Tractatus objects and the logic of color incompatibility
pp. 57-94
in: Marcos Silva (ed), Colours in the development of Wittgenstein's philosophy, Berlin, Springer, 2017Abstract
Wittgenstein is simultaneously famous and notorious for his tantalizing illustration-free remarks about "simple objects' (einfache Gegenstände) in TractatusLogico-Philosophicus (TLP). What does Wittgenstein, among great theorists of objects in the history of philosophy, mean by an "object', and in what sense are TLP objects "simple'? I consider an apparent inconsistency in Wittgenstein's explanation of Sachverhalte and their picturing Elementarsätze in TLP 2.0121–2.0251, with what Wittgenstein says in 6.3751, and their further implications for understanding what Wittgenstein means by a TLP (simple) object.
