“What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts.”

2
Original German: Was der Fall ist, die Tatsache, ist das Bestehen von Sachverhalten.
1920s, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts." by Ludwig Wittgenstein?
Ludwig Wittgenstein photo
Ludwig Wittgenstein 228
Austrian-British philosopher 1889–1951

Related quotes

Jacob Bronowski photo

“No fact in the world is instant, infinitesimal and ultimate, a single mark. There are, I hold, no atomic facts.”

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-born British mathematician

Part 3: "The Sense of Human Dignity", §1 (p. 52)
Science and Human Values (1956, 1965)
Context: No fact in the world is instant, infinitesimal and ultimate, a single mark. There are, I hold, no atomic facts. In the language of science, every fact is a field — a crisscross of implications, those that lead to it and those that lead from it. … We condense the laws around concepts. Science takes its coherence, its intellectual and imaginative strength together, from the concepts at which its laws cross, like knots in a mesh.

Colin Blackburn, Baron Blackburn photo

“Facts, that are no more than facts, are atomic and unrelated except by general laws. That is how the world was studied until the middle of the present century.”

John G. Bennett (1897–1974) British mathematician and author

Source: The Dramatic Universe: Man and his nature (1966), p. 7

Archibald Macleish photo

“What is more important in a library than anything else — is the fact that it exists.”

Archibald Macleish (1892–1982) American poet and Librarian of Congress

"The Premise Of Meaning" in American Scholar (5 June 1972)

Rose Wilder Lane photo

“No state, no government exists. What does in fact exist is a man, or a few men, in power over many men.”

Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968) American journalist

Give Me Liberty (1936)
Context: The picture of the economic revolution as the final step to freedom was false as soon as I asked myself that question. For, in actual fact, The State, The Government, cannot exist. They are abstract concepts, useful enough in their place, as the theory of minus numbers is useful in mathematics. In actual living experience, however, it is impossible to subtract anything from nothing; when a purse is empty, it is empty, it cannot contain a minus ten dollars. On this same plane of actuality, no State, no Government, exists. What does in fact exist is a man, or a few men, in power over many men.

Stephen Colbert photo

“It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

AV Club interview http://www.avclub.com/article/stephen-colbert-13970, (25 January 2006)
Context: Truthiness is tearing apart our country, and I don't mean the argument over who came up with the word. I don't know whether it's a new thing, but it's certainly a current thing, in that it doesn't seem to matter what facts are. It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty. People love the president because he's certain of his choices as a leader, even if the facts that back him up don't seem to exist. It's the fact that he's certain that is very appealing to a certain section of the country. I really feel a dichotomy in the American populace. What is important? What you want to be true, or what is true?

Annie Besant photo

“These are the great facts in Nature, existing, whether recognized or not, on which the possibility of treading the Path depends: Reincarnation, the law of Karma, the fact of the Path, the Existence of the Teachers.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: Initiation, The Perfecting of Man 1923, p. 15

Elfriede Jelinek photo
Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

“That new language is the language of atomic warfare. The atomic age has moved forward at such a pace that every citizen of the world should have some comprehension, at least in comparative terms, of the extent of this development of the utmost significance to every one of us. Clearly, if the people of the world are to conduct an intelligent search for peace, they must be armed with the significant facts of today's existence.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

1950s, Atoms for Peace (1953)
Context: I feel impelled to speak today in a language that in a sense is new--one which I, who have spent so much of my life in the military profession, would have preferred never to use. That new language is the language of atomic warfare. The atomic age has moved forward at such a pace that every citizen of the world should have some comprehension, at least in comparative terms, of the extent of this development of the utmost significance to every one of us. Clearly, if the people of the world are to conduct an intelligent search for peace, they must be armed with the significant facts of today's existence.

Related topics