
- · The inexpressible — what can be shown but not said
- · Wittgenstein's two-act career and his repudiation of the Tractatus
- · Influence on Logical Positivism and 20th-century analytic philosophy
- · Philosophy of religion and the limits of rational argument
Common praise
- + The numbered-proposition structure lets you trace exactly which claim depends on which — you can locate your disagreement precisely rather than arguing with the general mood.
- + Sections 6.44 through 6.522 do more work on the limits of language than most full-length books attempt.
- + r/askphilosophy credits it (↑148) with reshaping analytic philosophy for fifty years, which is a historical claim with evidence behind it.
Common criticism
- − r/askphilosophy (↑95) groups Wittgenstein with Heidegger and Deleuze as writers where reading secondary literature first is not optional — cold readings tend to produce confident misreadings.
- − Wittgenstein concluded the book was wrong and spent decades correcting it, which complicates treating it as a destination rather than a stage.
- − The aphoristic style makes individual propositions memorable while making the overall argument easy to lose between sentences.
Who it's for
You've read some analytic philosophy and want to understand why Logical Positivism happened and why it collapsed. If Philosophical Investigations is already on your shelf and the early Wittgenstein is a gap, this fills it — the later work makes more sense once you know what it's pushing back against. Readers arriving from Kant or Frege will find the concerns familiar. Anyone expecting an introduction to philosophy should look elsewhere: r/askphilosophy makes that point consistently across 144 mentions, and they're right.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus?
Top-upvoted quotes across the subreddits where this book is mentioned. Click through to read the full thread.
“It seems clear from Wittgenstein's personal life that he did believe in God, just that he didn't believe ~~in~~ there could ever be a philosophical/rational explanation for that personal belief. Any such attempt on these grounds would be pointless even. When he writes in the Tractatus, "whereof on…
“So that's 6.44 in the *Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus*. I interpret this statement in relation to 6.522 and 6.53, as well as 6.52 and 6.521 more broadly. "How the world is" can be said, such as by the propositions of natural science, but "that it is" is inexpressible. Per the view of language th…
“Wittgenstein basically changed the face of Analytic philosophy for fifty years with the publishing of the *Tractatus*, which was a massive and substantial inspiration for the Logical Positivists. Wittgenstein later came to reject the doctrines of the *Tractatus* when he returned to philosophy at Cam…
“The most prominent example is Kant's "Copernican Revolution" in making our representation of the world foundational to our cognition of it. There were multiple such revolutions in the 20th century. One such was John Rawls' Theory of Justice, which brought about a completely different thematic focus …
“As a general rule, reading *about* a philosopher can help you understand them more than directly picking up their work because you get expert insights. This is especially true for difficult or esoteric writers like Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Deleuze, Lyotard, Wittgenstein, etc. But you have…
“This is kind of Wittgenstein's whole project in the _Tractatus_.
“The most notable in my mind is Wittgenstein who thought he was completely done with philosophy after the Tractatus and years later came back essentially denouncing his previous work and writing "Philosophical Investigations"
“Fun fact: Swift originally wrote that in the opposite sense, about the futility of arguing with _atheists_, who (according to him) used intellectual arguments as a post-hoc rationalization of their adolescent pride and peevishness. ([Letter to a Young Clergyman](
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Readers also mention
Books that share discussion threads with Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus — counted from the comments, not curated.
Philosophical Investigations
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Wittgenstein's public recantation of his own first masterpiece, dismantling the picture theory of meaning one language-game at a time.
The Problems of Philosophy
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell wrote a 90-page intro to analytic philosophy in 1912 and r/askphilosophy still hands it to newcomers first, every time.
Being and Time
Martin Heidegger
Heidegger's argument that human existence only gets its meaning from death — 162 Reddit mentions, mostly from people explaining why it's so hard to read.
Critique of Pure Reason
Immanuel Kant
Kant's 1781 attempt to settle the limits of human knowledge — the book that split philosophy in two and still hasn't been fully digested.
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus — frequently asked
Should I read Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus before Philosophical Investigations?+
Depends on what you want. The r/askphilosophy case (↑148) is that the Tractatus is necessary backstory — Investigations is partly a prolonged argument with it, and the repudiation lands harder if you've read what's being repudiated. If you just want Wittgenstein's mature view, you can start later and circle back. Neither path is obviously wrong.
Is Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus readable without a secondary guide?+
Probably not safely. The ↑95 r/askphilosophy comment lists Wittgenstein alongside Heidegger and Deleuze as writers where secondary literature does more work than direct reading for a first pass.
What does Reddit take the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus to claim about language?+
The ↑149 r/askphilosophy thread is the clearest answer in the data: natural science can say how the world is, but that it exists at all is inexpressible. Propositions 6.44, 6.52, and 6.522 are the ones that get cited most. The ↑86 comment cuts it shorter: this is Wittgenstein's whole project.
Does Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus have anything to say about religion?+
Yes, though not in the way theology usually wants. The ↑283 r/philosophy comment — the highest-upvoted in the dataset — argues Wittgenstein personally believed in God but held that any philosophical argument for that belief was self-undermining by the Tractatus's own logic. 'Whereof one cannot speak' applies to God as much as anything else inexpressible. Both r/philosophy and r/askphilosophy engage with this reading.