Wittgenstein's Logical Atomism James Griffin
The series, "Wittgenstein Studies", collects together many of the major texts of recent years, making available books that have proved relevant to the study of Wittgenstein. This title is from the second collection in the series. This text studies the central topics of Wittgenstein's philosophy before and in the first parts of the "Tractatus": objects, substance, states of affairs, elementary propositions, pictures, and thoughts. The book aims to understand and question Wittgenstein's programme of analysis as the key to understanding the "Tractatus". His conclusion is that analysis is reduction to what is basic not in experience but in reference. It argues that, contrary to established interpretations - of Russell and the Vienna Circle - the "Tractatus" is concerned not with problems of knowledge but with problems of sense.