A Monistic Interpretation of the Notion of Logical Space in Wittgenstein's Tractatus
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Keywords

Tractatus
logical space
monism
Schaffer
totality

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A Monistic Interpretation of the Notion of Logical Space in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. (2025). Universitas Philosophica, 42(84), 219-250. https://doi.org/10.11144/Javeriana.uph42-84.melw
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Abstract

In metaphysics, monism and pluralism differ in the number of fundamental substances or realities that are sufficient to explain what there is: for the former, one is enough; for the latter, two or more. Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, given its close relation to logical atomism, is regarded as a work committed to an ontological pluralism, namely: the world breaks down from complex structures to fundamental and irreducible basic entities known as objects or simples. The present paper defends a monistic interpretation of the Tractatus on the basis of the notion of ‘logical space’ (logischer Raum) by considering some of the main aspects of Jonathan Schaffer’s priority monism. Logical space is conceived as an abstract reality understood as a priority totality already contained in the Tractarian notion of object as the form of the world and, thus, in the figurative relation between facts and propositions.

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