Q. Somewhere I picked up the “fact” that the numbering system used in the Chicago Manual of Style was modeled after that of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Is this “fact” a fact or have I slipped a cog? Is it mentioned in the CMOS?
A. Holy metaphysics—we aren’t that fancy. CMOS simply numbers each paragraph, starting over in each chapter; section 7.88 is the eighty-eighth paragraph of chapter 7. Wittgenstein’s system provides a complex nesting of his statements about his seven propositions. In the Tractatus, proposition 6 is elaborated in section 6.1, which is further elaborated in 6.11, and even further in 6.111. Thus you can read across levels for surface understanding, or down into them for greater detail.