The real Wittgenstein’s Draft on Eye on the tree of the Tractatus

What is it about?

If we read the Tractatus logico-philosophicus according to the decimal numbering of its propositions, we may understand, finally, the section about the self and the limits of language and world. Proposition 5.64 follows 5.63 (not 5.634); 5.634 follows 5.633 (not 5.6331); and so on. Thus, it becomes clear that the picture of the visual field (TLP 5.6331) cannot be what scholars have always quoted and discussed, i.e. a draft of an eye inside its field of sight. Actually, Wittgenstein’s original drafts depict (to criticise it) the ordinary way of representing the visual field. Following him, the field of vision is ‘without limits’; it does not have a form that implies the existence of an eye, as far as the phenomenological experience does not have a form that implies the existence of an ‘I’. As a result, the current reproductions of the 5.6331 image must be rectified, and all references to this similitude should be radically amended.

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Why is it important?

Reading the Tractatus logico-philosophicus as an hypertext makes the book much clearer. Here, paragraph 5.6 on the limits of language and world is explored by the tree-like perspective. One can discover that the figure of proposition 5.633 is incongruous and mistaken. In fact, IT IS NOT the picture Wittgenstein depicted and talked about with the Editor. For the first time, this paper shows the effective draft of eye and visual field he discusses in his Tractatus. So, all scholars' comments are to be modified or even reversed.

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