In content it is about logic, though Ludwig Wittgenstein, in discussing this subject, manages to say much about the theory

of signs, epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy in general. Furthermore, Wittgenstein indicates that there are many things that we cannot say about logic, not because we do not know them or because we cannot find words by which to express them, but because they are literally inexpressible by means ofany language. Consequently, we must remain silent about them. The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Latin for "Logical-Philosophical Treatise") is the only book-length philosophical work published by the Austrianphilosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein in his lifetime. It was an ambitious project: to identify the relationship between language and reality and to define the limits of science. General Summary
The opening pages of the Tractatus (sections 12.063) deal with ontologywhat the world is fundamentally made up of. The basic building blocks of reality are simple objects combined to form states of affairs. Any possible state of affairs can either be the case or not be the case, independent of all other states of affairs. The world is the totality of

the book addresses the central problems of philosophy which deal with the world, thought and language, and presents a solution (as Wittgenstein terms it) of these problems which is grounded in logic and in the nature of representation. The world is represented by thought, which is a proposition with sense, since they allworld, thought, and propositionshare the same logical form. Hence, the thought and the proposition can be pictures of the facts.
all states of affairs that are the case. States of affairs can be combined together to form complex facts.

Starting with a seeming metaphysics, Wittgenstein sees the world as consisting of facts (1), rather than the traditional, atomistic conception of a world made up of objects. Facts are existent states of affairs (2) and states of affairs, in turn, are combinations of objects. Objects can fit together in various determinate ways. They may have various properties and may hold diverse relations to one another. Objects combine with one another according to their logical, internal properties. That is to say, an object's internal properties determine the possibilities of its combination with other objects; this is its logical form. Thus, states of affairs, being comprised of objects in combination, are inherently complex. The states of affairs which do exist could have been otherwise. This means that states of affairs are either actual (existent) or possible. It is the totality of states of affairsactual and possiblethat makes up the whole of reality. The world is precisely those states of affairs which do exist. States of affairs are combinations of objects. Objects are utterly simple and unanalyzable, and they can exist only in the context of states of affairs. They have a logical form that determines the ways in which they can be combined into states of affairs, and they fit into these states of affairs "like links in a chain" (2.03). That is, they fit together by virtue of their logical form alone, and do not need something extra (like a relational object) to hold them together. The move to thought, and thereafter to language, is perpetrated with the use of Wittgenstein's famous idea that thoughts, and propositions, are pictures the picture is a model of reality (TLP 2.12). Pictures are made up of elements that together constitute the picture. Each element represents an object, and the combination of objects in the picture represents the combination of objects in a state of affairs. The logical structure of the picture, whether in thought or in language, is isomorphic with the logical structure of the state of affairs which it pictures. More subtle is

Wittgenstein's insight that the possibility of this structure being shared by the picture (the thought, the proposition) and the state of affairs is the pictorial form. That is how a picture is attached to reality; it reaches right out to it (TLP 2.1511). This leads to an understanding of what the picture can picture; but also what it cannotits own pictorial form.

Logical Atomism
is a philosophical belief that originated in the early 20th century with the development of analytic philosophy. Its principal exponents were the British philosopher Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and his German counterpart Rudolf Carnap. The theory holds that the world consists of ultimate logical "facts" (or "atoms") that cannot be broken down any further. Having originally propounded this stance in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein rejected it in his later Philosophical Investigations. Although Wittgenstein did not use the term himself, his metaphysical view throughout the Tractatus is commonly referred to as logical atomism. While his logical atomism resembles that ofBertrand Russell, the two views are not strictly the same. . After the First World War, Russell met with Wittgenstein again and helped him publish the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, Wittgenstein's own version of Logical Atomism. Although Wittgenstein did not use the expression Logical Atomism, the book espouses most of Russell's logical atomism except for Russell's Theory of Knowledge . The differences relate to many details, but the crucial difference is in a fundamentally different understanding of the task of philosophy. Wittgenstein believed that the task of philosophy was to clean up linguistic mistakes. Russell was ultimately concerned with establishing sound epistemological foundations. Epistemological questions such as how practical knowledge is possible did not interest Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein investigated the "limits of the world" and later on meaning.For Wittgenstein, metaphysics and ethics were nonsensical, though he did not mean to devalue their importance in life by describing them in this way. Russell, on the other hand, believed that these subjects, particularly ethics, though belonging not to philosophy nor science and of possessing an inferior epistemological foundation, were of certain interest. Russell's theory of descriptions is a way of logically analyzing objects in a meaningful way regardless of that object's existence. By objects, Wittgenstein did not mean physical objects in the world, but the absolute base of logical analysis, that can be combined but not divided (TLP 2.022.0201).
[22]

According to

Wittgenstein's logical-atomistic metaphysical system, objects each have a "nature," which is their capacity to combine with other objects. When combined, objects form "states of affairs." A state of affairs that obtains is a "fact." Facts make up the entirety of the world. Facts are logically independent of one another, as are states of affairs. That is, one state of affair's (or fact's) existence does not allow us to infer whether another state of affairs (or fact) exists or does not exist. Within states of affairs, objects are in particular relations to one another. A state of affairs is a combination of objects (2.01). Every object has a logical form
(2.0141) that determines how and in what kinds of states of affairs it can occur. The logical form of an object does not determine which states of affairs it occurs in, but it does determine which states of affairs it can occur in.

Anthony Kenny provides a useful analogy for understanding Wittgenstein's logical atomism: a slightly [29] modified game of chess. Just like objects in states of affairs, the chess pieces do not alone constitute

the gametheir arrangements, together with the pieces (objects) themselves, determine the state of [ affairs. Through Kenny's chess analogy, we can see the relationship between Wittgenstein's logical [30] atomism and his picture theory of representation. For the sake of this analogy, the chess pieces are objects, they and their positions constitute states of affairs and therefore facts, and the totality of facts is the entire particular game of chess

The Picture Theory

The picture theory of language, also known as the picture theory of meaning, is a theory of linguistic reference and meaning articulated by Ludwig Wittgenstein in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Wittgenstein suggested that a meaningful proposition pictured a state of affairs or atomic fact.[1][2] Wittgenstein compared the concept of logical pictures with spatial pictures.[3]The picture theory of language is considered an early correspondence theory of truth.[4] Wittgenstein's picture theory of language states that statements are meaningful if they can be defined or pictured in the real world. A prominent view set out in the Tractatus is the picture theory. The picture theory is a proposed description of the relation of representation.[14] This view is sometimes called the picture theory of language, but Wittgenstein discusses various representational picturing relationships, including non-linguistic "pictures" such as photographs and sculptures (TLP 2.12.225).[14] According to the theory, propositions can "picture" the world, and thus accurately represent it. This picturing relationship, Wittgenstein believed, was our key to understanding the relationship a proposition holds to the world. The pictorial form of a proposition is best captured in the pictorial form of a thought, as thoughts consist only of pictorial form. This pictorial form is logical structure. Wittgenstein believed that the parts of the logical structure of thought must somehow correspond to words as parts of the logical structure of propositions, although he did not know exactly how. Here, Wittgenstein ran into a problem he acknowledged widely: we cannot think about a picture outside of its representational form.
[ [21]

One outcome of the picture theory is that a priori truth does not exist. Truth comes from the accurate representation of a state of affairs (i.e., some aspect of the real world) by a picture (i.e., a proposition). "The totality of true thoughts is a picture of the world (TLP 3.01)." Thus without holding a proposition up against the real world, we cannot tell whether the proposition is true or false. "We picture facts to ourselves." (2.1) This quotation introduces Wittgenstein's picture theory of propositions. According to this view, propositions can represent reality by making a logical picture of the facts they represent. If something is to be considered a picture of something else, the picture and the thing depicted must share something, a form, in common. According to Wittgenstein, propositions and the world share a common logical form. Accordingly, a proposition has the same logical form as the fact it represents. Though the words in a proposition do not in any way resemble facts in the world, their common logical form makes it possible for us to recognize one as a picture of the other.

Mr. Wittgenstein begins his theory of Symbolism with the statement (2.1): "We make to ourselves pictures of facts." A picture, he says, is a model of the reality, and to the objects in the reality correspond the elements of the picture: the picture itself is a fact. The fact that things have a

certain relation to each other is represented by the fact that in the picture its elements have a certain relation to one another. "In the picture and the pictured there must be something identical in order that the one can be a picture of the other at all. What the picture must have in common with reality in order to be able to represent it after its mannerrightly or falselyis its form of representation" (2.161, 2.17). We speak of a logical picture of a reality when we wish to imply only so much resem- blance as is essential to its being a picture in any sense, that is to say, when we wish to imply no more than identity of logical form. The log- ical picture of a fact, he says, is a Gedanke. A picture can correspond or not correspond with the fact and be accordingly true or false, but in both cases it shares the logical form with the fact. The sense in which he speaks of pictures is illustrated by his statement: "The gramo phone record, the musical thought, the score, the waves of sound, all stand to one another in that pictorial internal relation which holds between language and the world. To all of them the logical structure is common. (Like the two youths, their two horses and their lilies in the story. They are all in a certain sense one)" (4.014).
The possibility of a proposition representing a fact rests upon the fact that in it objects are represented by signs. The so-called logical constants are not represented by signs, but are themselves present in the proposition as in the fact.. The proposition and the fact must exhibit the same logical "manifold", and

this cannot be itself represented since it has to be in common between the fact and the picture. Mr. Wittgenstein maintains that everything prop- erly philosophical belongs to what can only be shown, or to what is in common between a fact and its logical picture.
SUMMARY

We represent facts to ourselves by means of pictures. The elements of a picture correspond to the elements of a fact, i.e. the objects that constitute it. If three objects combine in a particular way to form a fact, then the picture of that fact will consist of three elements combined in a similar way. Wittgenstein calls this combination of elements in the picture the "structure" of the picture and he calls the possibility of this structure "pictorial form" (2.15). That is, that a picture is the kind of thing that can arrange its elements in a certain determinate way is due to its pictorial form. A picture must have something in common with what it represents in order to depict it properly (2.161). A painting must exist in space if it is to depict things that exist in space, and it must have color if it is to depict colors (2.171). Similarly, a picture of a fact must have a "logico-pictorial form" in common with that fact in order to depict it. Though a fact is made up of objects and a picture is made up of pictorial elements, they are both structured in the same way due to this common form. Just as a spatial picture represents things in physical space, a logical picture represents things in logical space. A logical picture represents possible states of affairs: it is the most general kind of picture because logical form is the most general kind of form. However, a logical picture cannot represent logical space or logical form itself, in the same way that a spatial picture cannot represent physical space itself. Rather, it displays its form by depicting facts (2.172). Logical pictures represent possible situations, which we can then compare with reality. The situation represented by a picture is the sense of the picture (2.221). If this sense agrees with reality (if what the picture depicts is the case), the picture is true. If not, the picture is false. We cannot tell just by looking at a picture whether it is true or false: we must compare it with reality (2.223). "A logical picture of facts is a thought" (3). That is, a thought is a logical picture of a possible situation. Because thoughts must share the logical form of what they are about, it is impossible to have an illogical

thought. Expressing an illogical thought is as impossible as representing a geometrical figure that contradicts the laws of space (3.032). We express thoughts by means of propositions (3.1). Propositions are communicated by means of propositional signs through modes such as speech, writing, or body language. Like a picture, a proposition represents a possible state of affairs by sharing a form in common with it; i.e. its elements are arranged in a similar way. A random string of words cannot have a sense because there is no internal coherence in the way that these words are arranged. This is the upshot of 3.1432: "Instead of, 'the complex sign " aRb" says that a stands to b in the relation R,' we ought to put, 'That "a" stands to "b" in a certain relation says that aRb.'" A proposition does not say what relation holds between its elements; rather, that relation is what makes the proposition sayable.
Analysis

Up to 2.1, theTractatus was dealing with ontology, i.e. what there is. At 2.1, Wittgenstein shifts ground from discussing what there is to discussing how it is that we can make sense of, and communicate, what there is. He shifts from questions of ontology to questions of language, thought, and representation. One of the most famous ideas of the Tractatus is that propositions are logical pictures of facts. Wittgenstein's use of "picture" is semi-technical, being somewhat literal and somewhat metaphorical. He is not giving "picture" a different meaning from its ordinary usage so much as he is expanding that usage. In saying, "We picture facts to ourselves" (2.1), Wittgenstein is saying that conceiving of something is a matter of picturing it to ourselves. If something can be the case, we can conceive of it, and that means we can make a logical picture of it. There is a direct correspondence between logical pictures and facts: for every fact, there only one logical picture that corresponds to it. We can tell which fact a logical picture depicts, because the picture shares the same logical form as the fact. Wittgenstein illustrates this point at 2.1512 and 2.15121 with the example of a ruler laid against an object to measure its length. The ruler and the object have nothing in common except that they both have length. But because of this commonality, we are able to relate the one to the other. There only needs to be one point of contact to relate two very different objects to one another. Both a ruler and a measured object have length, and so it is possible to relate aspects of the object to different graduated lines and numbers inscribed upon the ruler. Similarly, both a logical picture and a fact have logical form, so it is possible to relate elements of the fact to elements in the logical picture. When, at 2.172, Wittgenstein says that a picture cannot depict its pictorial form, he is making the important distinction between saying and showing. Though a picture may have the same logical form as a fact, it cannot depict this logical form. Rather, the logical form shows itself in the picture. The significance of this sharp distinction between what can be said (facts) and what can be shown (form) will become clear later on. In discussing thoughts, Wittgenstein is not making any psychological claims. Throughout the Tractatus he keeps well away from both psychology and epistemology: he is interested in how things are, not in how we perceive things to be. In discussing thoughts, he is saying only that thoughts must share a logical form with propositions and with reality in order to reflect them. He is not talking about the content of thoughts how they work, where they come from, etc.he is only talking about the form of thoughts. In doing so, he is saying only that they must adhere to the same logical form that everything else does. When he denies the possibility of illogical thought at 3.03, he is not saying we cannot think things that are contradictory (e.g. "It is raining and it is not raining"), but rather that we cannot think things that have no sense. I cannot think, "the number two is purple," because it is not even clear what that thought would be.

Propositions are thoughts in a communicable form. Propositions, thoughts, logical pictures, and facts all share a common logical form. We know that a certain proposition expresses a certain thought, and that that thought is a logical picture of a certain fact, because proposition, thought, picture, and fact all have the same logical form.

A proposition can be true or false only in virtue of being a picture of reality. A proposition is a picture of reality A proposition must use old expressions to communicate a new sense. A proposition communicates a situation to us, and so it must be essentially connected with the situation. And the connexion is precisely that it is its logical picture. A proposition states something only in so far as it is a picture. t is only in so far as a proposition is logically articulated that it is a picture of a situation Tautologies and contradictions are not pictures of reality. They do not represent any possible situations. For the former admit all possible situations, and latter none . In a tautology the conditions of agreement with the worldthe representational relationscancel one another, so that it does not stand in any representational relation to reality.
The object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a theory but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations. The result of philosophy is not a number of philosophical propositions, but to make propositions clear. Philosophy should make clear and delimit sharply the thoughts which otherwise are, as it were, opaque and blurred (4.111 and 4.112).

The world consists of facts: facts cannot strictly speaking be defined, but we can explain what we mean by saying that facts are what makes propositions true, or false. Facts may contain parts which are facts or may contain no such parts; for example: "Socrates was a wise Athenian", consists of the two facts, "Socrates was wise", and "Socrates was an Athenian." A fact which has no parts that are facts is called by Mr. Wittgenstein a Sachverhalt. This is the same thing that he calls an atomic fact. An atomic fact, although it contains no parts that are facts, nevertheless does contain parts. If we may regard "Socrates is wise" as an atomic fact we perceive that it contains the constituents "Socrates" and "wise". If an atomic fact is ana- lyzed as fully as possible (theoretical, not practi-cal possibility is meant) the constituents finally reached may be called "simples" or "objects".