im reading the tractatus and i cannot get a good handle on the

I don't think he tried to offer a solution. He might've scoffed at the whole distinction.

I'm really not sure but I think facts for him are only propositions that correctly describe the states of affairs. He does later realize this definition is lacking and deals with it under language use and family resemblance.

Phenomenal world isn't a construction of language but we can only philosophize about it in language, and language affects how we experience it.

>>9608031
so language is the limit of our thoughts, which are pictures of facts expressed through logic?

>>9608038
to me, this sounds almost identical to transcendental ideology

>>9608043
replacing thought with language still leaves transcendental idealism's issue of sinking into pure idealism, especially if wittgenstein is a nominalist. i know russell was an idealist, but i get the impression wittgenstein thinks atomic facts are representing things as they are, and that scientific statements are True

>>9608038
>so language is the limit of our thoughts,

I can't remember if he said this in Tractatus. Somewhere he suggests that language is the limit of our 'world', or maybe one's world, he doesn't really deal with the problem of solipsism either yet. It might also be the limit of our expressions of thoughts. And even that could be (unreliably) avoided through ostension (not much about that in tractatus either).

>>9608031
sorry, these are all one post:
>>9608038
>>9608043
>>9608053
>so language is the limit of our thoughts, which are pictures of facts expressed through logic?

>to me, this sounds almost identical to transcendental ideology

>replacing thought with language still leaves transcendental idealism's issue of sinking into pure idealism, especially if wittgenstein is a nominalist. i know russell was an idealist, but i get the impression wittgenstein thinks atomic facts are representing things as they are, and that scientific statements are True

>>9608065
t. hasn't read a single page of the tractatus

>4.0312 The possibility of propositions is based upon the principle of the representation of objects by signs. My fundamental thought is that the “logical constants” do not represent. That the logic of the facts cannot be represented.

so he solves russell's paradox by sort of saying you cant have functions of functions. is he then applying this to language and saying we can see how logical syntax works, but we cant use it to talk about something like aristotle or kant's 'categories'? or is he saying we can use the categories in logical syntax, but can't use them to talk about where they themselves come from?

>>9608001
Wittgenstein backtracked on almost everything he wrote in the Tractatus in his later works, so if you want to genuinely understand what Wittgenstein thought then reading the Tractatus isn't the best place to go.

>>9608470
one step at a time

>>9608470
not really, kid. every single class on wittgenstein still starts with the tractatus because IT is the backbone of understanding wittgenstein, not his later notes, which he didn't even want to publish

>>9608507
>every single class on wittgenstein still starts with the tractatus because IT is the backbone of understanding wittgenstein

No, they usually start with the Tractatus because it lays out a really simple easy to grasp view of language. It also contrasts well with the views that Wittgenstein came to have.

>not his later notes, which he didn't even want to publish
You're in denial and evidently don't know much about Wittgenstein if you think that Wittgenstein held any of the views that he wrote in the Tractatus later on in his life.