In the UK, at least, he's generally considered one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century. The quote I made was "from memory", and probably a very rough translation/interpretation. You can find more explanation here:Mr Man wrote: I have no idea who Wittgenstein is...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wit ... _Tractatus
The key point I was trying to make was that language has an underlying logical structure that, "provides the limits of what can be said meaningfully, and therefore the limits of what can be thought. The limits of language, for Wittgenstein, are the limits of philosophy. Much of philosophy involves attempts to say the unsayable: "what we can say at all can be said clearly", he argues. Anything beyond that—religion, ethics, aesthetics, the mystical—cannot be discussed. They are not in themselves nonsensical, but any statement about them must be."
This view is central to my world view, so Thanissaro is committing a big-no-no in my world view.... he's speaking of something mystical, "unconditioned consciousness". For me this is big enough to call into question the entire Buddhist project, as Thanissaro is a major translator of the original canon. But I quite like meditating, when I can drum up the motivation, and I like many of the principles, so I don't want to dismiss Buddhism entirely without exploring it some more. Bodhi entirely avoids speaking of 'unconditioned consciousness' in the translation of the canonical passage I have looked at, which makes him compatible with my world view. So there's still a chance of finding a 'kind of' of 'primitive' Buddhism which agrees with my world view.
Thanissaro *might* be coming from a tradition where they know how to fix the car, but so might the Pope. But just as I can't believe in the Holy Ghost, I can't believe in 'unconditioned consciousness', it's committing the major sin (in my world view) of talking of that which cannot be spoken of.
I especially admire the sutta where the Buddha refuses to speak of that which cannot be spoken of! Wittgenstein in action. That's enough to keep me inquiring into the dhamma...