World, reality and states of affairs Reflections on the tractatus a centry later

Abstract

The aim of this article is to present a critical evaluation of the last hundred years since the publication of the Tractatus. The work contains two parts. The first part gives an overview of the contents of the book, its structure and reception. Wittgenstein’s work is located within the framework of the Austrian philosophical state program. Three fundamental elements stand out in this program: scientific philosophy, phenomenological empiricism and the analysis of language. Within the reception of the book, six different readings can be identified, such as the logical-atomist, the logical-positivist, the metaphysical, the irrational, the therapeutic and the contrastive approach. The second part deals with the relationship between “world” and “reality”. The integration of reality in modern logic is carried out through the thematization of states of affairs. We notice certain ambivalence in Wittgenstein’s proposal as he described the world as the set of positive events, while in fact it allows us to cover both positive and negative events. To understand the distinction, the concept of states of affairs is introduced.