In his first and last work Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein was primarily concerned with the logic of language. For him, it was only logical language expressed through physics and mathematics that could answer philosophical questions (and he believed to have solved all of them). This approach made anything else illogical and hence irrelevant to mention, even though these subjects were anything but irrelevant in themselves.
Such subjects were questions of religion and mysticism that might have been incoherent in the means of logic, but that nonetehelss were the most crucial part of our human experience. His criticism of language demands for a clarity of speech that encourages only to communicate that which is logically deductible, and to remain silent over that which can only be experienced.
Some of those mystic experiences he describes are faith and confidence in the face of hardships, as the WWII certainly was for him. With his realization that "Whatever happens, nothing can happen to me", Wittgenstein expresses a profound sense of security that could not even be shattered in the face of hardships. Whatever the circumstances were, he managed to find miracles that do not reflect on "...how the world is, but that the world exists", converging himself to the philosophy of wonder. Wittgenstein thus calls to focus on the present, as the past is already gone and the future is uncertain anyway. That the world exists, is a present in itself, so that for those who can not appreciate and feel the mystic moment of the presence by themselves, it is impossible and arduous to explain in abstract words. Hence, the unmentionable is building the foundation for Wittgensteins philosophy of silence, with which he is yet able to communicate the ineffable. Or to say it in Goethe's words: "A thinking man's greatest happiness is to have fathomed what can be fathomed and to revere in silence what cannot be fathomed".
Such subjects were questions of religion and mysticism that might have been incoherent in the means of logic, but that nonetehelss were the most crucial part of our human experience. His criticism of language demands for a clarity of speech that encourages only to communicate that which is logically deductible, and to remain silent over that which can only be experienced.
Some of those mystic experiences he describes are faith and confidence in the face of hardships, as the WWII certainly was for him. With his realization that "Whatever happens, nothing can happen to me", Wittgenstein expresses a profound sense of security that could not even be shattered in the face of hardships. Whatever the circumstances were, he managed to find miracles that do not reflect on "...how the world is, but that the world exists", converging himself to the philosophy of wonder. Wittgenstein thus calls to focus on the present, as the past is already gone and the future is uncertain anyway. That the world exists, is a present in itself, so that for those who can not appreciate and feel the mystic moment of the presence by themselves, it is impossible and arduous to explain in abstract words. Hence, the unmentionable is building the foundation for Wittgensteins philosophy of silence, with which he is yet able to communicate the ineffable. Or to say it in Goethe's words: "A thinking man's greatest happiness is to have fathomed what can be fathomed and to revere in silence what cannot be fathomed".
