Episode 8: Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (and Carnap): What Can We Legitimately Talk About?

Summary: Continuing last ep's discussion of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus with some Rudolph Carnap (a logical positivist from the Vienna Circle: “The Rejection of Metaphysics” from his 1935 book Philosophy and Logical Syntax) about what kind of crazy talk is outside of legitimate discourse.<br> Carnap interprets W as simply ruling out as unscientific most of the talk we'd consider philosophical, i.e. metaphysics, ethics, the self... Or is W really a mystic who just wants to distinguish these from science? Why doesn't he just write more and explain himself? This tricky text inspires Seth to start a cult.<br> To follow along, read the Tractatus from the beginning through around 4.12, then skip to 6.3 and read to the end, skimming the more technical material in the middle. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1440424217/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=theparexalif-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=217145&amp;creative=399377&amp;creativeASIN=1440424217" target="_blank">Buy the book</a> or <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5740" target="_blank">read the text online</a>.The Carnap text can be found <a href="http://www.philosophy.ru/edu/ref/sci/carnap.html" target="_blank">here</a>.<br> Also, if you're confused by the description of truth tables (which are hard to picture without seeing some), <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_table" target="_blank">look here</a>.<br> End song: "The Last Time," by <a href="http://marklint.com" target="_blank">Mark Lint and the Fake</a> from the 2000 album So Whaddaya Think?<br>