Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus has generated many interpretations since its publication in 1921. Time has produced something of a consensus, however, concerning the nature of the Tractarian criticisms of Russell's early philosophy. Challenging this consensus is the subject of the present book. Russell's unpublished manuscripts have brought about a revolution in the understanding of his philosophy. The manuscripts reveal that the consensus about the Tractarian criticisms characterizes Russell with positions he did not hold. Rereading Russell requires rereading Wittgenstein. Russell's logical atomism is not an empiricism couched in a logic of ramified and type-stratified entities (propositional functions) and based on a principle of acquaintance with sense-data. Logical atomism is a research program for dissolving philosophical conundrums by employing variables with structure – an ontologically austere structural realism. Wittgenstein transformed Russell's method of structured variables into his Doctrine of Showing. The book identifies the Tractarian Grundgedanke (“fundamental idea”) with Showing and argues that Russell and his apprentice Wittgenstein were allies in a research program that makes logical analysis and reconstruction the essence of philosophy.

In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein wrote, “The riddle does not exist. If a question can be framed at all, it is also possible to answer it” (TLP 6.5). Of course, paradoxes are all too easy to fall into. When my son Ansel was young, our bedtime ritual was for me to ask him ten questions. After a short time of repeating the questions every other night, he had memorized the answers. Finally, he demanded, “I want new hard questions.”