Abstract

This dissertation offers an interpretation of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. My interpretation follows from that proposed by Cora Diamond and James Conant. They read the Tractatus in light of Wittgenstein's claim at 6.54, that his propositions are mere nonsense. I take their central claim to be that what appears to be the doctrines of the Tractatus are to be eventually recognized as logically indistinguishable from mere gibberish. Since the value of the work cannot consist in the doctrine taught to its readers , the value of the work requires an alternative account. The value of the Tractatus is that it elicits the reader's desire for philosophical doctrines, and then exposes those desires as incoherent, by drawing attention to moments within the text when they can recognize, and so acknowledge, that they have taken in nonsense for sense. ;I claim that this reading lets us interpret the Tractatus as a book which seeks to teach its readers, not philosophical knowledge, but about their desire for such knowledge. Specifically, it aims to teach them that they are not clear about what, if anything, they want when they profess to want philosophical knowledge. ;I explain that the picture of philosophical knowledge offered in the Tractatus demonstrates how its readers are unclear about their relation to knowledge they can and do have ---they both value this knowledge and are also profoundly dissatisfied with the inability of scientific knowledge to answer their philosophical questions. Insofar as the dissatisfaction with knowledge is misunderstood, and hence, not properly acknowledged, it generates the expectation that there must be a deeper, more profound type of knowledge. Relying on Diamond/Conant, I show how the Tractatus brings its readers to an understanding, not only that, but why it is that, they are unclear about their relationship to knowledge. This kind of understanding is called self-knowledge. ;The Tractatus can then be read as a book which disguises what it thinks its readers need, but don't want , as what it thinks its readers imagine they need