Ware, Ben (School of Advanced Study, University of London, UK)

Dialectic of the Ladder: Wittgenstein, the 'Tractatus' and Modernism Ware, Ben (School of Advanced Study, University of London, UK)

Marc Notes: Despite almost a century of exegesis, Ludwig Wittgenstein's 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus' (1921) remains one of the most enigmatic works of 20th century thought. Questions about the book's form, its philosophical themes, and the nature of the author's aims and methods continue to be fiercely debated. This study shows how new and revealing light can be cast upon these questions by looking at the 'Tractatus' in the aesthetic, cultural, and historical contexts of modernity and modernism. Table of Contents:1. Introduction 2. Chapter 1: Modernity, Modernism, Avant-Garde i. Language, Culture and Crisis ii. The Paradoxes of Modernity iii. The Status of Art in Bourgeois Society iv. The Ideologies of Modernism v. Modernism, Mass Culture and Linguistic Turns vi. The Avant-Garde and the Unification of Art and Life Praxis vii. Coda 3. Chapter 2: From Nonsense to Ethics: The Method of Philosophy in Wittgenstein's Tractatus i. The Paradoxes of the "Tractatus" ii. Giving the Essence of the World iii. 'We Make to Ourselves Pictures of Facts' iv. The Logical Form of Reality v. Throwing Away the Ladder vi. The Engagement with Frege vii. Language and Clarification viii. Redefining Nonsense ix. The "Tractatus "and Ethics x. Logical Positivism versus Ineffability xi. Ethics, Logic, and the Transformation of the Understanding 4. Chapter 3: The "Tractatus," Literature and Modernity i. Under the Sign of Wittgenstein ii. Strictly Philosophical, But at the Same Time Literary iii. Illusion and Illumination iv. The Tractatus and Dialogue v. Poetry and the Liberating Word vi. The Limits of Writing Philosophy as Poetry vii. Wittgenstein, Modernity and Culture viii. Modernity, Culture and the Question of Politics ix. The "Tractatus," Modernity and the Ladder 5. Chapter 4: The "Tractatus," Modernism and the Limits of Language i. The Tractatus and Limits ii. Limits, Adorno and the Kantian 'Block' iii. Limits and Modernism iv. The Illusion of Limits v. The 'Truth' of Solipsism vi. Overcoming Solipsism vii. The "Tractatus," Modernism and Loneliness viii. The "Tractatus "and Modernism Reconsidered 6. Conclusion: i. The Ladder in the Light of Modernity and Modernism ii. Towards a Literary Use of Wittgenstein: The "Tractatus" and Kafka's 'Der Bau' iii. The Continuity of Wittgenstein's ThoughtIndexBiographical Note: Ben Ware is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, UK.