This book grew out of a larger project, an attempt to draw a philosophical connection between the early Wittgenstein and Plato. While I continue to believe that such a connection exists and that it can be interestingly drawn, the original study, as it stood, was too ambitious; over time, I have come to the (perhaps painfully obvious) realization that a serious attempt to come to terms just with Wittgenstein's Tractatus is more than enough for one book. Nonetheless, what initially motivated the project is what, at bottom, continues to draw me to Wittgenstein: the concern with the nature of philosophy itself. Indeed, I believe that for Wittgenstein – early, middle, and late – the question of philosophy's nature is the central question of all of philosophy.

Such a contention may seem surprising. For while Wittgenstein's reflections on the philosophical activity, particularly those in the middle of the Philosophical Investigations, are among his most oft-quoted claims, we must acknowledge that these represent only a very small portion of his total writings. Moreover, in the Tractatus, the text with which we shall chiefly be concerned here, the issue is almost entirely absent, forming the subject matter of a mere eight remarks (TLP 4.111–4.116). In order to view Wittgenstein as placing such primacy on the question of philosophy, it might then seem that we would have to give extraordinary weight to just a few passages.

But this will not be our approach. Instead of seeking to privilege the meager store of Wittgenstein's general reflections on philosophy, we shall take as our starting point the complete set of remarks that make up the Tractatus.