Abstract

According to the Tractatus, the world consists of atomic objects arranged in various configurations, and the ways the world might be are determined by the ways these objects can be configured. The question I address is whether these very objects can be unconfigured as well as configured. Much depends on a positive answer to this question, including, as I show, the internal coherence of the Tractatus itself. I argue that these objects can be unconfigured, and am critical of certain interpretive claims made by Fogelin which lead to the conclusion that they cannot be.