>If this is about achieving mystical realizations along the lines of zen koans, then OK but what has that got to do with Wittgenstein? The Tractatus Logico-Phi

>If this is about achieving mystical realizations along the lines of zen koans, then OK but what has that got to do with Wittgenstein? The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is, in my view, a mystical text. Its use of mathematical-like notation and arguments make it seem like something akin to Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica, or Language, Truth, and Logic, but it is really quite different, with totally different aims and methods. It is not aiming to prove or instill in the reader any kind of propositional knowledge, despite its format. The statements at either end of the text (1. and 6.) are often quite obscure in their meaning. The point is, in my view, to induce the reader to change his mindset, and to discard his previous philosophical beliefs, rather than to acquire new ones.