ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the imaginative work of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and the roots of his monumental Tractatus. The Hague was the city in which a great mystical philosopher died: Benedict Baruch de Spinoza. Both Descartes and Spinoza were examples of philosophical rationalism, along with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Similarly, Spinoza's Ethics starts with geometry-like Definitions, Axioms, then to many Propositions, Demonstrations, Scholium, Proofs and Corollary. In 1670 Spinoza published Tractatus Theologico-Politicus anonymously; it was a critique of intolerance and ecclesiastical power, in which he viewed his native city as the cradle of liberty and equality. Was there a connection, other than a similar-looking title, between Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus his manifesto of 1670 and Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosphicus of 1922? The person responsible for the famous title was his colleague George E. Moore – with Ludwig's acquiescence.
