Picturing the World from Within: Wittgenstein's Tractatus and the Limits of Sense

This thesis explores central themes in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, and engages with exegetical discussions of Wittgenstein’s early philosophy. Metaphysical, therapeutic, and elucidatory interpretations are presented and discussed. The division between showing and saying, which is a key distinction in the Tractatus, is found to be more complicated than the exegetical discourse sometimes suggests. This is argued to count in favour of an elucidatory reading of the Tractatus’ seemingly paradoxical closing remarks. Moreover, Wittgenstein’s account of picturing is shown to have a fundamental role, around which the distinctions between showing and saying and internal and external relations revolve. Even the doctrine of simple objects and atomic facts is rooted in the pictorial view of language. The thesis furthermore defends a dynamic interpretation of internal relations, upon which internal relations are shown through the application of operations, a view that is linked to Wittgenstein’s philosophy of the subject. The result is a view on which, although the limits of language mean the limits of the world, the limits are not drawn once and for all