# 5.641 explained — Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

> Chapter companion for Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein.

## What happens

Wittgenstein introduces the concept of the philosophical 'I' as the metaphysical subject, which is not the empirical self of psychology but the limit of the world, not a part of it.

## Themes in this chapter

### Solipsism and the Subject

The 'I' as metaphysical subject is the limit of the world, not a part of it, resolving solipsism into a transcendental insight.

## Character check-ins

### Mr. Wittgenstein

Author of the proposition, articulating the distinction between the psychological self and the metaphysical subject.

## Key lines

> There is therefore really a sense in which the philosophy we can talk of a non-psychological I.

Philosophy can legitimately discuss a self that is not the empirical self of psychology.

_Distinguishing the metaphysical subject from the psychological subject._

> The philosophical I is not the man, not the human body or the human soul of which psychology treats, but the metaphysical subject, the limit—not a part of the world.

The philosophical self is not the human being or psyche studied by psychology; it is the metaphysical subject that serves as the boundary of the world, not an element within it.

_Defining the metaphysical subject as the limit of the world._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/tractatus_logico_philosophicus_se/chapters/5-641
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/tractatus_logico_philosophicus_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/tractatus_logico_philosophicus_se/chapters