Comments on the Tractatus: Intro and Preface and quick general observations

I'll begin here with comments on the motto and Russell's introduction.

Motto: . . . und alles, was man weiss, nich bloss rauschen und brausen gehört hat, lässt sich in drei Worten sagen. 

To translate loosely, "pretty much everything can be explained in three words". A justification of aphorisms and the style of the book, which is certainly written aphoristically. As long as the words are chosen well, I think this is a good thing in general...too many words, too much explanation, is often just too much. But also sometimes philosophers tend to use words...extrapolatively. Yes, there is a dictionary definition, and common unspoken connotations, but these are then metaphorized beyond comon limits. As long as they stay on this side of line of incoherence, it works (take any work with 'Being' in the title, they're getting pretty close) with a lot of leeway.


I won't do interlinear on Russell's intro, just selections:

What is meant is somewhat less complicated than it sounds.

This is purely in reference to W's mathematical symbolism.

... a good notation has a subtlety and suggestiveness which at times make it seem almost like a live teacher

A classic statement by Russell, of which I had never thought that this is where it would have appeared.As prefacing TLP, It is preceded by "Wittgenstein’s fundamental thesis that it is impossible to say anything about the world as a whole." and that this may have been suggested by notation. This leap seems pretty far to me so I can only guess that what Russel means is that a notation is a purposeful limitation, instead of trying to say things about the world, just say them about something very small and particular (maybe that's just me saying that about notation). I think this is the major benefit of mathematical language (and further this 'notation'). It is what makes mathematical language the goal for philosophical language, precise and limited.

There are some respects, in which, as it seems to me, Mr Wittgenstein’s theory stands in need of greater technical development

I think Russell is being polite here, -very- polite, a back-handed compliment, damning with faint...no, it's not even praise. I read it as, from the perspective someone who had completed a three volume master opus of an attempt to develop all mathematics from a few logical principles, that he doesn't want to be the giant squashing a bug. So in a sense, he's holding back quite a bit.

What causes hesitation is the fact that, after all, Mr Wittgenstein manages to say a good deal about what cannot be said...

Exactly. W's manner here is 'sober', serious, sometimes metaphorical, but never cynical, and not mercurial. So when W says in his own preface, you will understand his book when you consider it nonsense, he really -means- that rather than trying to be clever. W may mean it, but it is not necessarily the case (I find that TLP is -full- of extrinsic meaning and that W is giving a contrary message from outside the work).

...to have constructed a theory of logic which is not at any point obviously wrong is to have achieved a work of extraordinary difficulty and importance. This merit, in my opinion, belongs to Mr Wittgenstein’s book, and makes it one which no serious philosopher can afford to neglect.

"not at any point obviously wrong"...this is another 'read-between-the-lines'...Russell is trying very hard not to say anything negative. It's almost of the level of 'fills a well-needed gap in the literature', or 'the text was well-formatted with undeniable taste in choice of font'.


Now for W's preface.

How far my efforts agree with those of other philosophers I will not
decide. Indeed what I have here written makes no claim to novelty in
points of detail; and therefore I give no sources, because it is indifferent
to me whether what I have thought has already been thought before me
by another.

What this says to me is that he doesn't bother with distinguishing original thought and repeating what he's heard elsewhere. To me this is consistent with the knowledge that most of his sections 5 and 6 were well established mathematical logic at the time of his writing...

I will only mention that to the great works of Frege and the writings
of my friend Bertrand Russell I owe in large measure the stimulation of
my thoughts.

 ...and what good he got out of mathematical logic he got from Frege and Russell (the machinery of truth-functions) and anything else is a poor, mangled presentation by W of what others laid out before him.

Other statements in the intro are bizarrely immodest ("This book will perhaps only be understood by those who have themselves already thought the thoughts which are expressed in it—or similar thoughts.", "I am, therefore, of the opinion that the problems have in essentials been finally solved")


As to the general form of the book though, I am particularly fond, the ever expanding outline, the analytic tree, the commentary, elucidation, step by step as opposed the weaving self overlapping narrratives common in most humanities. Though it is an attempt at having the form of systematicity (like the obvious example of Spinoza), whether it is even close to success there, the attempt is what matters. I say systematization because, in disagreement with most commenters, it is not an attempt to be Euclidean, like Spinoza, in a statement-proof-statement-proof manner, but rather it is simply an outline, where shorter numbered items are explained further by numbers with suffixes. To be topical however, I suppose I should mention that this has affinities with bullet point mania in Powerpoint slide decks. I think it works well here; a narrative would be as boring as...ahem...Kant.