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Ilithiotis.  There are further problems besides the one you noted before.  For example, punctuation is

sometimes altered between the German and its Ogden translation.  I cannot help but wonder how punc 

tuation translates, if at all.

Mateosis. These are interesting considerations, but I am not sure that we have either the time or the

resources to continue this analysis of translation.

Ilithiotis.  Maybe we should suspend all discussion of this book until we have read and mastered it in

its original tongue.  That would be an easy way to postpone this project for quite a while, if not forev 

er.

Matesosis. I am not sure that I can agree there, but it may be a task that we can tackle later. 

Profasis.  I apologize for interrupting your little catfight, while you're obviously making such great

progress, but have you considered what Wittgenstein meant in the final paragraph, Paragraph 7?  He

writes: "Woven man nicht sprechen kann, dar ber muss man schweigen," and this has been translated

to read, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent."

Mateosis.  Does he there refer to the mystical, the religious?

Ilithiotis.  I do not think so!  He is merely building in an internal guaranty that his text will not be talked

about by those who are not elect!

Mateosis.   But for somebody who is so interested in remaining silent about certain things, he manages

to say a lot awfully or, rather, he manages to say an awful lot.

Profasis.  There is an important element of mysticism in the Tractatus. In an aborted preface to the text,

Wittgenstein writes: "There are two books here and the important one is the one that is not written."

He could have been referring to the so called Phantom Propositions, or perhaps not.  For now, let us

"pass over in silence" Wittgenstein's little book.  After all, we already know how little is achieved, as he

himself notes, when these problems are solved.

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Ilithiotis or On Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico Philosophicus: A Schizophrenic Parody of a Platonic Dialogue

   James Johncox and Greg Schneider