“The right method of philosophy would be this. To say nothing except what can be said, i.e. the propositions of natural science, i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy: and then always, when someone else wished to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had given no meaning to certain signs in his propositions. This method would be unsatisfying to the other - he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy - but it would be the only strictly correct method. My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”

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About Ludwig Wittgenstein

Austro-British philosopher

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austro-British philosopher associated with logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is known for work that shaped twentieth-century philosophical debate, especially in these fields. His writing centers on how language works, how thought is expressed, and the foundations of reasoning and meaning.

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Books by Ludwig Wittgenstein

Tractatus logico-philosophicus

1921

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Zettel

1967

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Philosophische Untersuchungen

1953

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Über Gewissheit

1972

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