Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
E80233
"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent" is the famous concluding proposition of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s *Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus*, expressing the idea that language should not attempt to state what lies beyond the limits of meaningful discourse.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T641600 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. Context triple: [Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, notablePropositionText, Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.]
-
A.
Great Silence
The Great Silence refers to the puzzling absence of detectable extraterrestrial civilizations despite the vastness and apparent habitability of the universe.
-
B.
Bontshe Shvayg
Bontshe Shvayg is a classic Yiddish short story character created by I. L. Peretz, symbolizing quiet, passive suffering and the tragedy of excessive humility.
-
C.
A Dream Within a Dream
"A Dream Within a Dream" is a lyric poem by Edgar Allan Poe that meditates on the illusory nature of reality and the inevitable loss of time and love.
-
D.
Enough Said
Enough Said is a 2013 romantic comedy-drama film starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolfini, centered on a divorced woman who unknowingly befriends the ex-wife of the man she is dating.
-
E.
The Silence
The Silence is a short, late-career novel by Don DeLillo that explores human disconnection and technological collapse in a near-future setting.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. Target entity description: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent" is the famous concluding proposition of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s *Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus*, expressing the idea that language should not attempt to state what lies beyond the limits of meaningful discourse.
-
A.
Great Silence
The Great Silence refers to the puzzling absence of detectable extraterrestrial civilizations despite the vastness and apparent habitability of the universe.
-
B.
Bontshe Shvayg
Bontshe Shvayg is a classic Yiddish short story character created by I. L. Peretz, symbolizing quiet, passive suffering and the tragedy of excessive humility.
-
C.
A Dream Within a Dream
"A Dream Within a Dream" is a lyric poem by Edgar Allan Poe that meditates on the illusory nature of reality and the inevitable loss of time and love.
-
D.
Enough Said
Enough Said is a 2013 romantic comedy-drama film starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolfini, centered on a divorced woman who unknowingly befriends the ex-wife of the man she is dating.
-
E.
The Silence
The Silence is a short, late-career novel by Don DeLillo that explores human disconnection and technological collapse in a near-future setting.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
aphorism
ⓘ
philosophical proposition ⓘ quotation ⓘ |
| addresses |
boundary of sense and nonsense
ⓘ
relation between language and reality ⓘ what can be meaningfully said ⓘ |
| associatedWith |
linguistic turn
ⓘ
logical positivism ⓘ |
| author | Ludwig Wittgenstein ⓘ |
| centralTheme |
limits of language
ⓘ
meaningful discourse ⓘ showing versus saying ⓘ unsayable ⓘ |
| connectedTo |
Wittgenstein’s early philosophy
ⓘ
Wittgenstein’s view of ethics as unsayable ⓘ Wittgenstein’s view of the mystical as what can only be shown ⓘ |
| field |
logic
ⓘ
metaphilosophy ⓘ philosophy of language ⓘ |
| firstPublishedIn |
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (English edition 1922)
ⓘ
linked to:
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (German edition 1921) ⓘ
linked to:
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
|
| genre | philosophical maxim ⓘ |
| hasForm | conditional statement ⓘ |
| hasInfluenced |
20th-century analytic philosophy
ⓘ
logical empiricism ⓘ
linked to:
logical positivism
philosophical quietism ⓘ |
| hasSubjectMatter |
criteria of sense
ⓘ
role of philosophy ⓘ scope of meaningful language ⓘ |
| implies |
metaphysical, ethical, and mystical matters cannot be put into meaningful propositions
ⓘ
philosophy should clarify language rather than state metaphysical theses ⓘ some things lie beyond the limits of meaningful language ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| notableFor | being one of the most famous lines in 20th-century philosophy ⓘ |
| oftenInterpretedAs |
boundary statement for meaningful scientific discourse
ⓘ
call for silence about metaphysics ⓘ |
| originalForm | Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen ⓘ |
| originalLanguage | German ⓘ |
| partOfWork | Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus ⓘ |
| philosophicalTradition | analytic philosophy ⓘ |
| positionInWork | Proposition 7 ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1921 ⓘ |
| relatedConcept |
ineffable
ⓘ
limits of thought ⓘ logical form ⓘ meaningful proposition ⓘ picture theory of language ⓘ |
| workContext | concluding proposition of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. Description of subject: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent" is the famous concluding proposition of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s *Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus*, expressing the idea that language should not attempt to state what lies beyond the limits of meaningful discourse.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
→
notablePropositionText
→
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
ⓘ