Rating: 
Summary: Keep it real
Review: Tractatus is LW's best work. Do not buy the hype that Phil. Investigations is a better book- or that there are 2 LWs (it's the same guy!). While LW's ideas developed in the Investigations, the ideas were in development at the time of Tractatus. LW's only completed work during his lifetime. It is polished, coherent, poetic, and a classic in philosophy (Phil. Investigations is patchy, excessively long, and most likely incoherent).
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Summary: "We picture facts to ourself" - Tractatus
Review: Tractatus presents a vision of a new form of communication, one that is more symbolic, more pictorial. It is a vision I embraced almost 20 years ago, on my first reading of it. It is a vision that the Internet may be evolving toward, a global language for communication across geographic and cultural boundries, a visual symbolic language for all mankind....Tractatus is about symbolism. It is about coming to terms with the way in which we communicate the reality of the world we experience. So much of Tractatus is concerend with the way in which we think...pictorially. Tractatus was written shortly after World War I as a statement of logical positivism.
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Summary: Not Worth the Praise...Keep Silent Please
Review: When Ludwig Wittgenstein speaks...everybody keep silent. So if you want to talk about something that is out of any language, that you can't speak about, why bother write a book to share your clever wit? It is not in harmony with the author's maxim. If Wittgenstein really want to write about logic, why wrap it in such obscure language? I don't think there is any aid to the clearness of expression. I have read the book twice. I don't think it is the bible of logical positivism. Actually L.P. is just the transaction from philosophy to science, or a criticism of philosophy. Don't think that there is any real contribution to academic development. It was just liked somebody painted a picture within his house, showed it to himself, laughed, or cried, then painted another one, and so on and so on. So, the point is, he really did something, but this something is not important to anybody else. It might be only important to himself. Philosophy in academic is just such game show. It can't change anything. And the King of all is of course Mr L.W.
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Summary: not quite rorschach
Review: Wittgenstein is a logician and TLP is a work in logic. That's not to say that first-time readers will find a textbook in the style of, say, Church or Enderton. (This much is obvious from various mentions here of mathematical logic and mysticism in the same breath). The flavor is very different and it's not easy to say what is the source of this difference. One way to start would be to note that TLP is a part of the Kantian project, in fact its conclusion. It responds directly to Frege and Russell, but it's essentially a transcendental argument with roots in Kant's great Critique. So readers unacquainted with Frege and Russell, and with Kant, may find TLP bewildering - but it's bewildering enough in any case, so take heart! Risking presumption, I'd advise the following first approach to this very unusual book: just follow your nose. Don't bother too much, for example, about the numbering scheme or the order of presentation, simply follow what threads interest you going back and forth.
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Summary: C'est parfait!
Review: Wittgenstein is the all-time father of logical philosophy, save Bertrand Russell. Read Russell, Whitehead and Frege if you want to get into complex mathematical formulas and neverending inquiries, but read Wittgenstein for better understanding. Wittgenstein showed his genius of analytical and logical philosophy in TLP. (As well as his genius of analyzing linguistic philosophy. C'est parfait!
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Summary: A lot of bloated nonsense
Review: Wittgenstein must be the most over rated philosopher who has ever lived. Because of the work (and marketing) of a few devoted students, the rest of us have been led to believe that he is one of the great ones. The truth is nothing of the sort. He couldn't write clearly. The result is much undeserved attention has been given to some very ambiguous epigrammatic statements of his. Much of his work is unreadable and of no use or interest to anyone but a few hard core positivist philosophy professors. If you really want to read some good philosophy, do not be unjustifiably taken in by the weird mystique of the Wittgenstein name. It is all P.R. work by some ivy league philosophers who do not even care anymore if philsophy has anything useful to say to people who live in the real world. As long as they can continue to collect their salaries and analyze their little language puzzles in the privacy of their faculty offices, they are happy-and irrelevant to the lives of anyone who actually works outside of a university. Save yourself the bother of trying to decipher this guy; It isn't worth your trouble.
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Summary: A classic with contemporary relevance
Review: Wittgenstein's first published work. Should be as famous for Russell's misunderstanding of it, made obvious in his introduction, as for it's effect on the positivists and modern philosophical logic. Absolutely essential reading for studying Wittgenstein's later work. The Investigations can be read as a refutation of the Tractatus, and thereby, as a refutation of much of contemporary philosophy of language. While Wittgenstein doesn't help his readers with either references or explanatory preamble, the effort of reading this book will be well rewarded to anybody studying contemporary issues in philosophical logic, philosophy of language or philosophy of science. Whatismore, Wittgenstein's poetic style is a joy to read and many of his aphorisms will come back to you in other studies.
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Summary: C'est parfait!
Review: Wittgenstein's philosophy prides itself on its sober empiricism, unbiased objectivity, and logical respect for truth. It vehemently rejects all forms of mysticism and pneumatic spirituality. It is essentially the defining work of logical atomism, which states that we are all just collections of independently operating atoms or atomic facts, all of which exist apart from any necessity or mutual interrelatedness. This philosophy has, needless to say, been proven untrue many times over. As an intellectual movement, it was inevitable, and can be described as an essential step in the chronological progression of philosophy, but its day has come and gone. Irrefutable proof of the factual inaccuracy of this philosophy can be found in Brand Blanshard's great book _Reason and Analysis_, which systematically dismantles Wittgenstein's concepts. That said, this is a very thought provoking book, and may be useful as an intellectual exercise of sorts. It may help you to more carefully scrutinize truths you had previously taken for granted, and view life with an overall more sharply critical eye. I have nothing but the utmost respect for anyone who is truly able to comprehend what Wittgenstein is saying. But I must recommend the philosophy of BRAND BLANSHARD to anyone who is a serious advocate of Wittgenstein, simply because you must understand what your critics are saying if you expect to mount a successful defense of your philosophy. People who are in the know agree that Blanshard's attack on the philosophy of Wittgenstein was most devastating. If the adherents of Wittgenstein's philosophy hope to be able to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again, I strongly suggest you open your mind to what people on the other side are saying, so that you can find a way to adapt to these new trends in western philosophical thought.
Rating: 
Summary: Good for a laugh maybe
Review: Wittgenstein's philosophy prides itself on its sober empiricism, unbiased objectivity, and logical respect for truth. It vehemently rejects all forms of mysticism and pneumatic spirituality. It is essentially the defining work of logical atomism, which states that we are all just collections of independently operating atoms or atomic facts, all of which exist apart from any necessity or mutual interrelatedness. This philosophy has, needless to say, been proven untrue many times over. As an intellectual movement, it was inevitable, and can be described as an essential step in the chronological progression of philosophy, but its day has come and gone. Irrefutable proof of the factual inaccuracy of this philosophy can be found in Brand Blanshard's great book _Reason and Analysis_, which systematically dismantles Wittgenstein's concepts. That said, this is a very thought provoking book, and may be useful as an intellectual exercise of sorts. It may help you to more carefully scrutinize truths you had previously taken for granted, and view life with an overall more sharply critical eye. I have nothing but the utmost respect for anyone who is truly able to comprehend what Wittgenstein is saying. But I must recommend the philosophy of BRAND BLANSHARD to anyone who is a serious advocate of Wittgenstein, simply because you must understand what your critics are saying if you expect to mount a successful defense of your philosophy. People who are in the know agree that Blanshard's attack on the philosophy of Wittgenstein was most devastating. If the adherents of Wittgenstein's philosophy hope to be able to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again, I strongly suggest you open your mind to what people on the other side are saying, so that you can find a way to adapt to these new trends in western philosophical thought.
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Summary: Climbing the ladder: from ~p to a religious mysticism.
Review: Wittgenstein, writing from the front during the first World War, produced a terse, complicated, and confusing philosophical treatise concerning metaphysics and mysticism. The Tractatus began as a solution to problems both Russell and Frege had experienced in their attempt to locate the foundations of logic and mathematics. Wittgenstein solved their problems by invoking an epistemological-linguistic distinction between saying and showing. From this distinction, as well as his digestion of both Schopenhauer and Tolstoy, Wittgenstein offers a narrative which elucidates God and the meaning of life. A "spiritual solipsism" figures prominently in this narrative, the self being identified, in part, as God. And mystical experience (sub specie aeternitatus) being a necessary condition of experience, available to all.
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