Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Ludwig Wittgenstein · 1921 CE
Excerpt
“What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent.”
Why the atlas keeps it
Completed during the First World War and published without an authorial name, in the series Wittgenstein edited himself. It ends where most of what people want to say about ethics cannot be said in propositions at all — a limit-statement that is also the sharpest warning available about systems that are fluent and not intelligible.
Terms this text reaches for
Ranked by the codex search index against the summary above, not hand-picked.
Just war
ethicsThe rules limiting when war may be begun and how it may be conducted.
Virtue ethics
ethicsJudging moral character and disposition rather than the moral status of single acts.
Care ethics
ethicsObligations arise inside relationships, are partial, and resist general principles.
Chinese room
philosophySearle's thought experiment arguing that syntax alone cannot constitute understanding.
Doctrine of double effect
ethicsSome harms are permitted when foreseen but unintended, provided they are not means to the good.
Moral patient
ethicsAn entity that can be benefited or harmed but is not a moral agent.