Understanding Principia and Tractatus

This book of two parts is an attempt at understanding some crucial and interconnected philosophical problems in the Principia and the Tractatus. The first part deals with Chapters 11-13 of the Principia to present a comprehensive picture of Russell's theory of definite descriptions, and the second part with those propositions of the Tractatus in which Wittgenstein touches upon the concepts and tenets which Russell uses in his theories.

In the first part, the problem which Russell faced (and as an answer to which he proposed his theory) is isolated from several garbled versions of it that came to be taken as issues of his concern. The familiar presumably Russellian solutions offered by others to what was assumed to be his problem, and are claimed to be better than the one offered by him, are shown to be neither Russellian nor better in virtue of their shifting his problematic or in virtue of rejecting his basic presuppositions.

Alternatives worked out by Hintikka, Kaplan, Robinson, Lambert and others are critically examined, and are shown to be no serious contenders to Russell's theory which is argued to be a plausible and workable one.