The Question of Linguistic Idealism in the Tractatus

Abstract According to the doctrine of linguistic idealism in the version discussed here, there is an essential isomorphism between language and the world because the form of language determines the form of the world. In this paper, I will propose an argument in favor of the idealist interpretation of the Tractatus. From an examination of a certain imaginary scenario, I will conclude that the form of objects, that is, the possible combinations of them into facts, is determined by the form of their names, that is, the possible combinations of those names into propositions. Additionally, I will present an interpretation under which Tractarian solipsism is nothing other than a formulation of the idealist conception of the world in first-person terms.