Variablen im Tractatus

Wittgenstein's "Tractatus" claims the possibility to represent quantificational logic by means of a single basic operation. Fogelin regards the "Tractatus" system as seriously flawed and thus not suited for this aim, while Geach and Soames propose extensions and corrections of the Tractarian notational system. If the unusual Tractarian view -- every variable can be conceived as a propositional variable -- is taken full account of, we find out, that the "Tractatus" system is well suited to deal even with the problematic cases of mixed quantifiers with many-place predicates. By expanding the view of variables as certain two-dimensional lists of propositions we find adequate representations of formulas like (x)(∃y)fxy in the logic of the "Tractatus". Surprisingly we don't need anything which corresponds to formulas with two or more free variables like fxy, and still get the full power of ordinary quantificational logic.