Information Theory and Logical Analysis in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Philosophia 51 (1):217-253 (2022)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The present article proposes an Informational-Theoretic interpretation of logical analysis applied to natural language in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Natural language is characterized by descriptive definitions in order to compress information according to empirical regularities. However, notations fitted to empirical patterns do not explicitly reflect the logical structure of language that enables it to represent those very patterns. I argue that logical analysis is the process of obtaining incompressible and uniformly distributed codes, best fitted to express the possible combinations of facts instead of eventual empirical regularities. That implies mutual translatability between different representations of the same facts, which justifies the possibility to decompose natural language and to rebuild it in mathematized ideographical languages, such as physics. Logical analysis decomposition process, then, results in a reductionism that sets the basis for conceptions of logic and language not only in Tractatus, but also in Some Remarks on Logical Form, which, in turn, is shown to be unattainable in Philosophical Remarks. That posterior book introduces a fragmentation of linguistic systems and analytical methods that can no longer be interpreted under computation theory alone.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 92,075

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

对象、可能世界与必然性 —《逻辑哲学论》的本体论分析.Daqiang Li - 2008 - Proceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 39:319-333.
Language and Logic in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus.Daniele Mezzadri - 2013 - Nordic Wittgenstein Review 2 (1):57-80.
Holism and Atomism in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.Krystian Bogucki - 2021 - Analiza I Egzystencja 55 (3):24 - 48.
The ethical significance of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.Jordi Fairhurst - 2021 - Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy 2 (40):151-168.
Ludwig Wittgenstein and Logical Positivism.Alexander L. Nikiforov - 2021 - Epistemology and Philosophy of Science 58 (1):22-30.

Analytics

Added to PP
2022-05-18

Downloads
12 (#1,087,411)

6 months
3 (#980,137)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

On Denoting.Bertrand Russell - 1905 - Mind 14 (56):479-493.
Tractatus logico-philosophicus.Ludwig Wittgenstein - 1922 - Filosoficky Casopis 52:336-341.
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.Ludwig Wittgenstein - 1956 - Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 12 (1):109-110.
Philosophical remarks.Ludwig Wittgenstein - 1975 - Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Edited by Rush Rhees.
A Mathematical Theory of Communication.Claude Elwood Shannon - 1948 - Bell System Technical Journal 27 (April 1924):379–423.

View all 11 references / Add more references