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Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus · Chapter
2.161 explained
Wittgenstein asserts that for a picture to represent something, there must be an identity of form shared between the picture and what it depicts.
What happens
Wittgenstein asserts that for a picture to represent something, there must be an identity of form shared between the picture and what it depicts.
Themes in this chapter
Picture Theory of Language
This proposition directly articulates the necessary condition for representation in the picture theory.
Characters to notice
- Mr. Wittgenstein
Author of the proposition
Key passages
“In the picture and the pictured there must be something identical in order that the one can be a picture of the other at all.”
A representation and its subject must share a common structure or form for the representation to be possible.
Identifies the condition of pictorial representation