Wittgenstein's Ladder

CORE DEFINITION

The metaphor closes Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, published. He writes that anyone who understands his propositions must recognise them as nonsensical, throw away the ladder after climbing it, and then see the world correctly. The propositions do their work by drawing the limit of what can be said, thereby showing what cannot be said. The image became a general lesson about tools of thought: a framework is an instrument for reaching a vantage point, not a doctrine to be carried afterwards. Wittgenstein later revised his own early position, which is itself an instance of discarding the ladder.