This chapter explores Wittgenstein’s two references to the arts in 4.014. The first is his musical example of the unity of language and the world; the second his allusion to the fairytale The Gold-Children by Brothers Grimm. The chapter argues, first, that Wittgenstein’s early notion of logic incorporates forms that for Kant belong to transcendental aesthetic, namely, space and time. Second, it spells out how this commitment motivates Wittgenstein’s musical example and why it is crucial to draw a distinction between transcendental form and empirical structures made possible by that form. Finally, the chapter argues, pace Peter Sullivan, that the unity of language and the world is guaranteed by the metaphysical subject as their common origin. If the fairytale is read as a condensed illustration of Wittgenstein’s position, then this common origin is signified by a golden fish.

This stage of the journey offers an explanation of how truth conditions and truth-value judgements can be used in understanding sentence meaning, moving on to the role of a formal metalanguage, possible worlds, and models. As ‘food for thought’, it focuses on the importance of selecting a suitable formal language, introducing some options available in the formal semantic tradition, as well as on the cognitive reality of such approaches to meaning.