On the function of language:

A commentary on Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

According to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, there is an internal connection between three realms that
we normally assume are connected, but nonetheless we have not the slightest idea on how they
are connected. Those three realms are objects, images and words. In a broad sense, he states that
the connection lies in the logical form of the representation, which means that every fact is an
actual state of affairs co-ordinated in a possibility field, namely, the logical space. As an example of
this, we might express:

(1) A white car.

And by that we mean a car which happens to be white, but the car could be blue, red, yellow or
any other color on the spectrum. Also, it is possible for a car to be of any design that makes
possible the human imagination in conjunction to the laws of physics. Thereafter we have a logical
space that might call “color space” and also a logical space that we call “vehicle space”. The union
between all the possibilities contained in the logical space that compounds the object “vehicle”
and the one that compounds the simple object “color” is the logical place. The actual existence of
a white car, then, is a state of affairs among millions of possible ones. The actual existence of the
object in the empirical world, simply fixes the possibility into reality.

Secondly, we have pictures of things, that is, representations, and the same thing happens from
this perspective. There is a logical space which allows us to think the object “white car”, and when
we conceive the object in our minds, we fix the possibility into a reality, the fact of representing
reality. And inside every object of thought or representation, we can subtract its form by thinking
in the broad concept of possibility. With that in mind, we obtain the logical picture, or the mental
representation of the form of the mental object. Wittgenstein claims that form, is what the
thought has in common with reality.

Finally, we have the vehicle of communication of thoughts: propositional signs (written words,
sounds, images, etc.) and when they are arranged in certain way, we say they represent the
representations of thought (pictures). Then we observe that we can make the proposition (1) into
a general logical form without changing its meaning:

(2) There is an object x such that, x is a car and x is white.

Changing it even further we might say:

(3) E (x), xC ^ xW

In the last formula, we can see that the variable x could take any value that satisfy the
conjunction, that is, every possible object that meets, at the same time, the property “car” and
“white”. Nonetheless this proposition is not fully analyzed as “car” and “white” are cases of
broader concepts, then, we do not have the form of the proposition just yet, but its structure.
To further analyze the concept car and white, we think about the most general class of objects
(and therefore the simplest), and that is color (P) and vehicle (V). Therefore, the general form
of the proposition “The car is white” is:

(4) E(x), xP ^ xV

If we are to think about the language in general we find (4) fairly general but unsatisfactory,
that is because this particular expression still have content (namely, color and vehicle), the last
part of the analysis which represent the pure form of the representation is the relationship
between a substance and a property, that is:

(5) E(x), xφ ^ xθ

This one expresses the simplest statement about a thing that complies having two properties
at the same time. This is what we might call the logical field in its most fundamental
representation of the form contained in (1).

As we can see, the logical form of the representation stands the same, it does not matter if we
are seeing an object, thinking of it, or notating it through any system of propositional signs.
Thus, when we think about language, we are thinking about the class of all propositions that
represent thought and its inner form is the logical form common to all three empirical,
representational and propositional objects.