ABSTRACT
This chapter talks about a simple historical tale of interpretive struggle trying to follow a certain line of interpretive development loyal to chronology. It views as positioning the Tractatus in a definitive, significant, highly influential place in the history of analytic philosophy. The Tractatus was first seen, and then established and maintained, as a deeply philosophical text on logic and language. It was, of course, titled Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, and for a long time no one doubted the sincerity in Wittgenstein's prefatory claims. The New Wittgensteinians saw themselves as interpreting the text with great fidelity, and thereupon not "chickening out", but rather reading it "resolutely" in identifying it as nonsense. A chronologically organized list of the most commonly recognized early interpreters of Wittgenstein's Tractatus would consist of thinkers who are undoubtedly considered analytic philosophers. Seemingly, the more perplexing question has to do with the Tractatus of the New Wittgensteinian readings and its position vis a vis analytic philosophy.
