Wittgenstein's Tractatus at 100 3031298624, 9783031298622

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Wittgenstein’s Tractatus at 100

Edited by

m a rt i n s t ok hof h ao ta ng

Wittgenstein’s Tractatus at 100

Martin Stokhof  •  Hao Tang Editors

Wittgenstein’s Tractatus at 100

Editors Martin Stokhof ILLC University of Amsterdam AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands

Hao Tang Department of Philosophy Tsinghua University Beijing, China

Department of Philosophy Tsinghua University Beijing, China

ISBN 978-3-031-29862-2    ISBN 978-3-031-29863-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-29863-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

Contents

1 I ntroduction  1 Martin Stokhof and Hao Tang 2 Resolution Re-examined 7 Thomas Ricketts 3 Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and the Epistemology of Logic  35 Oskari Kuusela 4 E  thics in the Tractatus: A Condition of the Possibility of Meaning? 57 Benjamin De Mesel 5 On  the Transcendental Ethics of the Tractatus 77 Sami Pihlström 6 Metaphysics  and Magic: Echoes of the Tractatus in Wittgenstein’s ‘Remarks on Frazer’101 Eli Friedlander

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7 Th  e Tractatus and the Carnapian Conception of Syntax119 Kevin M. Cahill 8 “The  Only Strictly Correct Method of Philosophy”: Logical Analysis and Anti-Metaphysical Dialectic143 Hans-Johann Glock 9 W  ittgenstein’s Tractatus in Context: Modernity and its Critique169 Dimitris Gakis 10 Th  e Tractatus and Modernism: Dialectics, Apocalypse, and Ethics191 Ben Ware A  uthor Index213 S  ubject Index217

Notes on Contributors

Kevin M. Cahill  received his PhD in 2001 from the University of Virginia. Since 2002 he has been a member of the philosophy department at the University of Bergen, Norway. For many years his research was focused almost entirely on the interpretation of Wittgenstein’s philosophy, both early and late. Much of his research for the last 10 years or so has also been focused on the philosophy of the social sciences and on philosophical anthropology. His books include The Fate of Wonder: Wittgenstein’s Critique of Metaphysics and Modernity (Columbia, 2011), Wittgenstein and Naturalism, edited with Thomas Raleigh (Routledge, 2018), and most recently Towards a Philosophical Anthropology of Culture (Routledge, 2021). Kevin Cahill is from San Francisco. Benjamin De Mesel is Assistant Professor at RIPPLE (Research in Political Philosophy and Ethics Leuven), Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven. He is the author of The Later Wittgenstein and Moral Philosophy (Springer, 2018) and co-editor, with Oskari Kuusela, of Ethics in the Wake of Wittgenstein (Routledge, 2019). He has published primarily on Wittgensteinian moral philosophy and on P.F. Strawson’s approach to moral responsibility. Eli Friedlander  teaches philosophy at Tel Aviv University. He writes on aesthetics, early analytic philosophy, and on Kant and his aftermath in nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy. Among his publications vii

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are Signs of Sense: Reading Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (2000), J.J Rousseau: An Afterlife of Words (2005), Walter Benjamin: A Philosophical Portrait (2012), and Expressions of Judgment: An Essay on Kant’s Aesthetics (2015), all published at Harvard University Press. Friedlander has recently completed a book on the idea of natural history in Walter Benjamin’s thought. Dimitris Gakis received his PhD from the Faculty of Humanities, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in 2012. From 2016 until 2018 he was a Marie Skłodowska Curie postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven, Belgium. His research interests include Wittgenstein, Marx and (post-)Marxism, (post-)modernity and (post-)modernism, metaphilosophy, and biopolitics. He has published, among others, on the political aspects of Wittgenstein’s philosophy and the connections between Wittgenstein and (post-)Marx(ism) in journals such as Constellations and Philosophy & Social Criticism. He is currently a research associate at the Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven, Belgium. Hans-Johann Glock  is Professor of Philosophy and a member of the National Centre for Competence in Research ‘Evolving Language’. He was rewarded a Humboldt Research Prize in 2015. Among his books are A Wittgenstein Dictionary (Blackwell 1996), What is Analytic Philosophy? (Cambridge University Press 2008), and A Companion to Wittgenstein (Wiley 2017, co-edited with John Hyman). He has also published in leading international journals on topics in the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of animal minds, and the history of analytic philosophy. A collection of some of his essays on Wittgenstein is due to be published by Anthem under the title Normativity, Meaning and Philosophy. Oskari Kuusela  is an Associate Professor in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia. He is the author of The Struggle against Dogmatism (Harvard UP 2008) and Wittgenstein on Logic as the Method of Philosophy (Oxford UP 2019), Wittgenstein on Logic and Philosophical Method (Cambridge UP 2022), and the co-editor of Wittgenstein and His Interpreters (Blackwell 2007), the Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein (Oxford UP 2011), Wittgenstein and Phenomenology (Routledge 2018), and Ethics in the Wake of Wittgenstein (Routledge 2019).

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Sami Pihlström  is Professor of Philosophy of Religion at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He is also, among other things, the President of the Philosophical Society of Finland. He has published widely on, for example, pragmatism, ethics, metaphysics, philosophy of religion, and transcendental philosophy. While he is not primarily a Wittgenstein scholar, Wittgensteinian issues frequently come up in his work on these and related topics. His recent books include Pragmatic Realism, Religious Truth, and Antitheodicy (Helsinki University Press, 2020), Why Solipsism Matters (Bloomsbury, 2020), Pragmatist Truth in the Post-Truth Age: Sincerity, Normativity, and Humanism (Cambridge University Press, 2021), and Toward a Pragmatist Philosophy of the Humanities (SUNY Press, forthcoming 2022). Thomas Ricketts  teaches at the University of Pittsburgh. He previously held faculty appointments at Northwestern University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard University. His research focusses on the development of analytic philosophy, especially on the works of Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Carnap, and Quine. His work appeared in major journals and collections. Ricketts is also co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Frege (Cambridge University Press, 2010). Martin Stokhof  is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the Universiteit van Amsterdam and Jin Yuelin Professor of Logic at Tsinghua University. He has published on various topics in formal semantics and pragmatics (questions, dynamic semantics), in philosophy of language, and on the philosophy of Wittgenstein, including a monograph on Wittgenstein’s early views on logic and ethics (World and Life as One, Stanford University Press, 2002). Hao Tang  is Professor of Philosophy at Tsinghua University. He received his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh in 2010. He works in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and philosophy of action, all with a particular reference to Wittgenstein. He has published papers on Wittgenstein (both earlier and later) and on bodily self-knowledge. Ben Ware  is the Co-Director of the Centre for Philosophy and the Visual Arts at King’s College London. He is the author of Dialectic of the

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Ladder: Wittgenstein, the ‘Tractatus’ and Modernism (Bloomsbury, 2015); Living Wrong Life Rightly: Modernism, Ethics and the Political Imagination (Palgrave, 2017); and editor of Francis Bacon: Painting, Philosophy, Psychoanalysis (Thames & Hudson, 2019). He is currently completing a new book on extinction and philosophy, which will be published next year by Verso.

1 Introduction Martin Stokhof and Hao Tang

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is one of the great landmarks of philosophy. It was first published in 1921, in German and under the title Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung. In 1922 it was published again, this time with a side-by-side English translation bearing the Latin title. That it is often referred to simply as the Tractatus testifies to its influence. To celebrate the book’s centennial publication, we organized “A Series of Centennial Lectures on the Tractatus”, which took place in the spring of 2021. A total of ten lectures were held, all online (due to the Covid-19 pandemic). The speakers later worked their lectures into papers, which are now published in this volume (except for one, which was withdrawn by the author). It is a hallmark of truly great works of philosophy that they allow, indeed require, reading and re-reading, appropriating and re-appropriating. M. Stokhof (*) ILLC/Department of Philosophy, University of Amsterdam, AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands Department of Philosophy, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Stokhof, H. Tang (eds.), Wittgenstein’s Tractatus at 100, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-29863-9_1

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Different philosophical communities engage with these works in ways that reflect their different concerns and intellectual presuppositions. An excellent example of this is the reception history of the Tractatus. The book was read as a ground-breaking contribution to the philosophy of logic; taken up as a canonical text for the budding movement of logical positivism; discarded by ordinary language philosophers as the exact opposite of what proper linguistic philosophy should look like; viewed as a contribution to substantive metaphysics; interpreted as an ingenious move to show precisely that no such contribution can be made; viewed as one of the founding texts of analytic philosophy; read as an expression of broader cultural developments: there are many ways in which the Tractatus has been read, and no doubt there will be many more in the future. The nine papers in this volume are a sample of the diverse ways in which the central concerns of the Tractatus and their continuing importance can be viewed. They deal with a number of overlapping themes (and are placed in this order): Wittgenstein’s conception of logic and its role in philosophy; the importance that he attached to ethics; the impact that the Tractatus had on further developments in philosophy; and the broader cultural and social context of modernism and modernity in which it was written, and read. Perhaps the most interesting, but certainly the most controversial, work on the Tractatus in recent decades is what is generally called the “resolute” reading of the book, which was first advanced by Cora Diamond and has now become a family of resolute readings. This way of interpreting the Tractatus is characterized by a resolute embrace of Wittgenstein’s notorious remark toward the end of the Tractatus that the book itself is nonsense. Thomas Ricketts (who is the originator of the epithet “resolute”), in his contribution to this volume, “Resolution Re-examined”, offers a particular view about how a resolute reader should conceive the logical clarification of our thoughts or propositions, which is the very aim of philosophy according to the Tractatus. To achieve this aim, Ricketts argues, the key thing we need is neither a Frege-style Begriffsschrift (or ideal language) nor an unspecific appeal to our ordinary linguistic abilities H. Tang Department of Philosophy, Tsinghua University, Beijing, The Netherlands

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(or command of a colloquial language). Rather, it is the recognition of something in the propositions of a colloquial language, namely the general propositional form. It is this that fundamentally guides the clarification of propositions of any existing colloquial language and the construction of any future Begriffsschrift. The Tractatus, on this interpretation, is designed to elicit this recognition from its reader. Logic is of course a central topic in the Tractatus and much work has been done on the precise interpretation of Wittgenstein’s logical insights and on the reconstruction of the formal logic outlined in the book. From a broader perspective, interesting questions also arise as to how to place Wittgenstein’s view on the nature of logic in the broader historical development. Oskari Kuusela’s contribution, “Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and the Epistemology of Logic,” discusses the similarities and differences between the views of Wittgenstein, Frege, Russell, and Carnap on what he calls the epistemology of logic. Kuusela argues that Wittgenstein’s conception of logic allows him to deal with the so-called logocentric predicament and that this also explains why the Tractatus is, contrary to what is often claimed, not paradoxically ‘nonsensical’. Noting Wittgenstein’s use of everyday language in the exposition of logic, he also claims that this use makes some of the criticisms levelled later by Carnap miss the point. While logic is undoubtedly central to the Tractatus, Wittgenstein also regards something else to be central to the book, namely ethics (which he identifies with aesthetics). Logic and ethics are the only things he calls “transcendental” in the Tractatus, and in an often-quoted letter (to Ludwig von Ficker) he stated that the book’s point is an ethical one. However, despite the importance Wittgenstein attaches to ethics, it is often neglected. In introductions and overviews ethics is often not even mentioned, and analyses of the role ethics plays, not only for Wittgenstein personally but also for interpreting the Tractatus, are far and few between. Two papers in this volume are directly concerned with the ethical dimension of the Tractatus. Benjamin De Mesel, in his contribution “Ethics in the Tractatus, A Condition of the Possibility of Meaning?”, explores the role of ethics in the Tractatus through a detailed investigation of the analogies between logic and ethics. The main analogy is this: while logic is concerned with the conditions of possibility of linguistic meaning, ethics pertains to what

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makes existential meaning possible, that is, to the conditions that determine meaningfulness with respect to how to lead our lives. Aligning ethics and logic in this way, De Mesel further argues, requires us to distinguish the putative normative point of the Tractatus from the meta-­ ethical considerations that are also contained in it. Sami Pihlström, in his “On the Transcendental Ethics of the Tractatus”, offers a transcendental reading of ethics in the Tractatus, which he claims is neutral between ‘resolute’ and ‘traditional’ readings. On this reading, ethics is concerned with the very possibility of taking an ethical stance, not with the defense of any particular stance. This interpretation, Pihlström argues, is borne out by textual evidence in the Tractatus itself and by remarks in Wittgenstein’s war-time Notebooks. Also related to the ethical dimension of the Tractatus, albeit more indirectly, is Eli Friedlander’s contribution, “Metaphysics as Magic: Echoes of the Tractatus in Wittgenstein’s ‘Remarks on Frazer’”. Friedlander connects certain themes in the Tractatus to Wittgenstein’s later remarks on James Frazer’s Golden Bough, concentrating in particular on the theme of significance (deep, spiritual significance). These connections are intended to bring out Wittgenstein’s later point that metaphysics, as practiced, for example, in the Tractatus, is akin to magic, in that both are distorted expressions of the spiritual. The impact of the Tractatus is another theme addressed in this volume. It is no exaggeration to say, as we did above, that the Tractatus is one of the great landmarks of philosophy. Its impact, after a period of relative obscurity, has been both wide and deep. The book, together with the works of Frege and Russell, was of seminal importance for the emerging analytic tradition that dominated Anglo-Saxon philosophy in the mid and late twentieth century and continues to be a major force today. Judging by a lot of current philosophical research, the focus on logic as a main, or even as the, tool of the philosopher has lost none of its attractiveness. One could even argue that ordinary language philosophy, based on the (mis)conception of Wittgenstein’s later work as a wholesale rejection of his earlier work, owes a lot to the Tractatus. It is also clear that the real impact of the book cannot be captured in any neat, linear fashion. Two papers in this volume deal with some of the complexities here.

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Kevin Cahill, in his chapter “The Tractatus and the Carnapian Conception of Syntax”, offers a historically informed account of the differences between the Tractatus and the Carnapian tradition in analytic philosophy that is often regarded as inspired by the Tractatus. The differences, Cahill argues, are much deeper than any surface similarity and concern fundamental issues such as the logical status of ordinary language and the very possibility of a metalogical stance. Hans-Johann Glock’s contribution, “‘The Only Strictly Correct Method of Philosophy’: Logical Analysis and Anti-metaphysical Dialectic”, is a detailed investigation of how two features of the Tractatus, namely its analysis of the preconditions for symbol representation and the conception of philosophy as consisting of ‘logical clarification’, which are unified in the Tractatus, have come apart in the subsequent development of analytic philosophy. Glock’s main claim is that ultimately these two cannot be strictly separated: he maintains, following the later Wittgenstein, that the goal of criticizing traditional metaphysics cannot be realized without the help of logico-conceptual analysis. While the Tractatus might be the purest crystal in all of philosophy, it is nonetheless situated in an earthly context. Already in the 1970s, Allan Janik and Stephen Toulmin, in their celebrated book Wittgenstein’s Vienna, drew attention to the importance of taking into account the cultural and political context of fin de siècle Vienna for reading the Tractatus. This is of course not to say that one needs to understand each and every detail of the book from that context. But it does remind us that even the great, timeless works of philosophy are written by authors in concrete historical, social, and cultural environments, and that it can be worthwhile to take them into account. Two papers in this volume focus on such contextual relationships. Dimitris Gakis, in his “Wittgenstein’s Tractatus in Context”, relates the Tractatus to two broad, climatic themes in its historical context, namely modernism and modernity. His main claim is that the Tractatus is “a modernist, immanent critique of modernity”. Gakis fleshes this out by laying out a variety of features that are characteristic of modernism and modernity and then relating them to the Tractatus. Ben Ware, in his chapter “The Tractatus and Modernism: Dialectics, Apocalypse and Ethics”, offers an alternative to the traditional analysis of

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Wittgenstein’s relation to modernism that views it primarily in terms of literary aesthetics. That requires a specifically philosophical conception of modernism, which Ware characterizes in terms of the temporal, methodological, and formal characteristics of a work. Ware argues that, specific for Wittgenstein’s modernism, not just in the Tractatus but also in his later work, is a working out of such modernism in terms of an ‘ending’, with both the negative and the positive connotations that go with that. The chapters in this volume are of course only a sample of current work in relation to the Tractatus, but we trust that they will make a valuable contribution to the continuing life of this great book.

2 Resolution Re-examined Thomas Ricketts

Study of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus has flourished as never before over the last three decades. This increased interest in early Wittgenstein is in significant measure due to the controversy sparked by Cora Diamond’s 1988 paper ‘Throwing Away the Ladder’ (Diamond 1991b). The Tractatus had been—and still is—viewed by many commentators as the articulation of an austere logical atomist metaphysics accompanied by an account of how language and thinking must be constituted in order to represent a logical atomist world. Notoriously, in the penultimate remark of the book, 6.54, Wittgenstein says that the reader who understands him recognizes the sentences1 of the book setting all this forth to be nonsensical. The sentences of the book must then be a special sort of nonsense, nonsense capable of conveying what turns out to an ineffable account of reality and representation. Diamond’s paper forthrightly rejected this approach, insisting that in the end, the body of the book is to be recognized to be plain, Jabberwocky-style nonsense that, as

T. Ricketts (*) University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Stokhof, H. Tang (eds.), Wittgenstein’s Tractatus at 100, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-29863-9_2

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such, communicates no philosophical theory. Diamond thus appeared to many to deprive the Tractatus of any philosophical point. I originally called Diamond’s approach a resolute approach to the Tractatus, for the way that she takes the word ‘nonsensical’ at face value.2 Philosophers still tend, I believe, to view resolute interpretations to be distinguished by what they deny about the book rather than by any positive interpretation they present. I think this is wrong. Some resolute approaches have been sufficiently developed that we have a good idea of the shape of a resolute interpretation with considerable positive content. I have in mind here the work of James Conant, Michael Kremer, Oskari Kuusela, and above all Diamond herself. Although these interpreters do not agree on all points, I hold them to have presented largely convergent interpretations of the Tractatus. I want here to depict what the Tractatus as a whole looks like from the perspective of their interpretive work.3 I will then, from a sympathetic perspective, consider two challenges the approach faces. For the remainder of this essay, I restrict the word ‘resolute’ to Tractatus interpretations like the ones advanced by the philosophers just mentioned.4

1 The Emergence of Resolution To begin, it will be useful to consider in a bit more detail the sort of Tractatus interpretation against which Diamond was reacting when she introduced the resolute approach. I call such interpretations ontology-­ oriented interpretations.5 I take David Pears, Peter Hacker, Max Black, and Norman Malcolm to be its classic exponents. The logical atomism of ontology-oriented interpretations is a metaphysics of possibility. The facts constituting reality are determined by combinations of simple objects into states of things. Intrinsic to a simple object are its possibilities to be related to other simple objects to constitute states of things. These possibilities are independent of thought and language. The world is the totality of the possibilities which are realized. Tractarian names are correlated with the simple objects and absorb from them their possibilities of combination into elementary sentences. An elementary sentence presents that possible state of things whose

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obtaining would be a matter of the objects of the state of things being related to each other as their names are in the sentence. The correlation between Tractarian names and simple objects thus is the crucial semantic relation between language and reality that constitutes sentences as true or false. Other sentences are truth-functions of elementary ones, which with the exception of tautologies and contradictions are either true or false and both possibly true and possibly false. The Tractatus calls these significant sentences (sentences with sense [sinnvoller Satz]).6 Any apparently factual sentence that is neither significant nor a tautology nor a contradiction is nonsense. This includes any that purport to state substantive necessary truths, for instance the sentence ‘A is a simple object,’ where ‘A’ is a Tractarian name of a simple object. This view of the Tractatus is problematic on its face. Neither the sentences articulating the logical atomist metaphysics nor those presenting the accompanying account of representation put forward contingent factual truths. If true, they are non-tautological necessary truths. The view of sentences the Tractatus presents, applied to its sentences articulating the logical atomist metaphysics and the accompanying account of representation, classifies those sentences as nonsense. The philosophy of the Tractatus is in this way self-undermining so that it apparently presents no stable philosophical view. The kind of ontology-oriented approach I have in mind makes use of the book’s distinction between saying and showing to alleviate the book’s incoherence. There are two ways in which significant sentences express what they do: they say things and they also show things. Showing and saying are mutually exclusive. There is no significant sentence that says that A is an object. That A is an object is, however, shown in the logical syntactic use of the symbol ‘A’ in significant sentences. The sentences of the Tractatus that the reader is to recognize as nonsense are abortive attempts to say, or to extrapolate from, what sentences show. They fail, but by falling into nonsense, they manage to call attention to the ineffable truths that are shown. I noted the explanatory primacy that the ontology-oriented approach places on the correlation of Tractarian names with simple objects. At 3.3, the Tractatus lays down a context principle for these names:

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Only sentences have sense; only in the context of a sentence does a name have meaning.7

Nevertheless, the ontology-oriented approach must posit a preliminary use of names outside of sentences in correlating them with simple objects to suit them for use in sentences. Several philosophers objected that this preliminary use of names is incompatible with the context principle. 8 Diamond agrees with this objection, but in ‘Throwing Away the Ladder,’ she invokes the context principle to mount a different and more pointed objection. To understand it, let’s consider more closely how the say-show distinction can be used to alleviate the self-undermining incoherence of the Tractatus just noted. Logical form is what any significant sentence must have in common with reality to portray it, truly or falsely. 4.12 tells us that, although sentences can represent [darstellen] all of reality, they cannot represent logical form. 4.1211 gives examples: Thus a sentence ‘fa’ shows that in its sense the object a occurs, two sentences ‘fa’ and ‘ga’ that they are both about the same object.

For Wittgenstein, the concept object is not a real concept, an external concept, under which an object may or may not fall. It is a formal concept. Hence, the real sign for the formal concept is a variable whose values are the totality of objects. 4.1272 says: So wherever the word ‘object’ (‘thing’, ‘entity’) is rightly used [in colloquial language], it is expressed in begriffsschrift [logical notation] by the variable name.… Wherever it is used otherwise, i.e., as a real concept-word, there arise nonsensical pseudo-sentences.

To understand this last point, consider the sentence ‘An object fell.’ This factual sentence goes over into begriffsschrift as ‘(∃x)(x fell)’. In contrast, ‘A book fell’ goes over into ‘(∃x)(x is a book & x fell)’. The

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difference between these translations illustrates what it is to use ‘object’ sensibly in ‘An object fell’ to signify a formal concept, not a real concept, as ‘book’ and ‘fell’ do in the second sentence. This use of ‘object’ in a sentence that is as regards surface grammar parallel to one in which ‘book’ is used as a predicate may seduce us to use ‘object’ in the sentence ‘A is an object,’ in the attempt to say what ‘A fell’ shows, namely, A’s being an object. The interpreter Diamond opposes maintains that the word ‘object’ in its use to signify a formal concept does not semantically fit into the position of a real predicate introduced by the copula ‘is.’ This semantic clash deprives ‘A is an object’ of sense. To talk here of a semantic clash presupposes that the word ‘object’ occurs with the same significance in both ‘An object fell’ and in ‘A is an object.’9 Precisely because ‘object’ occurs in this sentence with the same meaning it has in ‘An object fell,’ the use of ‘A is an object’ in the right dialectical setting can convey something unsayable. The person who in such a setting has grasped what the use of ‘A’ shows in sentences like ‘A fell,’ can then throw way the nonsensical sentence while holding on to the unsayable feature of A toward which the use of the nonsensical sentence gestures. Diamond argues that the context principle rules out semantic anomaly, for it is only within a significant sentence that a name or expression occurs with its particular sense-characterizing meaning, citing 5.473 in defense of her view: Logic must take care of itself. A possible sign must also be able to signify.… (‘Socrates is identical’ means nothing because there is no property which is called ‘identical’. The sentence is nonsensical because we have not made some arbitrary determination, not because the symbol is in itself impermissible.)

On Diamond’s view then, all nonsense is plain nonsense. ‘A is an object’ is nonsense, because in it the word ‘object’ has been given no adjectival meaning. It is nonsense in the same way as ‘The slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe’ is. And plain nonsense does not gesture toward anything. This austere view of nonsense is the first characteristic of resolute interpretations.10

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2 Clarification and the Prospects for a Begriffsschrift At the opening of ‘Throwing Away the Ladder’ Diamond observes that over his entire career, Wittgenstein held that philosophy is not a matter of propounding and defending theses. The second sentence of Wittgenstein’s foreword denies that the Tractatus is a textbook. 4.111 states that philosophy is not a natural science. 4.112 then remarks: The object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a theory [Lehre] but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations. The result of philosophy is not a number of ‘philosophical sentences’, but to make sentences clear [sondern das Klarwerden von Sätzen]. ….

Here we have a second characteristic of resolute interpretations: philosophy, properly speaking, is an activity; the Tractatus does not aim to set forth a philosophical theory. In particular, if the Tractatus propounds no theory, then it propounds no theory of the sentence that implies that the sentences of that very theory are themselves nonsensical. Hence, applications of the word ‘nonsensical’ are not grounded in a Tractarian account of sense. The use of the term in the Tractatus is continuous with its use in everyday life, when, using the general logical linguistic abilities everyone has, a person pronounces someone’s utterance to be nonsense on the ground that she has found no way to make sense of it. This means that applications of ‘nonsensical’ must be made piecemeal, on a case-by-­ case basis.11 We now have to consider how the Tractatus conceives of clarification, the means it offers for clarifying sentences, and the ends that clarification is to serve. The 3.32s offer some guidance here.

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Symbols are those parts of sentences that characterize their sense. 3.32 distinguishes signs and symbols: ‘A sign is what can be sensibly perceived of a symbol.’ It is the phonological, orthographic, or typographic appearance of a symbol. Two different symbols may present the same perceptible appearance. For example, ‘bank’ is the sign both of a symbol signifying a kind of financial institution and of one signifying the land bordering a river.12 3.323 observes: In everyday language it very often happens that the same word signifies in two different ways—and therefore belongs to different symbols—or that two words, which signify in different ways, are superficially applied in the same way.

He proceeds to present several examples of these two kinds of equivocation. To illustrate the first kind of ambiguity, Wittgenstein notes that ‘is’ is sometimes used as a copula (‘Socrates is wise’), sometimes as the identity sign (‘Sir Walter Scott is the author of Waverly’), and sometimes as an expression of existence (‘There is a student living in the apartment over mine’). For an example of the second kind of ambiguity, Wittgenstein offers ‘exists’ and ‘goes.’ While these are, grammatically speaking, both intransitive verbs, they signify in very different ways. 3.324 asserts that ambiguities surrounding the sign-symbol distinction give rise ‘to the most fundamental confusions (of which the whole of philosophy is full).’ 3.325 advises that to avoid errors arising from these confusions, we must use a notation [Zeichensprache] governed by ‘logical grammar’ that blocks them. Wittgenstein indicates what he has in mind in a final parenthetical remark: ‘The begriffsschrift13 of Frege and Russell is such a language, which, however, does still not exclude all mistakes.’ The general idea here is this. Equivocation both in the use of individual signs and equivocation in the surface grammar of sentences leads us into confusion. This confusion can manifest itself in attempts to express ourselves by use of nonsensical sentences—sentences containing signs that have been given no meaning in that sentential context. The earlier discussion of ‘A is an object’ included an example of this sort of critique. That case also illustrates the utility of a begriffsschrift in recognizing confusion here. Once we recognize ‘(∃x)(x fell)’ to say what ‘An object

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fell’ says, the difference between the way that ‘object’ signifies in ‘An object fell,’ and the way ‘book’ signifies in ‘A book fell’ becomes evident. Use of a begriffsschrift is to enable us to give full, unequivocal expression to the senses of significant colloquial sentences. This is the clarifying activity of philosophy14. The begriffsschrift will provide no paraphrase for some apparently significant sentences. The absence of a begriffsschrift paraphrase of such a sentence should prompt a closer examination to look for signs that have not been given a use in that linguistic context comparable to the uses they have in other linguistic contexts. I take this use of a begriffsschrift to exemplify ‘the correct method of philosophy’ discussed in 6.53.15 So far as I have gone, this program for clarification is unpersuasively thin. The Tractatus provides no begriffsschrift. It provides no guidelines for evaluating whether a proposed ‘sign-language’ is governed by logical grammar. What the Tractatus does provide is the general sentence-form: sentences are truth-functions of independent elementary sentences— they are the result of iterated application of the N-operator (generalized joint denial) to elementary sentences. Is the general sentence-form sufficient to give substance to the Tractarian program of clarification? On the face of matters, it does not. First, the general sentence-form is too unspecific. At each stage in the construction of a sentence, there are two steps. The first step is the specification of a group of sentences in terms of previously constructed sentences. The second step is the application of the N-operator to this group. It is the first step that is egregiously formally underspecified. Perhaps though Wittgenstein’s formal inexplicitness in describing the means for construction of sentences from elementary sentences doesn’t matter for understanding the Tractarian view of how clarification is achieved. After all, as Göran Sundholm remarked, ‘The author of the Tractatus… constitutes the finest example of a philosopher whose technical, formal capacities do not reach the outstanding level of his logico-philosophical thinking.’16 So, let’s put these concerns to one side. There are more serious problems facing the resolute interpreter. On the view of clarification we are considering, the activity of making sentences clear centrally involves paraphrasing them by begriffsschrift sentences that make explicit what truth-function of which elementary

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sentences paraphrases a given colloquial sentence. Wittgenstein, however, studiously refrains from saying anything specific about the forms of Tractarian names and the forms of elementary sentences. So, to have a credible interpretation, resolute interpreters need to say something about how the activity of analysis reaches elementary sentences17 To this end, I proposed an account of Tractarian analysis in ‘Analysis, Independence, Simplicity, and the General Sentence-form.’18 Wittgenstein’s views on analysis are illuminated by the one example he presents of Tractarian analysis that goes down to the level of elementary sentences. I have in mind a discussion from Wittgenstein’s 1929 paper, ‘Some Remarks on Logical Form:’ One might think—and I thought so not long ago—that a statement expressing the degree of a quality could be analyzed into a logical product of simple statements of quantity and a supplementing statement. As I could describe the contents of my pocket by saying ‘It contains a penny, a shilling, two keys, and nothing else.’ This ‘and nothing else.’ is the supplementary statement which completes the description.19

Wittgenstein goes on to consider statements assigning degrees of brightness to possibly luminous items in terms of objects he calls brightness units. To fix ideas, suppose there are five degrees of brightness, and so five brightness units. A possibly luminous item may have none, some, or all five of the brightness units. Any statement assigning a particular brightness unit to an item is independent of statements assigning any other brightness unit to the thing. The statement that item A has exactly 3 degrees of brightness can now be paraphrased by the familiar quantificational paraphrase of ‘There are exactly three different brightness units that A has.’ On this analysis, any statement assigning A any degree of brightness quantificationally contradicts the statement assigning A any other degree of brightness.20 The brightness-units Wittgenstein discusses are unfamiliar items. The only ground for introducing them is to analyze ascriptions of degrees of brightness as truth-functions of independent elementary sentences. I hold that Wittgenstein takes this attitude toward Tractarian objects generally. Analysis is guided only by the implications and contradictions

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manifest among colloquial significant sentences, and it has available only the resources of the general sentence-form to capture or otherwise accommodate these apparent logical relationships. At the level of elementary sentences, these resources are the interlocking differences among forms of objects/Tractarian names on the one hand, and forms of states of things/elementary sentences, on the other. Finally, within a form of object, there is the number of objects of that form. We should not then expect the vocabulary of elementary sentences to be familiar vocabulary. Rather, our understanding of elementary sentences is exhausted in our understanding how the identification of colloquial sentences with particular truth-functions of elementary sentences represents logical relationships manifest among colloquial sentences. So, we have no grasp on what the different forms of objects are, except via the interlocking contrasts among those forms that give different forms of elementary sentences different roles in representing manifest logical relationships. The same holds for our grasp on the multiplicity of objects within a form. As a result, forms and objects cannot be known individually, but only collectively, as features of a system: If objects are given, then with them all objects are given. If elementary propositions are given, then with them all elementary sentences are given. (5.524)

I take 5.557 to support this view of analysis: The application of logic decides what elementary sentences there are. What lies in its application, logic cannot anticipate. It is clear that logic may not conflict with its application. But logic must have contact with its application. Therefore logic and its application may not overlap one another.

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If I cannot give elementary sentences a priori then it must lead to obvious nonsense to try to give them.

Here the application of logic is analysis, and logic is what is fixed by the general sentence form. The general sentence-form, in contrast to the forms of elementary sentences, does not emerge within the activity of clarification. It is available in advance of this activity to guide it, because what drives analysis is the representation of logical relationships among colloquial significant sentences in terms of truth-functions of independent elementary sentences. Without the general sentence-form, we simply have no idea how to begin to go about constructing a begriffsschrift. Furthermore, the general sentence-form is the only thing available in advance of the activity of analysis: One could say: the one logical constant is what which all sentences, according to their nature, have in common with one another. That however is the general sentence-form. (5.47d-e) The general sentence form is the essence [Wesen] of sentences. (5.471)

This view of analysis fits with a 1931 remark recorded by Waismann: There is another mistake, which … also pervades my whole book, and that is that there are questions the answer to which will be found at a later date.… Thus I used to believe, for example, that it is the task of logical analysis to discover the elementary propositions.… Yet I did think that the elementary propositions could be specified at a later date. … The wrong conception I want to object to in this connection is the following, that we can hit upon something that we today cannot yet see, that we can discover something wholly new.21

Note, however, the construction of a Tractarian begriffsschrift will be an arduous undertaking, especially considering its holistic character. I believe that 1919 Wittgenstein thought such construction to be a difficult, but humanly feasible, enterprise.22 The preceding 1931 quotation indicates as much. Still, he must have anticipated that it would

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be some time before a Tractarian begriffsschrift would be available for clarificatory use.

3 The General Sentence-Form The resolute interpreter does not throw away the general sentence-form in recognizing Wittgenstein’s sentences to be nonsensical. Diamond says: The metaphysics of the Tractatus—metaphysics not ironical and not cancelled—is in the requirements which are internal to the character of language as language, in their being a general form of sentence, in all sentences having this form.23

Conant and Diamond say: Resolute readers hold that [1919] Wittgenstein … did not take the procedure of clarification … to depend on anything more than the logical capacities that are part of speaking and thinking. …The activity of clarification did not, as he conceived of it, depend on doctrines about the nature of language. The activity of truth-functional analysis was taken by him not to depend on any theory of language put forward in the book; similarly with the use of translation into a ‘concept-script’ in which logical equivocation was impossible.24

The general sentence-form is both specific and unintuitive in its demand that every significant sentence be a truth-function of independent elementary sentences. On an irresolute interpretation of the Tractatus there is no problem here, since the general sentence-form is built into the account of sentences that the book advances. Resolute interpreters reject any such account. But they must offer something in its place. It is not enough at this juncture simply to appeal to general logical and linguistic abilities without saying something about how they lead to the general form. Nor is it sufficient to note that Wittgenstein later takes the idea that every significant sentence is a truth-function of elementary sentences to be a dogmatic assumption.25 If 1919 Wittgenstein did not view this

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idea as a philosophical thesis, how did he then view the general sentence-­ form? Let me frame the question another way. After throwing away the ladder, Wittgenstein’s understanding reader retains the general sentence-­ form and may use it in devising a begriffsschrift. How does the Tractatus, on a resolute interpretation, lead the understanding reader to acknowledge the general sentence-form?26 To begin, I want to put issues surrounding resolution to one side and to review some attractive features of the view of sentences and logic contained in the Tractatus which motivate acknowledgment of the general sentence-form. Early Russell takes truth and falsity to be indefinable properties of non-linguistic and non-mental propositions toward which minds may take up various propositional attitudes. By the time Wittgenstein arrives in Cambridge in 1911, Russell has abandoned his earlier view in favor of a multiple relation theory of judgment and seeks to characterize the truth of a judgment in terms of a correspondence between judgments, themselves facts, and other facts. His failure to work out a satisfactory account of this correspondence spurs Wittgenstein to do better. The result is Wittgenstein’s view of sentences as pictures. Wittgenstein first compares sentences and pictures in his September 29, 1914, notebook entry: The general concept of a sentence brings with it a quite general concept of the co-ordination of sentence and situation [Sachverhalt]: the solution to all my questions must be extremely simple. In a sentence a world is put together experimentally. (As when in the law-­ court in Paris a traffic accident is represented with dolls, etc.) This must yield the nature [Wesen] of truth straightway (if I were not blind).27

Let’s consider Wittgenstein’s well-known example. In the courtroom there is a board with two pairs of lines representing a particular Parisian intersection. Each of the four cars present in the intersection at the time of a collision is correlated with a wooden block. By arranging the four

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blocks on the board, witnesses and lawyers truly or falsely represent the relative spatial positions of the four cars in the moments leading up to the accident. What makes this a transparent case of a representation of something’s being the case? Wittgenstein writes in the December 25, 1914, notebook entry: The possibility of the sentence is, of course, based on the principle of signs GOING PROXY for [vertreten] objects. Thus in the sentence something has something else as its proxy. But there is also the common cement.28

There is the correlation of blocks and cars. The common cement is the shared possibilities of spatial arrangement of the blocks on the board and the cars in the intersection. Given a correlation of the individual blocks with the individual cars, any possible arrangement of the blocks matches a unique possible arrangement of the cars, and vice versa. So, we can take possible arrangements of the blocks to present, to model, the same possible arrangements of the cars. The sharing of possibilities makes it intrinsic to an actual arrangement of the blocks that it presents a possible arrangement of the cars. The model in this way contains the possibility of the situation it represents. Moreover, a model is true if the arrangement of blocks in the model matches the arrangement of the corresponding cars, and false otherwise. Thus, truth and falsity are intrinsic to the model. Finally, as the blocks and the cars are distinct, the arrangement of the blocks in a model is independent of the actual arrangement of the cars. In these ways, picturing makes intelligible how the courtroom model has the features of a significant sentence. So, Wittgenstein generalizes the pictorial character of the courtroom model to sentences, with logical form taking over the role of the common cement. Wittgenstein’s interest in truth and representation arises from his interest in logic. In his second letter to Russell (June 22, 1911), he writes: ‘Logic must turn out to be a TOTALLY different kind than any other

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science,’ and he subsequently seeks to understand this total difference (See 6.13.). As pictures, significant sentences represent possible situations in a single logical space. Each sentence is logically related to every other, if only by the relation of independence. Compound sentences are built up from elementary sentences by use of logical constants. Immediately following the remark from the December 25, 1914, notebook entry quoted two paragraphs back, Wittgenstein propounds his Grundgedanke: My fundamental thought is that logical constants are not proxies [nicht vertreten]. That the logic of facts cannot have anything as its proxy.29

He made much the same point in ‘Notes on Logic’: Molecular propositions contain nothing beyond what is contained in their atoms; they add no material information above that contained in their atoms.30

All the symbols that go proxy for anything in a sentence occur in its elementary components. Elementary sentences are the minimal units of sense, each of which is a picture presenting the holding of a state of things (see 4.0311 and 4.21).31 Sentences generally are expressions of agreement and disagreement with the truth-possibilities of elementary sentences from which they are constructed—they are truth-functions of elementary sentences (4.4).32 There are two extreme cases of truth-functions. The first are tautologies that agree with every truth-possibility. The second are contradictions that disagree with every truth-possibility. Making no discriminations among the possibilities, Wittgenstein calls them both senseless [sinnlos]. We can now appreciate how Wittgenstein views the consequence relation over significant sentences. The truth-possibilities of elementary sentences with which a sentence agrees are its truth-grounds (5.101). The truth of a sentence A follows from the truth of a sentence B just case all the truth-grounds of B are also truth-grounds of A (5.11-5.12). A’s following from B is thus intrinsic to the sense of these significant sentences and so must be reflected in any expression of these senses (3.341). 5.13

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says, ‘That the truth of one sentence follows from the truth of other sentences is something we see from the structure of the sentences.’33 The closest we can come to setting forth this consequence relation is by the tautology ‘If B then A’ (see 6.1201). In this way, logic is internal to language and its use to say what is the case. There is no domain of logical facts; there are no sentences of logic apart from tautologies (6.1). The general sentence-form is the distillate of the story of sentences and logic I have just sketched,34 a story extractable from the Tractatus. As his retrospective remarks on the Tractatus in Philosophical Investigations §§89-107 indicate, Wittgenstein takes himself to have come to see the general form in the sentences of his language, if he looks beneath appearances into the matter itself.35 §97 tells us that logic is the essence of thinking which … presents an order: namely the a priori order of the world; that is, the order of possibilities, which the world and thinking must have in common. But this order, it seems, must be utterly simple. It is prior to all experience, must run through all experience; no empirical cloudiness or uncertainty may attach to it. —It must rather be of the purest crystal.

§102 says: The strict and clear rules for the logical construction of sentences appear to us as something in the background—hidden in the medium of understanding. I already see them (even though through a medium), for I do understand the sign, I mean something by it.

§103 stands back, commenting: The ideal, as we conceive of it, is unshakable. You can’t step outside it. You must always turn back. … How come? The idea is like a pair of glasses on our nose through which we see whatever we look at. It never occurs to us to take them off.

§107 adds: ‘For the crystalline purity of logic was, of course, not something I had discovered: it was a requirement.’ Retrospectively viewed, the

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Tractatus was designed to outfit its readers with the glasses and to get them to impose the requirement. My suggestion is then that Wittgenstein intends a more elaborate version of the story I sketched to lead the understanding reader of the Tractatus to see the general sentence-form in the sentences of her own language.36 I call this seeing the recognition of the general sentence-form as such, and think of it as a sort of aspect-shift. It might be objected that recognition of the general sentence-form as such is a matter of the acceptance of a philosophical thesis. After all, Tractatus 6, after displaying the general-sentence-form, comments: ‘This [the variable given above] is the general form of sentences.’ Diamond maintains that the word ‘sentences’ is problematic in this context.37 On the surface, the word is being used here as a predicate to circumscribe a group of things. Indeed, ‘sentence’ is frequently used colloquially and unproblematically as a predicate, for example, in the sentence ‘There are twenty-two sentences on this page.’ Diamond urges, however, that in the context of logical discussions, sentence is a formal concept. It is signified in a begriffsschrift by a variable whose values are all sentences; that variable is the general sentence-form. She argues that some colloquial sentences employ such a variable, for example: ‘Everything (every sentence) Trump said at his rally is false.’ In their begriffsschrift paraphrases, the word ‘sentence’ will be supplanted by the form-series variable that Tractatus 6 identifies to be the general sentence-form.38 There is no way to use the variable signifying the formal concept sentence to identify the values of that variable as sentences. No straightforward predicative use of ‘sentence’ can do so either. Nevertheless, use of ‘sentence’ as an apparent predicate pervades the story that elicits recognition of the general sentence-form as such. Diamond sees Wittgenstein as employing an elucidatory strategy like Frege employs for the distinction between objects and concepts. The discussion of sentences and logic designed to lead us to the general sentence-form uses ‘sentence’ as a predicate and treats generalizations over sentences as familiar quantificational generalizations. Part of recognizing the general sentence-form as such is to see that there is no use of the general sentence-form as a variable to supplant the use of the word ‘sentence’ in this discussion so that the word ‘sentence’ has been given no meaning in it. Understanding the variable which is the general-form and

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its use in paraphrasing colloquial sentences gives the understanding reader the essence of sentences, so to speak, and enables her happily to discard these discussions as confused nonsense without any lingering sense of something left unsaid or unsayable.39 I thus maintain that grappling with a story which turns out to be nonsensical leads the understanding reader to recognize the general sentenceform as such, and that this recognition survives that reader’s realization that the story is nonsense. There is nothing here that is ipso facto incompatible with a resolute reading. As Diamond explains: My point then is that the Tractatus, in its understanding of itself as addressed to those who are in the grip of philosophical nonsense, and in its understanding of the kind of demands it makes on its readers, supposes a kind of imaginative activity, an exercise of the capacity to enter into the taking of nonsense for sense, of the capacity to share imaginatively the inclination to think that one is thinking something in it.40

In the present case, there are two factors that enable the understanding reader to hold on to the general sentence-form after realizing the story that elicited its recognition as such to be nonsensical. The first factor is brought out by Diamond’s remarks about the story’s use of ‘sentence.’ The attempt to make sense of this story in light of the logical distinctions the Tractatus instills reveals the story’s generalizations to be spurious. Logic provides no generality that operates at that abstract level—there is no such abstract level. Here there is, however, a lacuna to be filled. Diamond’s discussion of the use of ‘sentence’ in elucidations of the general sentence-form relies on the distinction between external and formal properties. Moreover, I too have mentioned logical distinctions that the Tractatus has conveyed. Diamond’s discussion and mine both raise the question of the role of the say-show distinction in the dialectic that each finds in the Tractatus. Most commentators in explaining this distinction contrast what sentences say with what they show, using in both cases clauses of indirect discourse. The Tractatus itself in places presents the say-show distinction in this way. (For example, see 4.1211 and 4.1212.) Any resolute understanding of saying and showing will have to be non-contrastive: there are not two species of content, sayable

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content and the ineffable content that can only be shown, as ontology-­ oriented interpretations maintain. I know of two non-contrastive interpretations of the say-show distinction, Michael Kremer’s and Jean-­ Philippe Narboux’s.41 I will not here discuss how either of these might be pressed into service to fill this lacuna. The second factor appears in reflection on the collapse of the Tractatus story about sentences into nonsense. I think that reflecting on this collapse led Wittgenstein, and should lead his understanding reader, to appreciate that the urge to tell the story is yet a further abortive attempt to take care of logic. The understanding reader’s recognition of the general sentence-form in the sentences of her language reveals how logic is already present in colloquial language as it is. In this way recognition of the general sentence-form as such releases the understanding reader from the compulsion to tell the story.42 I thus take my account of the recognition of the general sentence-form as such to be compatible with a resolute interpretation. I suspect that any resolute reading that holds on to the general sentence-form will have to say something similar here. In the foreword to the Tractatus, Wittgenstein declares that his book definitively solves the problems of philosophy in their essentials. The resolute interpreter takes the Tractatus to do this by presenting a method for clarifying sentences, a method requiring use of a begriffsschrift. Now there is nothing in the Tractatus suggesting that Wittgenstein’s understanding reader must have a begriffsschrift in hand in order to throw away the ladder and see the world correctly. It then can look as if the understanding reader should devote herself to the activity of clarification by constructing and using a begriffsschrift to analyze the sentences of colloquial language to consummate the solution of the problems of philosophy. I doubt that 1919 Wittgenstein viewed his book in this way. I do not think that Wittgenstein thought engaging in an activity of clarification involving a fully developed begriffsschrift would or should be a priority for the understanding reader any more than it was a priority for him after completing the book. Wittgenstein saw no pressing need for actual clarifications of the sort a begriffsschrift offers. First, 5.5563 tells us, ‘All the sentences of our colloquial language are actually, just as they are, logically completely in order.’ Second, I earlier noted how use of a

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begriffsschrift to expose philosophical nonsense would exhibit the correct method of philosophy. 6.53 presents the correct method using contrary-­ to-­fact conditionals, indicating that Wittgenstein did not foresee the actual use of this method.43 Third, while 1919 Wittgenstein thinks that philosophical problems arise through our misunderstanding of the logic of our language, those misunderstandings are mainly the product of equivocations like those mentioned in the 3.32s, equivocations arising from the enormous complexity of colloquial language. There is no suggestion in early Wittgenstein that posing philosophical problems is endemic to the use of colloquial language. Wittgenstein thought that in uncovering the general sentence-form, he had in essentials solved the problems of philosophy.44 First, it is the recognition of the general sentence-form that gives Wittgenstein the method of clarification resolute readers find in the Tractatus. It also grounds the understanding reader’s confidence in the scope and adequacy of the method to solve the individual problems of philosophy. However, I think that Wittgenstein presents the use of a completed begriffsschrift to clarify sentences as an ideal that establishes standards for the complete clarity and perspicuity in the expression of thoughts which Wittgenstein believed to be possible. Second, for early Wittgenstein, a principal goad to philosophy is the desire to take care of logic. He saw this in himself and his teachers, Russell and Frege. As I urged above, recognition of the general sentence-form as such and the orientation toward logic it brings with it saps this desire. Perhaps, there is a third way in which the general sentence-form deals with the problems of philosophy. The general sentence-form is not the form of all sentences. It is, as its presentation at 4.5 indicates, the form of sentences that say how things stand. As Diamond has noted, the Tractatus recognizes that there are sentences that have a use in language, just not this use.45 Recognizing that a sentence does not have a use to say how things stand does not exclude finding it to have some other use in language, perhaps one easily confused with saying how things stand.46 I assume that putative philosophical theses are put forward as substantive necessary truths. It is, however, important to their advocates that their theses say how things stand, that saying how things necessarily stand be a species of saying how things stand so that their theses are true or false

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just as contingent factual claims are. No such advocate would acknowledge any sentence used some other way as a formulation of her thesis. Furthermore, no such advocate would acknowledge a sentence she recognized to be a tautology to paraphrase the thesis. Finally, no such advocate would acknowledge a paraphrase she recognized to assert a contingent matter of fact. Under these circumstances, the understanding reader, having recognized the general sentence-form as such, finds that there is no sense to be made of the putative thesis as a sentence saying how things stand. The philosophical thesis, taken to be an attempt to say how things stand, may then be discarded as nonsense.47 The recognition of the general sentence-form as such is available to guide the understanding reader in the construction of a begriffsschrift. It is available to ground her confidence in the comprehensive adequacy of the method of the Tractatus to attain in principle complete clarity and perspicuity. It is available to remind her of how logic takes care of itself. I claim that in the same way, it is available, at least under some circumstances, to anticipate the result of subjecting philosophical theses to analysis.48 I see here no serious breach with a resolute interpretation.49

Notes 1. Wittgenstein’s word ‘Satz’ in the Tractatus is translated ‘proposition’ in the two leading translations. I prefer the translation ‘sentence’ to emphasize that Wittgenstein’s Sätze are linguistic items in contrast to the use of ‘proposition’ in early Russell and in contemporary philosophy of language. 2. In Diamond (1991b), 181, Diamond says that the interpretations she opposes ‘chicken out.’ I also wanted a more graceful alternative to ‘non-­ chickening out interpretation.’ 3. For a discussion of the marks and varieties of resolute interpretations, see Conant and Bronzo (2017). 4. Some other interpretations take off from ‘Throwing Away the Ladder’ in a way that makes them equally deserving of the title ‘resolute.’ My restricted use of ‘resolute’ is to save me from constantly having to qualify my uses here.

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5. In the literature my ontology-oriented interpretations are often called ‘metaphysical interpretations’ or ‘standard interpretations.’ 6. I follow the Ogden-Ramsey translation in my use of ‘significant’ to translate ‘sinnvoll.’ 7. 3.31 defines an expression or symbol as any part of a sentence that ‘characterizes its sense.’ 3.314 states the context principle for expressions. In speaking of Wittgenstein’s context principle, I mean both of these principles. 8. For example, see McGuinness (2002), 87–88. Hide Ishiguro and Peter Winch make similar objections. For Diamond’s version of the objection see Diamond (2019), 110–114. 9. This case is assimilated by Diamond’s opponent to the case of the semantically anomalous sentence ‘Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.’ To talk here of semantic anomaly assumes that ‘sleep’ here is used as it is in the sentence, ‘I always sleep eight hours at night.’ Similarly, the semantic clash between ‘ideas’ and ‘sleep’ prevents ‘sleep’ being used as the verb of a meaningful sentence whose subject is ‘ideas.’ 10. Here and later I mention central characteristics of resolute interpretations that are important for the sort of resolute interpretation I discuss. I do not present these as the defining criteria for resolute interpretations, and I do not mention other characteristics which some may take to be essential to resolute interpretations, for example, the putative distinction between the frame of the Tractatus and its elucidatory body. 11. This feature of a resolute understanding of ‘nonsense’ has been made by several commentators. For example, see Conant (2002), 423–424; Goldfarb (1997), 71; and Sullivan (2004b), 38 and 40. 12. However, the last and parenthetical sentence of 3.323 may indicate that Wittgenstein would think of ‘bank’ as an ambiguous symbol, at least if we think of ‘bank’ in both uses as signifying different things in the same way. 13. I use ‘begriffsschrift’ as Wittgenstein does, to mean a devised logical notation governed by logical grammar. In some places, including 3.325, Wittgenstein uses the word ‘Zeichensprache’ (‘sign-language’). 14. I do not intend to suggest that clarification must awaid the development of a full-fledged begriffsschrift. Kremer (2013) notes how Wittgenstein uses pieces of devised notations to bring out how some of his criticisms of Frege and Russell turn on equivocations like those mentioned in 3.323. However, it is the use of a full begriffsschrift that gives the meth-

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ods of clarification in the Tractatus the reach required to solve the problems of philosophy. 15. Here I follow Kuusela (2008), 102. 16. Sundholm (1992), 76. 17. Warren Goldfarb calls this ‘…the deep difficulty in trying to attain a resolute understanding of the Tractatus’, in Goldfarb (1997), 72. 18. The material in the rest of this section is drawn largely from §2 of Ricketts (2014). 19. Wittgenstein (1929), 167. 20. We can go on to develop a logic of brightness in logical terms. For example, we can use a disjunction of the options to define a two-place brighter than relation. From this definition, the asymmetry and transitivity of the brighter than relation quantificationally follows. The use of form-­series to stipulate the bases for a truth-operation gives this strategy for analysis broad application. In Ricketts (2014), 283–284, I argue that the ‘colorexclusion’ objection Wittgenstein goes on to make in Wittgenstein (1929) would have been dismissed by the Wittgenstein of 1919. 21. McGuinness (1979), 182. 22. See 4.002b: “It is humanly impossible to gather the logic of language immediately from [language].” (My emphasis.) I suspect that Wittgenstein was overly sanguine about the feasibility of constructing a begriffsschrift. 23. Diamond (1991a), 19. 24. Conant and Diamond (2004), 64. 25. In Conant and Diamond (2004), 82–83, Conant and Diamond usefully list a series of unwitting metaphysical commitments contained in the Tractatus. They do not address the question I am raising. For a detailed discussion of Wittgenstein’s later attitude toward the Tractatus, see Kuusela (2008), Chap. 3. 26. Kuusela raises a similar question for resolute interpretations in Kuusela (2011), 132. 27. Wittgenstein (1979a), 7. 28. Wittgenstein (1979a), 37. 29. NB 25.12.14 is incorporated verbatim into the Tractatus as 4.0312b. I have quoted the Anscombe translation of the notebook entry for the way that her use of ‘proxy’ marks how Wittgenstein here uses ‘vertreten,’ not ‘darstellen.’ 30. Wittgenstein (1979b), 100.

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31. In Ricketts (2014), §1, I argue that Wittgenstein’s intensional conception of truth-functions (agreement and disagreement with truth-­ possibilities) motivates the requirement that the elementary sentences be independent of each other. Kremer gives a different, but compatible, motivation for the independence of elementary sentences in terms of the simplicity of their component names. See Kremer (1997), §4. 32. For example, Wittgenstein’s N-operator, applied to a group of sentences, yields that truth-function which agrees only with those truth-functions of elementary sentences with which every sentence in the group disagrees. In this way the sentence a truth-operation yields is a function of the senses of the sentences to which the operation was applied (5.2341). 33. Wittgenstein acknowledges that some notations make it easier to see this from the sentences than others. See 5.1311. 34. In this paragraph and the next, I am indebted to Diamond’s discussion of Anscombe’s exposition of the picture theory and the general sentence-­ form in Diamond (2019), pp 117–118, but we make somewhat different things out of the comparison. 35. Wittgenstein uses this rhetoric in Philosophical Investigations, §92. I am indebted to Cora Diamond for bringing these remarks to bear on Tractatus interpretation. See Diamond (2011), 252. 36. I owe this idea of seeing the general sentence-form in the sentences of one’s language to Diamond. See Diamond (2011), 251, the second way to view remark 6 of the Tractatus. See also Diamond (2000), 151. I think that my views here coincide with Diamond’s. 37. See Diamond (2019), especially 137–149. 38. See Diamond (2019), 141 and Diamond (2012). The view of the general sentence-form Diamond advances in this paper is controversial. See Sullivan (2004a), to which Diamond’s paper replies. 39. See Diamond (2019), 146–147. 40. Diamond (2000), 157–58. See also 151. 41. See Kremer (2007) and (2013). ‘The Whole Meaning of a Book of Nonsense’ and ‘The Cardinal Problem of Philosophy’ in Diamond Festschrift. See Narboux (2014). ‘Showing, the Medium Voice, and the Unity of the Tractatus.’ 42. Here I’m indebted to Michael Kremer who emphasizes the importance of the theme of letting logic take care of itself in reading the Tractatus in Kremer (2013).

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43. Warren Goldfarb called my attention to the use of counterfactual conditionals in 6.53. 44. For a similar claim, see Kuusela (2008), 47–49 and 101. 45. For example, see Diamond (2011), 247. 46. See Kremer (2002). See Conant and Diamond (2004), 72–75. 47. I think Kuusela comes close to this view in Kuusela (2008), 25 and 99. Of course, the advocate of philosophical theses will not be moved by this dismissal of her putative statement, but neither will she be satisfied by the correct method of philosophy of 6.53. 48. The role I have suggested that the recognition of general sentence-form as such plays in a resolute reading brings that reading closer to the interpretation of the Tractatus presented in McGinn (2006). 49. I’m grateful to Tyke Nunez for a very useful conversation on some of the ideas of this chapter.

References Conant, James. 2002. The Method of the Tractatus. In From Frege to Wittgenstein, ed. E. Reck, 374–462. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Conant, James, and Silver Bronzo. 2017. Resolute Readings of the Tractatus. In A Companion to Wittgenstein, ed. H.-J.  Glock and J.  Hyman, 175–194. Chichester: Wiley. Conant, James, and Cora Diamond. 2004. On Reading the Tractatus Resolutely: Reply to Meredith Williams and Peter Sullivan. In Wittgenstein’s Lasting Significance, ed. M. Kölbel and B. Weiss, 49–99. London: Routledge. Diamond, Cora. 1991a. Introduction II: Wittgenstein and Metaphysics. In The Realistic Spirit, ed. C. Diamond, 13–38. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ———. 1991b [1988]. Throwing Away the Ladder. In The Realistic Spirit, ed. C. Diamond, 179–204. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ———. 2000. Ethics, Imagination and the Method of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. In The New Wittgenstein, ed. A.  Crary and R.  Read, 149–173. London: Routledge. ———. 2011. The Tractatus and the Limits of Sense. In The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein, ed. O. Kuusela and M. McGinn, 240–275. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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———. 2012. What You Can Do with the General Propositional Form. In Wittgenstein’s Early Philosophy, ed. J.L. Zalabardo, 151–194. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2019. Reading the Tractatus with G. E. M. Anscombe. In Reading Wittgenstein with Anscombe, Going on to Ethics, ed. Cora Diamond, 97–153. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Goldfarb, Warren. 1997. Metaphysics and Nonsense: On Cora Diamond’s The Realistic Spirit. Journal of Philosophical Research 22: 57–73. Kremer, Michael. 1997. Contextualism and Holism in the Early Wittgenstein: From Prototratatus to Tractatus. Philosophical Topics 25: 87–120. ———. 2002. Mathematics and Meaning in the Tractatus. Philosophical Investigations 25: 272–303. ———. 2007. The Cardinal Problem of Philosophy. In Wittgenstein and the Moral Life, ed. A. Crary, 143–176. Cambridge: MIT Press. ———. 2013. The Whole Meaning of a Book of Nonsense: Reading Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. In The Oxford Handbook of The History of Analytic Philosophy, ed. M. Beaney, 451–485. New York: Oxford University Press. Kuusela, Oskari. 2008. The Struggle Against Dogmatism: Wittgenstein and the Concept of Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 2011. The Dialectic of Interpretations: Reading Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. In Beyond the Tractatus Wars, ed. R.  Read and M.A.  Lavery, 121–148. London: Routledge. McGinn, Marie. 2006. Elucidating the Tractatus: Wittgenstein’s Early Philosophy of Logic and Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McGuinness, Brian, ed. 1979. Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle: Conversations Recorded by Friedrich Waismann. Trans. B.  McGuinness and J.  Schulte. Oxford: Blackwell. ———. 2002. The Supposed Realism of the Tractatus. In Approaches to Wittgenstein: Collected Papers, ed. B. McGuinness, 82–94. London: Routledge. Narboux, Jean-Philippe. 2014. Showing, the Medium Voice, and the Unity of the Tractatus. Philosophical Topics 42: 201–263. Ricketts, Thomas. 2014. Analysis Independence, Simplicity, and the General Sentence-Form. Philosophical Topics 42: 263–288. Sullivan, Peter. 2004a. ‘The General Propositional is a Variable’ (Tractatus 4.53). In Mind 113: 43–56. ———. 2004b. What is the Tractatus About? In Wittgenstein’s Lasting Significance, ed. M. Kölbel and B. Weiss, 32–46. London: Routledge.

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Sundholm, Göran. 1992. The General Form of the Operation in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. Grazer Philosophische Studien 42: 57–66. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1929. Remarks on Logical Form. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes 9: 162–171. ———. 1979a. In Notebooks 1914–1916, eds. G. H. von Wright and G. E. M Anscombe and Trans. G.E.M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell. ———. 1979b. Notes on Logic. In Notebooks, 1914–1916, 93–107. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

3 Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and the Epistemology of Logic Oskari Kuusela

This chapter discusses Wittgenstein’s early account of the epistemology of logic in relation to Frege, Russell, and Carnap. My goal is to explain how the key insight of Wittgenstein’s early philosophy of logic, captured in his slogan ‘logic takes care of itself ’, enables him to solve several problems that arise for Frege’s and Russell’s philosophies and epistemologies of logic. These include problems relating to the justification of logical accounts and logical consequence, as well as to the status of logic as an a priori investigation distinct from empirical psychology. More specifically, Wittgenstein’s key insight eliminates the need to appeal in the study of logic to any allegedly self-evident truths, intuitions, or substantial metaphysical knowledge regarding abstract objects. Further, his associated conception that the right way to articulate an account of logic isn’t propositions or theses, but a logical language whose design mirrors the logical structure of thought and language, puts him in a position to address what Sheffer called later ‘the logocentric predicament’, a difficulty

O. Kuusela (*) University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Stokhof, H. Tang (eds.), Wittgenstein’s Tractatus at 100, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-29863-9_3

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that arises for what are known as universalist accounts of logic, such as those of Frege, Russell, and the early Wittgenstein. In the last section I use the proposed interpretation to explain why the Tractatus doesn’t suffer from a paradox of nonsensical theses, contrary to how it has often been interpreted. I also outline how Wittgenstein’s use of colloquial language to introduce his logical language foreshadows Carnap’s method of logical syntax, anticipating the distinction between metalanguages and object languages in contemporary logic, and explain why Carnap’s criticisms of Wittgenstein fail. Let’s start from the logocentric predicament.

1 The Universalist Conception of Logic and the Logocentric Predicament Wittgenstein’s goal in the Tractatus (Wittgenstein 1951, 2001, henceforth ‘TLP’) was to clarify the foundations of logic with the purpose of articulating an account of philosophy as logical analysis (TLP 4.002-4.0031, 4.112, 6.53). Following Frege and Russell, he adopted a universalist conception of logic, according to which logic governs all thought that aims at truth, abiding by the same principles in all areas of thought, regardless of the subject matter. Likewise, he accepted Frege’s and Russell’s associated conception of philosophy as an investigation of relevant logical principles and set out to solve problems with Frege’s and Russell’s philosophies of logic. In this way he came to propose solutions to several problems pertaining to their accounts, many of which concern the nature of logic and logical investigation itself, for example, what the correct way is to articulate an account of logic, and how such an account is justified. Relatedly, Wittgenstein also addressed problems pertaining to the logical and epistemic status of logical principles, that is whether they can be understood as substantial propositions like Frege’s and Russell’s logical axioms, and what kind of knowledge we have of them, as well as the nature and justification of logical consequence. Ultimately, this led him to develop (what seems to me) a highly interesting alternative to Frege’s and Russell’s accounts of logic and logical philosophy.

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As Henry Sheffer pointed out in his review of Russell’s and Whitehead’s Principia Mathematica (second edition), the universalist conception of logic gives rise to ‘the “logocentric” predicament’. As he explains, ‘[…] the attempt to formulate the foundations of logic is rendered arduous by a […] “logocentric” predicament. In order to give an account of logic, we must presuppose and employ logic’ (Sheffer 1926, 228). Given its publication a few years after the Tractatus, Sheffer’s review couldn’t have influenced Wittgenstein’s book. However, Wittgenstein seems to have been independently aware of the problem of logocentric predicament, and it arguably motivates the Tractatus’ rejection of the possibility of true/false propositions or theses about logic. Crucially, as Wittgenstein realized, in attempting to articulate propositions/theses about logic we are already relying on the principles of logic assumed by the possibility of true/false thought or representation of reality.1 More specifically, we’re assuming what on Wittgenstein’s account is the only constant in logic, the general propositional form, and which constitutes a rule for constructing any possible proposition (TLP 4.5, 5.47; I’ll say more about this later). If so, however, logic can’t be clarified by means of propositions. Any propositions about logic already presuppose what they are meant to clarify, in line with Sheffer’s characterization of the logocentric predicament.2 Historiographers of logic have, of course, noticed the connection between Sheffer’s logocentric predicament and the Tractatus. But they seem to have missed something crucial about how Wittgenstein seeks to address this problem. As Jean van Heijenoort argues in his seminal article ‘Logic As Calculus and Logic As Language’ in relation to Frege and Russell, universalism about logic implies the impossibility of metatheoretic or metasystematic considerations about logic. Warren Goldfarb agrees, and connects this with the Tractatus. If the system constitutes the universal logical language, then there can be no external standpoint from which one may view and discuss the system. Metasystematic considerations are illegitimate rather than simply undesirable. This is what Harry [sic] Sheffer called “the logocentric predicament” […], and [it] forms a large part, I think, of the motivations behind Wittgenstein’s Tractatus’. (Goldfarb 1979, 353, my square brackets; cf. Goldfarb 1982, 694, van Heijenoort 1967, 326, Ricketts 1985)

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It is not entirely clear how Goldfarb thinks the logocentric predicament motivates the Tractatus. Perhaps he simply means what was already observed, that is that Wittgenstein rejects the possibility of propositions about logic. But what Goldfarb says about the logocentric predicament and the possibility of metasystematic considerations doesn’t seem quite right. Although Wittgenstein rejects propositions about logic, this amounts to the rejection of all metasystematic considerations only insofar as the only way to express them is by means of propositions. This, as I explain, is neither the case nor Wittgenstein’s view. Indeed, it’s quite evident in the Tractatus that Wittgenstein doesn’t reject the possibility of metasystematic considerations altogether, especially the possibility of assessing an account of logic for its correctness. Whilst endorsing the idea of designing a Fregean-Russellian logical language, which by contrast to the colloquial language is meant to exclude logical confusions and errors, Wittgenstein comments on Frege’s and Russell’s languages: ‘The logical symbolism of Frege and Russell is such a language, which, however, does still not exclude all errors’ (TLP 3.325). Likewise, he maintains that ‘The correct explanation of logical propositions must give them a unique position among all propositions’ (TLP 6.112), and regards Frege and Russell as having failed to give such an account, due to their conception that the propositions of logic express substantial truths. ‘Theories that make a proposition of logic appear substantial are always false’ (TLP 6.111). Clearly, Wittgenstein therefore believes that accounts of logic can be assessed for correctness. We must therefore ask: how can Wittgenstein maintain both that there are no propositions or theses about logic and that an account of logic can be evaluated for correctness? Although the universalist conception does indeed exclude the possibility of assessing logic itself for correctness, whereby this means assessing the rules, principles, or norms of logic that govern thought and the use of language, this doesn’t exclude the possibility of assessing an account of logic. A distinction can be drawn between the rules/principles/norms of logic (henceforth I simply speak of rules) and the logicians’ formulations of them, and even though the universalist conception excludes the possibility of stepping outside the rules of logic that govern thought and language—this is correct in the van Heijenoort-Goldfarb view—it’s possible to step outside any particular ways of formulating those rules.3

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Consequently, it’s also possible to compare different ways of formulating the rules of logic, and to examine and assess them for correctness. We can ask, whether logicians have correctly articulated the principles that govern thought and language. Furthermore, and crucially for the Tractatus, it’s not necessary to articulate an account of logic in terms of propositions. Such an account can be given in terms of a logical language into whose structure the rules of logic are encoded, and which makes logic perspicuous by reflecting its rules clearly in its structure. This idea is expressed in the Tractatus by means of an important metaphor of logic as a mirror: ‘Logic is not a body of doctrine, but a mirror-image of the world’ (TLP 6.13; cf. 5.511, 5.514). The Tractatus’ view can be outlined as follows. Because logic is assumed in all true/false representation, it can’t be represented in terms of true/ false propositions. As Wittgenstein also remarks: ‘My fundamental thought is that the “logical constants” do not represent. That the logic of the facts cannot be represented’ (TLP 4.0312; cf. 4.001, 5.4; Wittgenstein 1961, 37, henceforth ‘NB’). Due to their already assuming the principles of logic, propositions about logic, so to speak, arrive too late on the scene of clarification: they presuppose what they are supposed to clarify. Nevertheless, logic can be given a clear and explicit expression by designing a logical language that renders perspicuous the logical rules that govern thought and language. Accordingly, rather than expressed in terms of propositions or theses, the Tractatus’ account of logic is given in terms of a logical language outlined and introduced in the book. The purpose of this language then is (besides it offering a framework for subsequent logical analyses) to explicate the rules that govern thought and language by emulating (replicating, reproducing or mirroring) the logical structure of thought/language in the logical language. This is achieved by codifying the rules of logic into the structure of the logical language. Thus, logic can indeed be clarified without trying to represent it by means of true/ false propositions that already assume it. The preceding can also be connected with Wittgenstein’s characterization of logic as transcendental in 6.13 where he speaks of logic as not a doctrine but a mirror. Logic, as Wittgenstein conceives it, is transcendental in the sense that it’s always already assumed in speaking and thinking. Logic then is constitutive to the possibility of thought and language in

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this sense; the possibility of thinking about reality truly/falsely depends on the underlying rules of logic. Notably, this constitutive role of the rules of logic itself can be clarified by codifying the rules of logic into the structure of a logical language, whereby the rules of logic emerge as something that underlies the possibility of the propositions of language. Wittgenstein’s idea of codifying the rules of logic into a logical language is illustrated by the central Tractarian notion of the general propositional form which constitutes a rule for the construction of propositions, and in this capacity provides a formal description of all propositions. As he explains, the general propositional form is a variable, with every possible proposition being a substitution instance of this variable. By presenting all propositions as substitution instances of this variable Wittgenstein then intends to render clear the nature or essence of propositions as true/false representations (TLP 4.5-4.53, 5.47-5.472). Here it is noteworthy how such a clarification of the nature of propositions differs from one given in terms of theses. Whilst a thesis claiming that every proposition has the general propositional form leaves open the possibility of asking, whether the thesis really is true, the Tractatus seeks to eliminate this unclarity by only allowing propositions to be expressed in its language in a way that makes it clear that they possess this form. Insofar as it then really is possible to express every possible proposition in Wittgenstein’s language, as he maintains, their nature has herewith been clarified. This explicatory approach accords also with what Sheffer proposes: ‘Since we are assuming the validity of logic, our aim should be, not to validate logic, but only to make explicit, at least in part, what we have assumed to be valid’ (Sheffer 1926, 228). Wittgenstein is also clear about the criteria of correctness for such an explicatory account of logic: ‘[…] we are in possession of the correct logical conception, when everything adds up in our symbolism’ (TLP 4.1213). In other words, an account of logic codified into the structure of a logical language is correct, insofar as it correctly reflects or mirrors the understanding of logic that thinkers and language users already have qua thinkers/speakers, and doesn’t give rise to anomalies such as that, according to Wittgenstein, arise for Frege’s and Russell’s logical languages. Importantly, this isn’t just a matter of Wittgenstein’s readers agreeing, upon reading the Tractatus, that it correctly reflects and clarifies their

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already extant understanding of logic. Ultimately the test is that logical analyses in terms of Wittgenstein’s logical language succeed in clarifying what they purport to clarify, that is that every possible proposition can really be analysed in terms of this language. In this regard Wittgenstein was forced to recognize, upon his return to philosophy in 1929 after his hiatus, that this wasn’t the case. There are propositions, such as propositions about colour, temperature, weight, and so on, whose truth isn’t independent of one another, contrary to what Wittgenstein’s account of the general propositional form in terms of the Tractarian truth-tables, assumed.4 Let’s turn next to how Wittgenstein argues for or explains the idea and point of his view of the knowledge of logic. As I explain, besides enabling him to address the problem of the logocentric predicament as just outlined, this puts him in a position to address several further problems that arise for Frege and Russell. More specifically, these problems relate to their conception of logic as an axiomatic science based on self-evidently true axioms. The general problem with such self-evident truths is that what counts as self-evidently true seems to be a merely psychological, sociological or historical notion. What appears self-evident to one person might not be that to another, and similarly what seems self-evident in one sociological or historical setting, might not be that in another. Due to their failure to provide a satisfactory account of the nature of such self-­ evident truths, Frege and Russell struggled to explain the justification of logical inferences, and their substantial conception of logical axioms also entangled them in a regress problem outlined by Lewis Carroll. Relatedly, Wittgenstein dissolved certain tensions within Frege’s and Russell’s views of logic as a substantial normative science. This then enabled him to clarify the a priori character of logic, and the difference between logic and empirical psychology. Further, as part of his critique of Frege’s and Russell’s conceptions of logic as a substantial science, Wittgenstein sought to distinguish knowledge of logic from substantial metaphysical knowledge. Consequently, he eliminated any need to appeal to Russellian logical intuitions or Fregean knowledge of abstract objects to explain the nature of logical knowledge.5

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2 The Aprioricity of Logic, Self-Evidence and the Justification of Logical Inferences In 1914 Wittgenstein noted down an insight that could be described as a leading principle of his early philosophy of logic, commenting on it: ‘This is an extremely profound and important insight’ (NB, 2). This point is later included in the Tractatus, where it occurs, according to the Tractatus’ numbering system, as an elucidation of remark 5.4, according to which ‘[…] there are no “logical objects” or “logical constants” (in the sense of Frege and Russell).’ This insight, according to which logic takes care or looks after itself, provides the basis for Wittgenstein’s account of the knowledge of logic. Relevant remarks are worth quoting at length: Logic must take care of itself. A possible sign must also be able to signify. Everything which is possible in logic is also permitted. […] In a certain sense we cannot make mistakes in logic. (TLP 5.473) Self-evidence, of which Russell talked about so much, can only be discarded in logic by language itself preventing every logical mistake. – That logic is a priori consists in the fact that we cannot think illogically. (TLP 5.4731) Frege says: Every legitimately constructed proposition must have a sense; and I say: Every possible proposition is legitimately constructed, and if it has no sense this can only be because we have given no meaning to some of its constituent parts. (Even if we think we have done so.) (TLP 5.4733)

The wide-reaching significance of Wittgenstein’s insight can be explained as follows. In order for thinkers and language users to be able to think or use language at all, they must already possess an implicit, even if not explicit knowledge of logic. With this Russell would agree, maintaining that anyone capable of understanding discourse must possess (a tacit or explicit) knowledge of logical forms which on his account also underlies inferences (Russell 1926, 53; originally published in 1914). Unlike Russell, however, whose account suffers from tensions in this regard, Wittgenstein maintains that this observation reveals an important

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difference between logic and the sciences. Whilst the goal of the sciences is to discover new knowledge and establish truths of which they then inform others, no one can be informed about what they already know. Consequently, pace Frege and Russell, logic can’t be understood as substantial science that is in the business of establishing truths and informing others about them. Neither can the task of logic be to establish norms in order to prescribe how thinkers or language users ought to infer and construe their propositions, contrary to Frege’s conception of logic as a normative science and Russell’s theory of types (TLP 5.4733). According to Wittgenstein, rather than depending on logicians, what follows logically and what it makes sense to say depends on language and thought themselves. This explains the ‘certain sense’ in which we, according to him, can’t make mistakes in logic. In order to qualify as speaking sensibly and as inferring logically one must comply with the underlying rules of logic, whereby failure to do so ejects one outside of language and the realm of logical inference. What one is ‘saying’ in such a case then isn’t a matter of speaking or inferring illegitimately that ought to be sanctioned. It amounts to not speaking and inferring at all—even if it might misleadingly appear that one is so doing. Thus, logic needs no protection from logicians acting as a logic-police, so to speak. Logic looks after itself; every possible proposition is legitimately constructed, as Wittgenstein says in 5.4733 just quoted. Accordingly, the task of logicians can only be to remind thinkers and language users about what they already know, and to clarify and explicate what they know. As the pre-Tractarian Notebooks put it: ‘Logic takes care of itself; all we have to do is to look and see how it does it’ (Wittgenstein 1961, 11). From this point of view Wittgenstein can also readily explain the aprioricity of logic. Logic is a priori in that it’s always already assumed and relied upon in all thinking and language use whose possibility presupposes the rules of logic. Likewise, in order for an experience of a fact to enter into an inference as a premise, it must already be logically structured. As noted, ‘thinking’ or ‘speaking’ inconsistently with logic won’t qualify as thinking or speaking, and thus: ‘That logic is a priori consists in the fact that we cannot think illogically’. This brings out again why Wittgenstein believes that logic cannot be clarified in terms of propositions or theses. Any propositions already

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assume logic, and at least a tacit understanding of its rules. Herewith the difference between logic and empirical psychology is clarified. Given that logic underlies all thinking and language use, it’s presupposed when establishing any laws of empirical psychology too. Empirical psychology therefore couldn’t account for logic, because it already presupposes it. Likewise, it should now be clear why Wittgenstein believes that the right way to clarify the rules of logic is to design a logical language into whose structure they are codified. This way of articulating relevant rules reflects the way in which logic underlies thought and the use of language, making evident that the rules of logic aren’t a set of externally imposed, perhaps merely arbitrary, rules. Logic, rather, is internal to and constitutive of all thought and language use. Consequently, the need felt by Frege and Russell to justify logic by appealing to the self-evidence of the truth of logical axioms evaporates. As Wittgenstein notes in 5.4731 (quoted above) ‘Self-evidence […] can […] be discarded in logic by language itself preventing every logical mistake.’ Being always already relied on in thinking and language use, there’s no need to justify the rules of logic by appealing to the alleged self-­ evidence of the truth of logical axioms. The rules of logic can only be clarified and explicated, as Sheffer maintains. Consequently, the problematic notion of self-evident truths can be eliminated from logic.6 On the basis of the preceding it’s now also possible to explain how Wittgenstein seeks to dissolve7 Carroll’s problem of regress regarding the justification of logical inferences that arises for Frege and Russell. The problem can be outlined as follows. Carroll (1895) raised a problem about what justifies an inference from the premises to a conclusion in the case of a logical inference. As he pointed out, if in order to justify the inference from premises to the conclusion a logical axiom, understood as a true proposition that serves as rule of inference, must be added as an extra premise, it seems always possible to ask again about any such extended set of premises, what licenses the transition from this new set of premises to the conclusion. The same problem, in other words, can be raised about any new extended set of premises; it seems always possible to require yet another inference-licensing true proposition to be added to the premises to justify the inference. In this way an infinite regress is generated, and consequently it seems impossible to justify any inferences

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from premises to a conclusion. This problem arises in particular for accounts, such as Frege’s and Russell’s, that regard the justification of inferences as dependent on logical axioms understood as true propositions, whereby the function of the axioms is to articulate the rules governing inferences. Problematically, such an account of the axioms suggests that they are just like any other premises, that is propositions, and so could be added amongst the other premises. But this gives rise to the regress problem. In line with his rejection of the view that the rules of logic constitute true propositions, and his rejection of logic as a substantial science, Wittgenstein questions the outlined picture of logical consequence and its justification. What follows from what does not depend on any external or additional rules or axioms besides the propositions that are involved in the inference. What follows depends on the propositions themselves that are involved in an inference. And surely this much must be historically true: humans have been capable of making inferences long before logicians came around and started formulating logical principles and systematizing logical inferences, as exemplified by the Aristotelian syllogisms. But if the possibility of inferences doesn’t depend on the rules and axioms laid down by logicians, what does it depend on? Wittgenstein writes: If the truth of one proposition follows from the truth of others, this expresses itself in relations in which the forms of these propositions stand to one another, and we do not need to put them in these relations first by connecting them with one another in a proposition; for these relations are internal, and exist as soon as, and by the very fact that, the propositions exist. (TLP 5.131) If p follows from q, I can conclude from q to p; infer p from q. The method of inference is to be understood from the two propositions alone. Only they themselves can justify the inference. ‘Laws of inference’, which are supposed to justify inferences, as in the works of Frege and Russell […] would be superfluous. (TLP 5.132) All inference takes place a priori. (TLP 5.133)

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On Wittgenstein’s account there’s therefore no need to add a rule of inference (a logical law or an axiom) to an inference as an extra premise. Insofar as the inference from q to p is justified, its justification can be understood as depending on the propositions themselves that are involved in the inference. Assuming that these propositions have determinate logical characteristics or logical forms, without which there is no basis to think that they are propositions anyway, this is enough to determine whether p can be inferred from q. Accordingly, as Wittgenstein remarks, ‘laws of inference’, such as articulated by Frege and Russell as logical axioms, are superfluous. They can’t provide any additional justification for inferences, because the justification of inferences depends on the logical characteristics of the propositions in question anyway. What explicit inference rules can achieve at best is to explicate what kind of inferences thinkers and language users accept as correct. Thus, even though explicit rules of inference can have no justificatory function, they can have a clarificatory function. But in this case they must be distinguished from any substantial true/false propositions/theses, and recognized for what they are, that is rules for the use of signs.8 On Wittgenstein’s view there’s therefore no need to regard logical consequence as based on substantial truths that somehow uphold and justify inferences. Rather, in the case of a correct inference the propositions involved in the inference constitute a tautology which is true in all circumstances (TLP 6.1201). Such tautological logical truths then are devoid of any substantial content. Accordingly, in order to judge whether an inference is justified, there is no need to appeal to any substantial truths or the content of any propositions, but this can be established formally on the basis of the use of relevant signs. As Wittgenstein also remarks: ‘It is the peculiar mark of logical propositions [i.e. tautologies] that one can recognize that they are true from the symbol alone, and this fact contains in itself the whole philosophy of logic’ (TLP 6.113). This completes my outline of the grounds for Wittgenstein’s rejection of Frege’s and Russell’s account of logic as a substantial science, based on axioms understood as self-evident truths. Here it’s important that on Wittgenstein’s account there’s no need to appeal to intuitions about logic or metaphysical knowledge concerning any abstract objects or necessary truths as the foundation of our comprehension of logic. Knowledge of

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logic, rather, is non-propositional knowledge of how to use language and infer9 which can be explicated by means of a logical language that renders perspicuous and explicit the language users’ comprehension of the functioning of language. Whilst such explications can enhance our capacity to infer correctly and to avoid logical mistakes, they can’t ultimately give logic an independent justification, as Sheffer’s problem of the logocentric predicament brings out. As I hope is clear now, the Tractatus does have a well-worked-out response to this problem regarding logic and knowledge thereof.

3 Wittgenstein’s Method of Introducing His Logical Language: Dissolving the Paradox From the very start suspicions have surrounded the Tractatus’ claim that there are no propositions about logic. As Russell says in his introduction to Wittgenstein’s book, ‘What causes hesitation is the fact that, after all, Mr Wittgenstein manages to say a good deal about what cannot be said […]’ (TLP, xxiii). This situation, Russell confessed, ‘leaves me with a certain sense of intellectual discomfort’ (TLP, xxiii). Since then it has become standard to attribute a paradox to the Tractatus, given that Wittgenstein seems there to be putting forward an account of logic, whilst also describing the sentences of the book as nonsense, in which case they can’t constitute an account of anything (TLP 6.54). More specifically, the paradox arises with the interpretational assumption that the sentences of the book must be understood as theses that establish the impossibility of propositions or theses about logic or from which their impossibility follows. This gives rise to a paradox of nonsensical theses: insofar as Wittgenstein’s book contains theses, the book can’t be nonsense; if it is nonsense, it can’t contain any theses. (Or also: insofar as something logically follows from Wittgenstein’s sentences, they can’t be nonsense; if they are nonsense, nothing logically follows from them.) Wittgenstein thus seems to have checkmated himself. Either his book is nonsense in which case it can’t provide any account of logic, or it provides an account of logic, but then the very possibility of this account demonstrates the

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falsity of his claim that there can’t be any proposition/theses about logic. Here it’s important, however, that the mentioned interpretational assumption ignores and contradicts Wittgenstein’s rejection of theses and theories in the Tractatus (TLP 4.112). Thus it begs crucial questions against Wittgenstein’s attempt to abandon philosophical theses. Given his rejection of theses, their attribution to him should be the last interpretational option, when everything else fails.10 In Sect. 1 I have already indicated the way out of the paradox, although without mentioning it. Its dissolution is simple. Rather than expressed in terms of any propositions, the expression for Wittgenstein’s account of logic is the logical language outlined and introduced in the book, into the structure of which his account of logic is encoded. Importantly, this language doesn’t constitute a proposition itself; languages themselves don’t say anything true/false like propositions. Thus, to introduce a logical language or a calculus is logically distinct from putting forward any propositions. Corresponding to this, the sentences of the Tractatus don’t constitute propositions or theses about logic. Their purpose, rather, is to introduce the formal concepts and logical principles constitutive of Wittgenstein’s logical language. Here it’s also important that Wittgenstein can safely assume that his readers are thinkers or language users, and in this capacity already possess at least an implicit understanding of logic. Hence, they don’t need to be informed about logic by means of any propositions. It’s enough for Wittgenstein’s sentences to gesture towards what his readers already know, as illustrated by logical distinctions such as that between names and propositions, that is that names only refer and have no truth-­ value but propositions constitute true/false descriptions or representations, a distinction which Frege’s and Russell’s accounts of logic obscure (TLP 3.143-3.1431). The nonsensical sentences of the Tractatus therefore aren’t paradoxically nonsensical propositions or theses about logic, but have a different function. They are elucidations used to introduce formal concepts and logical principles (TLP 4.112, 6.54). Consequently, the nonsensicality of the introductory sentences of the Tractatus can be explained as a matter of their not being expressible in Wittgenstein’s logical language. Insofar as the language introduced in the Tractatus correctly captures the rules of logic that govern thought and

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language use, the sentences of the Tractatus are not expressible in this language and count as nonsense. Importantly, however, their nonsensicality is something that language users ought in principle to be able to establish on the basis of the logical knowledge they already possess. After all, Wittgenstein’s logical language is meant merely to clarify what thinkers and language users already know. As the point can be put, rather than establishing the criterion for sensible language use, Wittgenstein’s account of logic is intended to clarify the criterion for sensible language use already known to language users at least implicitly. For it must be assumed to be part of the capacity to use language that language users can, with certain fallible reliability, tell the difference between propositions and mere nonsense. In this way the alleged paradox of nonsensical theses is dissolved. There’s no paradox, because Wittgenstein’s account of logic isn’t expressed by means of propositions or theses in the first place. Indeed, as explained in Sect. 1, logic couldn’t be clarified by means of propositions anyway, because they already presuppose it. This can now be connected with what I said in Sect. 1 about the criteria of correctness for an account of logic. The justification of Wittgenstein’s account of logic doesn’t depend on any nonsensical propositions or theses or arguments put forward in the Tractatus. It depends on whether his readers, qua thinkers or language users, recognize Wittgenstein’s logical language as correctly reflecting or mirroring logic, as they already know it in the capacity of thinkers and language users. We can therefore regard the Tractatus’ sentences as mere stipulations by means of which a logical language is set up. These stipulations aren’t arbitrary, however. The justification of an account of logic introduced by their means depends on whether the account really can clarify the underlying rules of logic. Hence, there’s no need to appeal, for example, to any logical intuitions as the basis of the justification of Wittgenstein’s account, that is whether the account seems able to clarify what it purports to clarify. What matters is whether Wittgenstein’s logical language can be used to analyse the uses of language and account for all sensible propositions. (As noted, ultimately Wittgenstein’s account of logic fails this test; see Kuusela 2023). The proposed interpretation then makes it possible for the readers of the Tractatus to really throw away its sentences like a ladder after they

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have climbed it up and have grasped how Wittgenstein’s logical language works (TLP 6.54). One doesn’t have to keep holding on to the Tractatus’ sentences like one must do when they are construed as theses. For in the latter case, throwing away Wittgenstein’s sentences means throwing away his account of logic, too, articulated by means of his theses. On the proposed interpretation, by contrast, there’s no need to keep holding on to Wittgenstein’s sentences, because it’s his logical language that constitutes the proper expression for his account of logic, and this is not anything thrown away. Rather, the readers are now expected to start using Wittgenstein’s language as a framework for logical analysis, thus practicing philosophy as logical analysis in accordance with what Wittgenstein describes as the strictly correct method of philosophy, thus practicing philosophy as an activity of clarification instead of putting forward substantial ‘philosophical propositions’ (TLP 4.112, 6.53). The proposed interpretation therefore also has the advantage that it can take seriously Wittgenstein’s concluding remarks about throwing away the sentences of the Tractatus, and beginning to philosophize in a new formal way, whereby philosophy makes no substantial statements of its own, but merely examines the uses of language (TLP 6.53).11 Finally, Wittgenstein’s method of introducing his logical language can be compared with the method of logical syntax introduced by Carnap in the 1930s as an alternative to the Tractatus’ philosophy of logic, in response to the problem that Wittgenstein allegedly denies the possibility of speaking about logic and syntax. As Carnap writes, ‘According to [Wittgenstein], the investigations of the logic of science [i.e., philosophy] contain no sentences, but merely more or less vague explanations which the reader must subsequently recognize as pseudo-sentences and abandon’ (Carnap 1967, 283; my square brackets; originally published in 1937). This Carnap finds ‘certainly very unsatisfactory’ (Carnap 1967, 283). According to him, it results in lack of exactitude and leaves unclear the difference between Wittgenstein’s elucidations and metaphysical nonsense (Carnap 1967, 284). Carnap, however, fails to recognize or admit the close similarity of his method of introducing formal concepts and principles with Wittgenstein’s. Wittgenstein’s method of introducing his logical language can readily be described in Carnapian terms as relying on what Carnap calls

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‘quasi-syntactical sentences’, characterized as follows. They ‘[…] are formulated as though they refer (either partially or exclusively) to objects, while in reality they refer to syntactical forms, and, specifically, to the forms of the designations of those objects with which they appear to deal’ (Carnap 1967, 285). As Carnap also notes, employing quasi-syntactical sentences in logic ‘[…] is frequently expedient’ (Carnap 1967, 312). Indeed, this seems quite a good way to describe what Wittgenstein is doing in the Tractatus. He proceeds there as if making substantial metaphysical assertions about language or what language speaks about, whilst in reality he’s concerned to introduce formal concepts and logical principles constitutive of his logical language. Thus, for example, when Wittgenstein says that every possible proposition possesses the general propositional form, he isn’t putting forward a substantial metaphysical thesis about propositions, but saying that in his logical language all propositions have this form, that is they are substitution instances of the variable of the general propositional form. Thus, his purpose is to introduce the notion of a proposition as a formal concept, whereby characteristic of propositions is a certain logical form which they all share. Of course, Wittgenstein is also suggesting that this is the correct account of the essence of propositions. But the justification for this claim depends not on any nonsensical arguments or the correspondence of his account with logical facts that cannot be thought about. It depends on whether every possible proposition really can be analysed in the terms of Wittgenstein’s logical language. Thus, we might say that Wittgenstein is making a claim about the nature of propositions indirectly, by suggesting that his logical language mirrors the underlying logic of thought and language. But strictly speaking he is merely putting forward a certain logical determination concerning the expression of propositions in his logical language which is then to be examined for its justification by examining whether this logical language can do its clarificatory job.12 As for Carnap’s criticism of Wittgenstein as failing to distinguish his elucidatory pseudo-sentences from metaphysical nonsense, ultimately this criticism fails. Whilst Carnap maintains that ‘Translatability into the formal mode of speech—that is, into syntactical sentences—is the criterion which separates the proper sentences of the logic of science from the other philosophical sentences—we may well call them metaphysical’

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(Carnap 1967, 284), his own method of using quasi-syntactical sentences to introduce formal concepts doesn’t meet this criterion of translatability either. As André Carus argues, a problem arises for Carnap relating to his definition of the concept of translation with reference to the notion of the sameness of content, defined in terms of the consequences of sentences. In this view, determining the correctness of a translation would require determining all the consequences of a sentence, but if the language from which we translate is a natural language, this is impossible (Carus 2007, 257–259). Relatedly, as Pierre Wagner has pointed out, by Carnap’s formal criteria, it’s not possible to identify a sentence as quasisyntactical, unless the language in question has an explicit syntax. This, of course, is not the case with natural language (Wagner 2009, 197). Hence, Carnap’s requirement of translation as a way to distinguish metaphysical statements from those of logical philosophy is unusable in the case of natural language. But in that case he can hardly require Wittgenstein to meet this criterion. To his credit Wittgenstein is clear about the nonsensicality and untranslatability of his quasi-syntactical sentences.13

Notes 1. In the following I will use either the term ‘proposition’ or ‘thesis’ depending on context. Both stand for true/false representations of facts concerning thought, language or reality, and are substantial in this sense. 2. For discussions of the problem of the justification of logic, see also Quine (1976) (originally 1935). Quine addresses the issue in relation to conventionalism, arguing that logical truth cannot be explained with reference to conventions, since logical justification would have to already rely on relevant conventions. 3. Anssi Korhonen draws a similar distinction with reference to Frege and Russell between logic as science, that is ‘logic as principles of correct reasoning’, and logic as theory, that is a ‘particular formulation of logical principles’. Logic as science here refers to a science whose subject matter consist ‘very roughly, in truths about correct inferential transitions between non-linguistic entities of a certain kind (thoughts, propositions)’ that the logicians then try to model or represent and reconstruct in logical systems and explicit theories of logic (Korhonen 2012, 603). A

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related distinction between logic as science and logic as calculus is drawn by Gregory Landini (1998, Chap. 1). With Wittgenstein’s rejection of theses about logic in mind, I propose a different but related distinction between logic as the rules/norms/principles that govern thought and language use that are the target of logicians’ clarifications, and a logical language governed by relevant kind of rules/norms/principles put forward by a logician as an account of logic (see below, cf. Kuusela 2019a, 2019b, 49–51). 4. In the case of such propositions the truth-tables laid out in the Tractatus don’t correctly reflect what Wittgenstein calls the ‘truth-possibilities’ of propositions (TLP 4.3-4.44). For example, the complex proposition ‘a is green and a is red all over’ is false, even though both conjuncts are true, contrary to standard truth-tables. Thus, as Wittgenstein realized, all sensible propositions can’t be expressed in his logical language. The logical behaviour of language is more complicated than he thought, and Tractarian’ truth-tables only account for part of the behaviour of the logical connectives. See Kuusela (2023) for Wittgenstein’s attempt to address this problem by introducing the notion of discreet propositional systems governed by different logical rules. 5. Although Frege has often been read as a Platonist, this is controversial. For a Platonist interpretation, see, for example, Burge (2005). Ricketts (1986) proposes a non-Platonist interpretation, arguing that Platonism is incompatible with Frege’s context principle. 6. Russell maintained that we have immediate non-judgmental knowledge of abstract logical objects that ‘must underlie our knowledge of logic’ (Russell 1984, 97). But he never made much progress in clarifying this notion of immediate non-judgmental knowledge whose nature hardly becomes clearer by labelling it ‘intuition’. See also Russell (2001), Chap. 10. 7. By dissolution I mean a way of dealing with philosophical problems by introducing an alternative way of thinking about an issue in the context of which a problem that arises in the context of another way of thinking no longer arises. Rather than answered in the previously presupposed terms the problem is thus made to disappear by introducing a better alternative view. See Kuusela (Forthcoming) for discussion of Wittgenstein’s notion of the dissolution of philosophical problems. 8. This criticism, which relates more specifically to Frege’s and Russell’s failure to clearly distinguish rules of inference from axioms as true proposi-

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tions, is spelt out at more length in Wittgenstein’s intended update on the Tractatus co-authored with Friedrich Waismann, but which was eventually abandoned (Wittgenstein & Weismann 2003, 179–183). It’s noteworthy that the Tractatus’ criticism of Frege’s and Russell’s axiomatic accounts of logic doesn’t imply any general objection to axiomatic accounts of logic. Insofar as logical axioms are understood as rules for the employment of the signs of a logical system, not true propositions, there’s no objection. Wittgenstein’s objection is directed specifically against Frege’s and Russell’s accounts of logic as a body of substantial truths, and the conception of axioms as a set of independently justified self-evident truths that constitute the foundation for logic in the style of metaphysical foundations. 9. Wittgenstein further explicates the nature of this logical knowledge by means of his distinction between saying and showing. For an account of Wittgenstein’s distinction that is consistent with the proposed interpretation, see Kuusela (2021a). 10. See Kuusela (2021b) for discussion of examples of traditional paradox-­ generating interpretations (G.E.M.  Anscombe and Peter Hacker) and responses to them by so-called therapeutic and non-therapeutic resolute readers (including James Conant and Cora Diamond), and how the paradox is dissolved. For a critique of therapeutic interpretations of Wittgenstein, see Kuusela (2019a). 11. For the notion of formality in the Tractatus, see Kuusela (2019b), 60–61, 80. 12. See Kuusela (2019b), Chap. 3 for a detailed discussion and justification of this comparison between Wittgenstein and Carnap. 13. I would like to thank the participants at the Heyting Day in Amsterdam in June 2022 for their questions and comments, in particular Maria van der Schaar and Göran Sundholm, as well as the editors of this collection.

References Burge, Tyler. 2005. Frege on Knowing the Third Realm. In Truth, Thought, Reason: Essays on Frege. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Carnap, Rudolf. 1967. The Logical Syntax of Language. London: Routledge. Carroll, Lewis. 1895. What the Tortoise Said to Achilles. Mind 4 (14): 278–280. Carus, André. 2007. Carnap and Twentieth-Century Thought: Explication as Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Goldfarb, Warren. 1979. Logic in the Twenties: The Nature of the Quantifier. The Journal of Symbolic Logic 44 (3): 351–368. ———. 1982. Logicism and Logical Truth. Journal of Philosophy 79 (1): 692–695. van Heijenoort, Jean. 1967. Logic as Calculus and Logic as Language. Synthese 17 (1): 324–330. Korhonen, Annsi. 2012. Logic as a Science and Logic as a Theory: Remarks on Frege, Russell and the Logocentric Predicament. Logica Universalis 6 (3-4): 597–613. Kuusela, Oskari. 2019a. On Wittgenstein’s and Carnap’s Conceptions of the Dissolution of Philosophical Problems, and against a Therapeutic Mix: How to Solve the Paradox of the Tractatus. Philosophical Investigations 42 (3): 213–240. ———. 2019b. Wittgenstein’s on Logic as the Method of Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2021a. Wittgenstein’s Distinction Between Saying and Showing. In Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, ed. Andreas Georgallides. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars. ———. 2021b. Wittgenstein’s Grundgedanke as the Key to the Tractatus. Teorema XL (2): 83–99. ———. 2023. The Color-Exclusion Problem and the Development of Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Logic. In Wittgenstein’s Philosophy in 1929, ed. Florian Figuiredo. London: Routledge. ———. Forthcoming. Dissolution of Philosophical Problems and the Transformation of Thinking. In Wittgensteinian Exercises. Aesthetic and Ethical Transformations, ed. Lucilla Guidi. Leiden: Fink-Brill. Landini, Gregory. 1998. Russell’s Hidden Substitutional Theory. New York: Oxford University Press. Ricketts, Thomas. 1985. Frege, Tractatus and the Logocentric Predicament. Noûs 19 (1): 3–15. ———. 1986. Objectivity and Objecthood: Frege’s Metaphysics of Judgment. In Frege Synthesized, ed. Leila Haaparanta and Jaakko Hintikka. Dordrecht: Reidel. Russell, Bertrand. 1926. Our Knowledge of the External World. London: George Allen and Unwin. ———. 1984. Theory of Knowledge: The 1913 Manuscript. London: George Allen & Unwin. ———. 2001. The Problems of Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Sheffer, Henry. 1926. Review of Principia Mathematica, Volume 1, second edition, 1925. Isis 8: 226–231. Quine, Willard Van Orman. 1976. Truth by Convention. In The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wagner, Pierre. 2009. The Analysis of Philosophy in Logical Syntax: Carnap’s Critique and His Attempt at Reconstruction. In Carnap’s Logical Syntax of Language, ed. Pierre Wagner. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1951. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [TLP]. Trans. C.K. Ogden. London: Routledge. ———. 1961. Notebooks 1914-1916 [NB]. Oxford: Blackwell. ———. 2001. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [TLP]. Trans. by B.F. McGuinness and D. Pears. London: Routledge. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, and Friedrich Weismann. 2003. The Voices of Wittgenstein: The Vienna Circle, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Friedrich Waismann [VW]. London: Routledge.

4 Ethics in the Tractatus: A Condition of the Possibility of Meaning? Benjamin De Mesel

My aim in this chapter is to explore an analogy between logic and ethics, as Wittgenstein understands them in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Wittgenstein 1961, henceforth ‘TLP’).1 In the first section, I argue that Wittgenstein regards logic as a condition of the possibility of meaning, in the sense that logic makes meaningful language and thought possible. In section two, I ask why Wittgenstein calls both logic (TLP 6.13) and ethics (TLP 6.421) ‘transcendental’. I suggest that, while logic is a condition of the possibility of semantic meaning, ethics is a condition of the possibility of existential meaning. Without ethics, life could not be meaningful. In section three, I show that harmony and agreement play a crucial role in Wittgenstein’s accounts of logic and ethics. A meaningful proposition can be true or false, a meaningful life can be happy or unhappy, and both truth and happiness consist in some kind of harmony or agreement with reality. In section four, I discuss a possible objection to my account of ethics in the Tractatus, which is mainly based on the 6.4s,

B. De Mesel (*) KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Stokhof, H. Tang (eds.), Wittgenstein’s Tractatus at 100, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-29863-9_4

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where Wittgenstein explicitly mentions ethics. According to James Conant (2005), we will underestimate the scope of the ethical in Wittgenstein’s thought if we focus on the 6.4s. I respond to Conant by distinguishing between the normative ethical point of the Tractatus (about which I remain silent) and its meta-ethical points.

1 Logic as a Condition of the Possibility of Meaning It is impossible to understand Wittgenstein’s remarks on ethics (6.4s and later) without having a grasp of what comes before. I cannot go into much detail here, but some context is necessary. In general, the Tractatus deals with the possibility of meaningful language and thought. How is it possible that the sounds we utter can mean anything? How it is possible that we can think and talk about reality, about the world? Let us start with the world, and then see how we can think or talk about it. The world, Wittgenstein writes, is all that is the case (TLP 1); it is the totality of facts (TLP 1.1). Facts are existing situations, situations are conglomerates of states of affairs (TLP 2), and a state of affairs is a combination of objects (TLP 2.01). The ways in which objects can and cannot be combined with other objects is given with the objects themselves (TLP 2.0121). Wittgenstein writes: “If I know an object, then I also know all its possible occurrences in states of affairs” (TLP 2.0123). And further: “In a state of affairs objects fit into one another like the links of a chain” (TLP 2.03). The idea is that objects have a form, a logical form; their form is the totality of ways in which they can and cannot be combined with other objects. The form of objects makes some combinations with other objects possible and others impossible. If an object is combined with other objects in a particular way, we have a state of affairs. The state of affairs has a structure, the particular way in which the objects are fitted into one another, a way that must be allowed for by their form. What do we do when we think or talk about the world? Wittgenstein’s answer is: “We picture facts to ourselves” (TLP 2.1). “A picture is a model

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of reality” (TLP 2.12) and “[…] the elements of the picture are the representatives of objects” (TLP 2.131). A proposition or thought is a picture or model of reality. Complex propositions depict situations, elementary propositions depict states of affairs. An elementary proposition is “a connexion, a concatenation, of names” (TLP 4.22), and names correspond to objects. These objects have a logical form, that is, there are ways in which they can and cannot be combined. The names or elements of the proposition only correspond to objects if the elements of the proposition have the same logical form as the objects, that is, if the elements can be combined in the ways in which the objects can be combined. In a proposition, the elements or names are combined in a specific way, and the way in which these elements or names are related in the proposition corresponds to the way in which the objects are related in the situation depicted by the proposition (TLP 2.15). So the picture and the situation depicted by the picture share something, in virtue of which the picture can depict the situation. If something “is to be a picture”, says Wittgenstein, “it must have something in common with what it depicts” (TLP 2.16). The proposition and the situation depicted by it have the same form. I mentioned situations and propositions, but what about facts? According to Wittgenstein, a fact is the existence (we might also say obtainment) of a situation. Situations can obtain or fail to obtain. If the world is as the proposition says it is, if the situation depicted by a proposition obtains or exists, the proposition is true and it depicts a fact. “In order to tell whether a picture is true or false we must compare it with reality” (TLP 2.223). This is crucial: a proposition is something that can be true or false. A situation can obtain or not obtain, and if we want to know whether a proposition is true or false, whether the situation depicted by it obtains or does not obtain, we have to look at reality, at how the world is. In Wittgenstein’s words, a proposition says something, namely how things stand in the world (TLP 4.022), or that such and such is the case. We can understand a proposition, know its meaning, without knowing whether it is true (TLP 4.024): “To understand a proposition means to know what is the case if it is true.” Understanding a proposition involves grasping its form (which is uniquely determined by the forms of

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its elements) and what Wittgenstein calls the “pictorial relationship” (TLP 2.1514), that is, the relationship between the elements of the picture and the depicted objects. If we want to know whether a proposition is true, we have to look at how the world is. This might seem to be a plausible account of how thoughts and propositions can relate to facts. If we want to know whether the proposition ‘The cat is on the mat’ is true, we have to look at the world, and depending on the world, the proposition can be either true or false. But let us take something different, for instance, ‘The cat is on the mat or it is not on the mat’. Is this a proposition? No, not in the strict sense, because it cannot be either true or false depending on how the world is: it is necessarily true. In Wittgenstein’s terminology, ‘The cat is on the mat or it is not on the mat’ says nothing (TLP 5.43), it does not inform us about anything that we could fail to know. Tautologies, writes Wittgenstein, are not pictures of reality. They do not represent states of affairs (TLP 4.462). They are senseless [sinnlos], because whether they are true does not depend on the world being a certain way (TLP 4.461). Although tautologies are senseless, Wittgenstein emphasizes that they are not nonsensical. He writes that they are “part of the symbolism” (TLP 4.4611). They can be true in a sense, but we do not have to look at the world in order to determine whether they are true: “It is the peculiar mark of logical propositions that one can recognize that they are true from the symbol [the proposition] alone […]” (TLP 6.113). Logical propositions say nothing (TLP 6.11), but they are not nonsensical because they show something, and what they show or present is what Wittgenstein calls “the scaffolding of the world” (TLP 6.124). “Logic is transcendental” (TLP 6.13), according to Wittgenstein, and for something to be transcendental is for it to be a condition of the possibility of something, for it to make something possible. Logic is a condition of the possibility of meaning: what we say or think will only make sense if it is structured according to the laws of logic. If it violates the laws of logic, we will fail to say something meaningful. We will then not really say anything at all, not really express a thought at all (TLP 3.03). The difference between saying and showing, between meaningful propositions and logical propositions that say nothing, is crucial to the Tractatus. Logical propositions, such as ‘The cat is on the mat or it is not

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on the mat’, are necessarily true. Logic enables us to distinguish what makes sense from what does not make sense, and it shows the scaffolding or the limits of the world. By contrast, meaningful propositions are contingently or accidentally true or false. In order to tell whether a meaningful proposition is true or false, we must compare it with reality, with the world. Logical ‘propositions’

Meaningful propositions

Necessary (could not be otherwise) Sense vs. nonsense Showing Scaffolding (limit) of the world

Accidental/contingent (could be otherwise) True vs. false Saying World

2 Ethics as a Condition of the Possibility of Meaning? Let us have a look now at what Wittgenstein writes about ethics in 6.4. We read that “all propositions are of equal value” (TLP 6.4). TLP 6.41: The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is, and everything happens as it does happen: in it no value exists – and if it did exist, it would have no value. If there is any value that does have value, it must lie outside the whole sphere of what happens and is the case. For all that happens and is the case is accidental. What makes it non-­ accidental cannot lie within the world, since if it did it would itself be accidental. It must lie outside the world.

TLP 6.42 and 6.421: So too it is impossible for there to be propositions of ethics. Propositions can express nothing that is higher. It is clear that ethics cannot be put into words. Ethics is transcendental. (Ethics and aesthetics are one and the same.)

What can we make of this? Meta-ethically speaking, Wittgenstein is clearly a non-realist: there is and can be no value in the world; if there is any value, it must lie outside the world. Wittgenstein also seems to be a

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non-cognitivist. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the non-cognitivist’s central claim is that moral statements are “not in the business of … making statements which could be true or false in any substantial sense” (van Roojen 2018), and this comes very close to saying, as Wittgenstein does, that there can be no ethical propositions, because a proposition is precisely that which could be true or false. Other passages in Wittgenstein’s work support the view that his position was non-­ cognitivist and non-realist: “An ethical sentence … is not a statement of fact. Like an exclamation of admiration” (Wittgenstein 2000: MS 183: 76, 5 June 1931, translation Christensen 2011: 810); “[…] good and evil […] are not properties in the world” (Wittgenstein 1979: 79; henceforth ‘NB’). In his ‘Lecture on Ethics’, held in 1929, he imagines that an omniscient person would write all he knew in a book. This book, Wittgenstein says, “would contain nothing that we would call an ethical judgment” (Wittgenstein 1993: 39; henceforth ‘LE’). It would contain descriptions of facts but no ethical propositions: “facts, facts, and facts, but no Ethics” (LE 40). So far, ethical ‘propositions’ seem to be very similar to logical ones. (I put ‘proposition’ in scare quotes because, strictly speaking, there are no ethical or logical propositions.) Like logical propositions, ethical propositions say nothing about how the world happens to be. They are non-accidental: if lying is wrong, it will not be accidentally, but necessarily wrong. This means, among other things, that whether an action is right or wrong cannot depend on the consequences it happens to have, as consequentialists maintain (TLP 6.422). There is only logical necessity, according to Wittgenstein, and “a necessity for one thing to happen because another has happened does not exist” (TLP 6.37). Thus, even if there are law-like causal connections between actions and consequences, these connections remain contingent and lack the necessity that is characteristic of ethical propositions. There is another important similarity between Wittgenstein’s accounts of logic and ethics: both logic (TLP 6.13) and ethics (TLP 6.421) are called ‘transcendental’. With respect to logic, this means that logic is a condition of the possibility of meaning. Without logic, it would be impossible to say or think anything meaningful; without logic, there could be no meaningful propositions. What then could it mean to say

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that ethics is transcendental? My suggestion is that ethics is, like logic, a condition of the possibility of meaning. But the kind of meaning that we are talking about here is not what is sometimes called ‘semantic’ meaning (as in ‘the meaning of a proposition’), but rather ‘existential’ meaning (as in ‘the meaning of life’). It has often been noticed that, in many languages, the word ‘meaning’ is used in these seemingly different ways, and although some think that this is a coincidence (Kauppinen 2012; Martela 2017), many believe that it is not (Balaska 2019; Goldman 2018; Prinzing 2021; Thomas 2019), because there are more similarities between semantic and existential meaning than one might suppose at first sight. A very important similarity emphasized by these authors is that, for something to have meaning, semantic or existential, it must have a place within a meaningful structure or whole or it must itself be a structured whole. I already mentioned the connection of logic to ideas of form and structure (see also TLP 6.12, TLP 6.1224). The logical form of an object or a name is the totality of ways in which they can and cannot be combined with other objects or names. Logic makes it possible to combine objects with other objects and names with other names, and without the possibility of being combined with other objects or names there could not be objects or names. Wittgenstein emphasizes that “Only propositions have sense; only in the nexus of a proposition does a name have meaning” (TLP 3.3). Logic is a precondition of semantic meaning because it provides the formal aspect without which propositions could not be structured wholes, without which propositions could not be meaningful. I believe that something parallel holds for ethics in the Tractatus. By analogy to Wittgenstein’s remark that names only have meaning in the nexus of a proposition, we might say that actions only have meaning in the nexus of a life.2 This idea is present in recent debates about the meaning of actions and lives (although the Tractatus is not mentioned in these debates): One can’t even assess the meaning of a part without knowing how it fits into the larger picture of one’s life. One doesn’t know, for instance, how meaningful a relationship is without at least knowing how it ends. The meaning of each part of a life depends … on what came before and what comes afterwards, on how all the parts hang together. (Prinzing 2021: 6)

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A life is a structured whole, in which actions are arranged in a certain way. I quote Prinzing again: The meaning of a sentence is determined partly by the meanings of the words that constitute it and how those words are arranged. … Similarly, the meanings of Mandela’s life depend on … the meanings of the events in it and how these parts are arranged. (Prinzing 2021: 5)

Ethics is a precondition of existential meaning because it enables us to see lives as structured wholes, which is a necessary condition for seeing them as meaningful. In his Notebooks, Wittgenstein writes that “Ethics does not treat of the world. Ethics must be a condition of the world, like logic” (NB 77). That logic is a condition of the world can be understood in a strong and in a weaker sense. In the strong sense, it means that, without logic, there would be no cats or mats. I will not pronounce on this strong claim here and only commit myself to a weaker one. In the weaker sense, that logic is a condition of the world means that, without logic, it would be impossible to think or talk about cats and mats. That logic is a condition of the world means that it is a condition of the possibility of meaningful language and thought. That ethics is a condition of the world means, in my view, that without ethics life could not be meaningful. Immediately preceding the remark that ethics must be a condition of the world, Wittgenstein writes: “The World and Life are one” (see also TLP 5.621), and he adds: “Physiological life is of course not ‘Life’. And neither is psychological life. Life is the world” (NB 77). Ethics, like logic, is a condition of the world. It is not, though, a condition of the world as an object of meaningful talk or thought, but of the world as life in the non-­ physiological sense. Ethics is clearly not a condition of physiological or psychological life, life in the sense in which animals or plants have a life. Rather, as logic makes semantic meaning possible, makes meaningful propositions possible, ethics makes existential meaning possible, makes it possible for life to have meaning. So I believe that there are clear parallels between logic and ethics as the early Wittgenstein understands them. But there are also differences. It has been argued that logical propositions are sinnlos, that is, they say nothing

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or are without sense, while ethical propositions are thought by Wittgenstein to be unsinnig, that is, they are nonsensical (Conant 2005: 87).3 A reason for thinking this is that, according to Wittgenstein, the sense of the world must lie outside the world (TLP 6.41). The idea here could be that ethics lies outside the world while logic, as a condition of the world, is more like a limit of the world. But if ethics lies outside the world, then it will be more accurate to say that ethics is transcendent (i.e., it lies outside the world) and not just transcendental (it is a condition of the world) (Glock 2015: 108). On the other hand, some have denied that ethics is transcendent according to Wittgenstein: Anne-Marie Christensen (2011: 802) writes that “ethics is not described as transcendent, that is, as being beyond the realm of the real, but as transcendental, that is, as a part of what conditions our experience of the real” (see also Appelqvist 2013; Appelqvist and Pöykkö 2020). So what is it? Is ethics transcendent or transcendental? Jordi Fairhurst (2021) suggests that it might be both, and I agree, although my proposal is somewhat different from his. My proposal would be to distinguish between ethics as a condition of meaningful life, on the one hand (and this is the sense in which ethics is transcendental and analogous to logic), and ethical ‘propositions’ as expressions or manifestations of a particular attitude to the world, on the other (and this is the sense in which ethics is transcendent and disanalogous to logic). Ethics as a condition of meaningful life is analogous to logic as a condition of meaningful thought and language; both are transcendental. Ethics in the first sense makes particular ethical ‘propositions’ possible, like logic makes meaningful thoughts possible. But these particular ethical ‘propositions’ are unlike meaningful propositions in that they do not refer to anything and unlike logical propositions in that they do not show the scaffolding of the world.4 This is the sense in which ethics is transcendent.

3 Goodness, Happiness, Harmony I propose to have a look now at some of Wittgenstein’s remarks that follow the remarks discussed in the previous section (TLP 6.4 – TLP 6.421). Wittgenstein writes: “It is impossible to speak about the will in so far as

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it is the subject of ethical attributes. And the will as a phenomenon is of interest only to psychology” (TLP 6.423). He continues: If the good or bad exercise of the will does alter the world, it can alter only the limits of the world, not the facts – not what can be expressed by means of language. In short, the effect must be that it [the world] becomes an altogether different world. It must, so to speak, wax and wane as a whole. The world of the happy man is a different one from that of the unhappy man. (TLP 6.43)

The first of these remarks is about the will as the ‘subject’ of ethical attributes. Wittgenstein says that the will as a phenomenon is only of interest to psychology, and this is reminiscent of his remark that he is not interested in psychological life. So the will here is not about what people or animals actually want, which is a psychological phenomenon. The will, he explains in the Notebooks, is “an attitude of the subject to the world” (NB 87), and we cannot speak about the will because it is not something in the world. Good and evil only enter through the willing subject (NB 79). They are not in the world: it is not the world, but the subject that can be good or evil (NB 80). “Things acquire ‘significance’ [Bedeutung] only through their relation to my will” (NB 84). Good willing makes a subject good, bad willing makes it evil. Wittgenstein emphasizes in the Tractatus, right before he starts discussing ethics, that what happens in the world is independent of our will (TLP 6.373). “Even if all that we wish for were to happen, still this would only be a favour granted by fate, so to speak; for there is no logical [read: no necessary] connexion between the will and the world, which would guarantee it […] (TLP 6.374).” We find similar remarks in the Notebooks: “I cannot bend the happenings of the world to my will: I am completely powerless” (NB 73). What is good or evil is not the world or anything in the world, but the willing subject. Wittgenstein writes that “One cannot will without acting” (NB 87), but the exact nature of the relation between willing and acting in early Wittgenstein is controversial (for different views, see Christensen 2011: 804 and Fairhurst 2019: 89–90). The willing subject

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is good if it has a good will, which means a good attitude to the world, and it is evil if it has a bad will, which means a bad attitude to the world. Wittgenstein’s emphasis on quality of will, rather than on the consequences of our actions, sounds Kantian. But unlike Kant he seems to identify being good, having a good attitude, with being happy, and being bad, having a bad attitude, with being unhappy. He writes in the Notebooks: I keep on coming back to this! Simply the happy life is good, the unhappy bad. And if I now ask myself: But why should I live happily, then this of itself seems to me to be a tautological question; the happy life seems to be justified, of itself, it seems that it is the only right life. (NB 78)5

Can we say something more about the happy or the good life than that it consists in having a good will or a good attitude? I believe that we can, mainly on the basis of the Notebooks, where Wittgenstein writes: “In order to live happily I must be in agreement with the world. And that is what ‘being happy’ means” (NB 75). Another way of expressing what I take to be the same idea is that “the happy life seems to be in some sense more harmonious than the unhappy” (NB 78). It is interesting that the word Wittgenstein uses for ‘agreement’ is Übereinstimmung, a word which plays a crucial role in the Tractatus as a whole. He writes that “a picture agrees with reality or fails to agree; it is correct or incorrect, true or false” (TLP 2.21). And further: “The agreement or disagreement of its sense [the sense of a picture] with reality constitutes its truth or falsity” (TLP 2.222); “The sense of a proposition is its agreement and disagreement with possibilities of existence and non-­ existence of states of affairs” (TLP 4.2). The general idea is, as we have seen in section one, that logic is a condition of the possibility of semantic meaning: it is in virtue of their sharing a logical form with a situation that propositions can be meaningful. If the situation depicted by the proposition obtains, if there is agreement between the world and the proposition, the proposition is true; if the proposition is meaningful but disagrees with reality, then the proposition is false. The analogy I want to propose, although it certainly has its limits, is that, in the Tractatus, Wittgenstein thinks of ethics as a condition of the possibility of existential meaning. Logic and ethics are both transcendental,

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conditions of the world and of the possibility of meaning. Propositions are the primary units of semantic meaning, lives are the primary units of existential meaning. Propositions and lives have meaning in virtue of their form. Names only have meaning in the context of a proposition, actions or willings only have meaning in the context of a life. And just like propositions can be true or false, meaningful lives (so not physiological lives, but lives that are ethically structured, in which the subject takes up an attitude to the world) can be happy or unhappy, where happiness, like truth, lies in agreement with the world, and unhappiness, like falsity, lies in disagreement with the world. Logic

Ethics

Condition of the world (Language, Thought) Transcendental Condition of the possibility of meaning Proposition as unit of semantic meaning Meaning in virtue of logical form Names only have meaning in context of a proposition Meaningful proposition = true or false True if agreement/fit with reality

Condition of the world (Life) Transcendental Condition of the possibility of meaning Life as unit of existential meaning Meaning in virtue of ethical form Actions/willings only have meaning in context of a life Meaningful life = happy or unhappy Happy if agreement/fit with reality

In Culture and Value, Wittgenstein makes the following remark: “The fact that life is problematic means that your life does not fit life’s shape. So you must change your life, & once it fits the shape, what is problematic will disappear” (Wittgenstein 1998: 31; henceforth ‘CV’). This is a remark from 1937. If our life is problematic, that is, unhappy, we must change it in such a way that it ‘fits’, or comes to agree with, the world, and we will become happy. Again, Wittgenstein suggests that the fact that life is problematic lies in its lacking a certain structure. Once it is structured in a particular way, the problem will disappear. Just like a true proposition is a proposition that fits reality, a happy life is a life that

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somehow fits reality. But the fit does not consist in the obtaining of a depicted situation; rather, Wittgenstein suggests that it consists in the acceptance of reality as it is. That a good life is a happy life, a life in agreement or harmony with the world, may sound good, but can we say something more substantial? Wittgenstein asks: What is the objective mark of the happy, harmonious life? Here it is again clear that there cannot be any such mark that can be described. This mark cannot be a physical one but only a metaphysical one, a transcendental one. (NB 78)

We cannot point to a particular situation and say: if this situation obtains, if this and this happens, your life will be happy. And the reason why we cannot say anything substantial, why we cannot say what a good life consists in or how the world must be in order for a life to be good, or what effects a good life must have in the world, is that we are asking the wrong kind of question and expecting the wrong kind of answer here. The mark of a happy life is not a physical but a transcendental one, and this means: not a matter of a specific physical or otherwise substantial content that happy lives must have, but a structural matter. Similarly, the mark of a true proposition is not physical or otherwise substantial: being true is not a property that something can have or fail to have, it is a structural matter. A proposition is true if the situation depicted by the proposition obtains, if the proposition fits, or is in agreement with, reality. Truth is a matter of the relation between a proposition and reality; similarly, the relation between your life and reality determines whether your life is good or bad, happy or unhappy. I believe that this way of understanding things throws light on Wittgenstein’s remarks on suicide in the Notebooks. Wittgenstein writes: If suicide is allowed then everything is allowed. If anything is not allowed then suicide is not allowed. This throws light on the nature of ethics, for suicide is, so to speak, the elementary sin. … or is even suicide in itself neither good nor evil? (NB 91)

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Suicide is neither good nor evil because good and bad (or evil) lives are both meaningful: the good life is a meaningful life in harmony with reality, the bad life is a meaningful life that fails to agree with reality. In both cases, one’s life bears some kind of relationship to reality; in both cases, one’s life is meaningful in the sense that it agrees or fails to agree with reality, analogous to a proposition’s being meaningful if it is either true or false. The idea that suicide is evil is not to be situated at the level of ethical ‘propositions’, at the transcendent level of expressions of a particular attitude to the world. Suicide is not evil, I suggest, in the sense that it manifests a bad attitude. Rather, it is to be situated at the transcendental level: it precludes the possibility of being good or evil, it symbolizes a refusal to take up any kind of attitude towards the world. If ethics, in the transcendental sense, is about the relation between your life and the world, then suicide throws light on the nature of ethics because it makes any such relation impossible. If suicide is allowed, then it is allowed not to take up any attitude towards the world at all. If no such attitude is taken up, there is no ethics and no value. We are left with a valueless world in which everything is as it is and happens as it does happen, a world in which nothing and everything is allowed. That might be why Wittgenstein says that if suicide is allowed, then everything is allowed. I suggested that suicide can be connected to the refusal to take up any kind of attitude towards the world. It is worth emphasizing, though, that the attempt not to take up any attitude towards the world is an attempt to do something that is impossible. It is simply not an option, for those who are capable of taking up an attitude towards the world, not to take up any attitude. Taking up an ethical attitude is not something that we can either do or not do. We cannot choose or decide to live outside of ethics, just as we cannot choose or decide to talk or think outside of logic.

4 Does the Tractatus Have an Ethical Point? I have been focusing on passages in the Tractatus where Wittgenstein explicitly mentions ethics (6.4s). According to James Conant (2005: 61), however, if we want to know what ethics in the Tractatus is, this is the

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wrong thing to do. The reason is that ethical vocabulary is dispensable: whatever we express using ethical words such as ‘good’ or ‘evil’ can also be expressed in other words, without the explicit use of ethical vocabulary, and so the parts of the Tractatus that do not contain any specifically ethical vocabulary could still have an ethical point. We will underestimate the scope of the ethical in Wittgenstein’s thinking if we focus on the 6.4s (Conant 2005: 66). I would like to respond to Conant by making a distinction (as Conant himself also does, albeit in a somewhat different way, see Conant 2005: 71–72). When Conant discusses ethics in the Tractatus, his question is basically what the ethical point of the Tractatus is, and the phrase ‘ethical point’ is a direct reference to a famous letter Wittgenstein wrote to Ludwig von Ficker. In that letter, Wittgenstein writes that the point of the Tractatus is ethical, and that the Preface and the conclusion of the Tractatus express this point most directly (Monk 1991: 178). In line with Wittgenstein’s suggestion, Conant’s (2005) and Diamond’s (2000) accounts of ethics in the Tractatus focus on ‘the frame’ of the book, that is, the Preface and the closing remarks rather than the 6.4s, and they both refer to Wittgenstein’s remark in the Preface of the Tractatus that his book is not a textbook (Lehrbuch). This has implications for how we have to engage with the book, how we have to do philosophy. In other words, there is some normative point to be drawn from it, a point about what we have to do. But I have not been concerned with normative points such as this one in my discussion. It is quite true that the 6.4s do not contain any clear normative lessons, and the ethical point of the Tractatus has to be sought elsewhere. But apart from looking for normative ethical points, points about what one ought to do, one might also look for what can be called meta-­ ethical points, points about the status of ethics and of ethical propositions. If we say that Wittgenstein has a non-cognitivist and non-realist conception of ethics, we are talking about his meta-ethics.6 And these meta-ethical points are made primarily in the 6.4s, even though it is true that they can only be understood in the context of the work as a whole.7 Because I am not concerned with the normative ethical point of the Tractatus, with ethics in the Tractatus as Conant characterizes it, I believe that my focus on the 6.4s is justified.

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5 Conclusion I have offered a reading of some of Wittgenstein’s remarks on ethics in the 6.4s. I have not commented on all of these remarks. I have said nothing, for instance, about Wittgenstein’s references to the mystical (TLP 6.44, TLP 6.522). I have been focusing on the Tractatus and the Notebooks, with some occasional references to the ‘Lecture on Ethics’, but there is much to say about the relation of Wittgenstein’s thought about ethics in the early work and subsequent developments in his later work (see De Mesel 2014; De Mesel 2018; De Mesel and Kuusela 2019), or about the influence of Wittgenstein’s early meta-ethics on developments in meta-­ ethics in the first half of the twentieth century (Glock 2015). I have not evaluated Wittgenstein’s early thought about ethics: is he presenting a philosophically defensible conception of ethics, a fruitful one perhaps, that has been unfairly disregarded by contemporary meta-ethicists? Although I have been referring to some recent literature on the meaning of life, I have left open the question whether Wittgenstein’s ideas about the meaning of life could be developed in such a way as to constitute a worthwhile addition to that literature. The main idea of this chapter has been that ethics, for Wittgenstein, is, like logic, a condition of the possibility of meaning. The primary unit of semantic meaning is a proposition, and only in the context of a proposition do names have meaning. Similarly, the primary unit of existential meaning is a life, and only in the context of a life do actions or willings have meaning. A proposition is meaningful if it fits the world, and the same can be said about a life. Fit is a structural criterion, rather than a substantial one. Wittgenstein does not specify what has to be the case in the world for a proposition to be true or a life to be happy; rather, he specifies in what kind of relation a proposition or a life must stand to the world in order to be true or happy. A meaningful proposition can be true or false, a meaningful life can be good or evil, happy or unhappy.8

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Notes 1. I do not want to exclude that there is more than an analogy between logic and ethics as the early Wittgenstein understands them. Ray Monk opens his biography of Wittgenstein with a quotation from Otto Weininger’s Sex and Character: “Logic and ethics are fundamentally the same, they are no more than duty to oneself ” (Monk 1991: ii). Perhaps logic and ethics are one, or logic is somehow a part of ethics or the other way round, or they are inseparable in some other way (see, in this regard, also Wittgenstein’s letter to von Ficker referred to in Sect. 4). I will not be concerned with these questions in this chapter. 2. I am grateful to Martin Stokhof for two interesting comments here. First, Wittgenstein writes: „Nur der Satz hat Sinn; nur im Zusammenhange des Satzes hat ein Name Bedeutung“ (TLP 3.3). Both Ogden (Wittgenstein 2005) and Pears/McGuinness (Wittgenstein 1961) translate ‘Bedeutung’ to ‘meaning’ here, but ‘reference’ might be more apt. If so, then the analogy between (1) names only have meaning in the nexus of a proposition and (2) actions only have meaning in the nexus of a life becomes less strong, for one cannot say that actions only have reference in the nexus of a life. Still, my main point remains: both semantic and existential meaning are thoroughly contextual. Second, there is another way of making the analogy, which I will not explore in this chapter. Instead of taking propositions to be analogous to lives, one might suggest that lives are more analogous to texts consisting of propositions, and that propositions are more like actions than like lives. I focus on the parallel proposition-life rather than on proposition-action for several reasons. First, if propositions are analogous to actions, then what are the elements of a proposition analogous to? It has been suggested to me that ‘movements’ might play the required role here (actions are structured wholes consisting of movements, analogous to the way in which propositions are structured wholes consisting of names), but I have doubts about this proposal. Second, and more importantly, the analogy between propositions and lives makes it possible to connect Wittgenstein’s remarks on the (un)happy life and its (dis)agreement with reality to his views on logic (see section three). Meaningful lives can be happy or unhappy, analogous to the way in which meaningful propositions can be true or false. It is not clear how actions could be analogous to propositions in this way.

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3. My attribution of this claim to Conant is based on the following passage: “There are such things for the Tractatus as distinctively ‘logical propositions’, but these are only sinnlos … whereas the only candidates for distinctively ‘ethical propositions’ that figure in the book are strings of signs that are unsinnig” (Conant 2005: 87). Yet Conant also writes: “There are no ethical propositions, for the Tractatus, which thus parallel the propositions of logic, in standing apart from the body of propositions that can be true or false and yet themselves are part of the symbolism” (Conant 2005: 87). The first sentence suggests that ethical propositions are unsinnig, the second may be taken to suggest that they are sinnlos. Whatever Conant’s considered view is, the first sentence suggests that ethical propositions may be unsinnig rather than sinnlos, and this possibility is worth taking seriously. 4. Do they then show something else? I wrote that they express or manifest a particular attitude to the world. One might say that they show this attitude, but showing an attitude to the world (ethical propositions) is different from showing the structure of the world (logical propositions). 5. The difference with Kant may not be very substantial, though, because Wittgenstein’s conception of happiness is different from Kant’s (see Appelqvist and Pöykkö 2020: 73, 86). Neither Wittgenstein nor Kant thinks that ethics is a matter of feeling happy in the empirical sense of the term. 6. Some readers of Wittgenstein, such as Diamond (2000: 169) and Mulhall (2002: 303), think that there can be no such thing as meta-ethics. See De Mesel (2015) for my response to them. On the relation between Wittgensteinian meta-ethics and meta-ethics as traditionally conceived, see Akhlaghi (2022). 7. The meta-ethical points are made primarily in the 6.4s, but not exclusively there. Apart from having normative implications, Wittgenstein’s remark that his book is not a textbook may be thought to contain a meta-ethical point. With respect to language and thought, the idea of its not being a Lehrbuch is that the Tractatus cannot be used to inform people about meaningful language and thought, but presupposes that people are already language-users. It makes implicit what people already know, it teaches nothing new. Analogously, the remarks about ethics cannot be used to inform people about meaningful lives, or to tell them what a meaningful life consists in. Rather, they presuppose that people are already ethical beings.

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8. Versions of this chapter have been presented at the Tractatus Centennial Lectures Series at the universities of Amsterdam and Tsinghua, organized by Martin Stokhof and Hao Tang, and at a workshop on the Tractatus at Ghent University, organized by Wim Vanrie. Many thanks to the organizers for the invitation to present, and to the participants for helpful comments and suggestions. In particular, I thank Kevin Cahill, Eli Friedlander, Oskari Kuusela, Jaap van der Does, Wim Vanrie, and the editors of this volume, Martin Stokhof and Hao Tang.

References Akhlaghi, Farbod. 2022. Meta-Ethical Quietism? Wittgensteinian, Relaxed Realism, and Countercultures in Meta-Ethics. In Wittgenstein and Contemporary Moral Philosophy, ed. Jonathan Beale and Richard Rowland. London: Routledge. Appelqvist, Hanne. 2013. Why Does Wittgenstein Say That Ethics and Aesthetics Are One and the Same? In Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. History and Interpretation, ed. Peter Sullivan and Michael Potter, 40–58. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Appelqvist, Hanne, and Panu-Matti Pöykkö. 2020. Wittgenstein and Levinas on the Transcendentality of Ethics. In Wittgenstein and the Limits of Language, ed. Hanne Appelqvist, 65–89. Routledge: New York. Balaska, Maria. 2019. Seeing the Stove as World. Significance (Bedeutung) in Early Wittgenstein. Philosophical Investigations 42: 40–60. Christensen, Anne-Marie. 2011. Wittgenstein and Ethics. In The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein, ed. Oskari Kuusela and Marie McGinn, 796–817. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Conant, James. 2005. What ‘Ethics’ in the Tractatus is Not. In Religion and Wittgenstein’s Legacy, ed. D.Z.  Phillips and Mario Von Der Ruhr, 39–88. London: Routledge. De Mesel, Benjamin. 2014. Surveyable Representations, the ‘Lecture on Ethics’, and Moral Philosophy. The Nordic Wittgenstein Review 3: 41–69. ———. 2015. Wittgenstein, Meta-Ethics and the Subject Matter of Moral Philosophy. Ethical Perspectives 22: 69–98. ———. 2018. The Later Wittgenstein and Moral Philosophy. Cham: Springer. De Mesel, Benjamin, and Oskari Kuusela, eds. 2019. Ethics in the Wake of Wittgenstein. Routledge: New York.

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Diamond, Cora. 2000. Ethics, Imagination and the Method of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. In The New Wittgenstein, ed. Alice Crary and Rupert Read, 149–173. London: Routledge. Fairhurst, Jordi. 2019. The Ethical Subject and Willing Subject in the Tractatus. An Alternative to the Transcendental Reading. Philosophia 47: 75–95. ———. 2021. Ethics is Transcendental (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 6.421). Journal of the American Philosophical Association 7: 348–367. Glock, Hans-Johann. 2015. Wittgensteinian Anti-Anti Realism. One ‘Anti’ Too Many? Ethical Perspectives 22: 99–129. Goldman, Alan H. 2018. Life’s Values. Pleasure, Happiness, Well-Being, and Meaning. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kauppinen, Antti. 2012. Meaningfulness and Time. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 84: 345–377. Martela, Frank. 2017. Meaningfulness as Contribution. The Southern Journal of Philosophy 55: 232–256. Monk, Ray. 1991. Ludwig Wittgenstein. The Duty of Genius. London: Vintage. Mulhall, Stephen. 2002. Ethics in the Light of Wittgenstein. Philosophical Papers 31: 293–321. Prinzing, Michael M. 2021. The Meaning of ‘Life’s Meaning. Philosophers’ Imprint 21: 1–14. van Roojen, Mark. 2018. ‘Moral Cognitivism vs. Non-Cognitivism’. In Edward Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 edition). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-­cognitivism/ Thomas, Joshua Lewis. 2019. Meaningfulness as Sensefulness. Philosophia 47: 1555–1577. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1961. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Trans. D.F.  Pears and B.F. McGuinness. London: Routledge. (TLP). ———. 1979. Notebooks 1914-1916. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell. (NB). ———. 1993. A Lecture on Ethics. In James C. Klagge and Alfred Nordmann (eds.), Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951, 37–44. Indianapolis: Hackett. (LE). ———. 1998. Culture and Value. Oxford: Blackwell. Revised second edition. (CV). ———. 2000. Wittgenstein’s Nachlass. The Bergen Electronic Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2005 [1922]. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Trans. C.K.  Ogden. London: Routledge.

5 On the Transcendental Ethics of the Tractatus Sami Pihlström

1 Introduction Ludwig Wittgenstein’s 1921 masterpiece, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, defends no theory of normative ethics, no ethical system on a par with, say, utilitarianism and deontology. Nor does it offer any metaethical theory comparable to emotivism, cognitivism, or moral realism, though in a sense we may consider its ethical remarks “metaethical”. They elucidate what ethics is or means, that is, how ethics structures the ways we relate to the world. Even in the absence of any explicit “ethics of the Tractatus”, understanding Wittgenstein’s conception of the relation between language and reality, as well as the underlying account of subjectivity and the self, is crucial for appreciating what it means to adopt an ethical stance. In discussing the Tractarian views on ethics, I am not taking any stand on the dispute between the traditional and the “new Wittgensteinian” readers of the Tractatus (cf. Crary and Read 2000; Conant 2002). Both

S. Pihlström (*) University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Stokhof, H. Tang (eds.), Wittgenstein’s Tractatus at 100, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-29863-9_5

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may be equally seriously interested in the ethical aspects of the Tractatus.1 While “traditional” readers may insist on finding in the book ethical and/ or mystical ideas that can only be “shown”, “resolute readers” argue that the ethical task of the work is the performative one of ironically making its reader realize the ethical significance of seeing the dead ends of metaphysical philosophy. Both may appreciate the fact that—as Wittgenstein put it in a letter to Ludwig von Ficker—the “point” of the book is ethical, and that this is the part of the book that has not been written, delimiting “the Ethical” “from within” (Luckhardt 1979, 94–95). Generally, I side, however, with those viewing Wittgenstein’s engagement with ethics as transcendental. The transcendental interpretation is independent of the “resolute” and the “traditional” readings.2 It argues that Wittgenstein was concerned with the conditions for the possibility of adopting an ethical stance—just as he was concerned with the necessary conditions for the possibility of linguistic representation and thought. Such transcendental conditions cannot be theorized in language; famously, there are no meaningful ethical propositions, according to the Tractatus. This transcendental account—limiting the area of moral concern “from within” our being committed to ethics in our lives, insofar as we have a life, a world, or language at all3—is central for the Tractarian conception of ethics.4 To appreciate this position, we must explore Wittgenstein’s rejection of moral rewards and punishments, his characterizations of ethics as lying beyond language, his transcendental conception of happiness, his remarks on the metaphysical subject and solipsism, as well as the relation between the transcendental and the transcendent. First, we should briefly recapitulate what the Tractatus says about ethics, value, and the mystical— without being able to really “say” it.

2 The Textual Basis The Tractarian discussion of ethics begins with the claim that the world is independent of my will (TLP 6.373). Wittgenstein then declares that “[a]ll propositions are of equal value” (TLP 6.4). That is, all propositions are on a par in describing states of affairs that contingently obtain or fail

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to obtain. Neither those states of affairs nor the propositions depicting them can reach out to the ethically valuable. Wittgenstein continues to elaborate on this in terms of the notions of “sense” (“Sinn”)5 and “value” (“Wert”) at TLP 6.41: The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is, and everything happens as it does happen: in it no value exists – and if it did exist, it would have no value. If there is any value that has value, it must lie outside the whole sphere of what happens and is the case. For all that happens and is the case is accidental. What makes it non-accidental cannot lie within the world, since if it did it would itself be accidental. It must lie outside of the world.

For this reason “it is impossible for there to be propositions of ethics”, as “[p]ropositions can express nothing ‘higher’” (TLP 6.42). It is “clear” that ethics cannot be “put into words”: “Ethics is transcendental. / (Ethics and aesthetics are one.)” (TLP 6.421.) Facts and meaningful propositions are irrelevant to ethics, value, and sense. These “things that cannot be put into words”, according to Wittgenstein, “make themselves manifest” and are “what is mystical” (TLP 6.522). Ethics might obviously seem to concern what we should or should not do in the world, amongst its contingent states of affairs. Wittgenstein notes that whether we do what we are obliged to do is contingent. No action follows from something’s being ethically necessary in the sense of being, for example, dictated by an ethical law: When an ethical law of the form, “Thou shalt…”, is laid down, one’s first thought is, “And what if I do not do it?” It is clear, however, that ethics has nothing to do with punishment or reward in the usual sense of the terms. (TLP 6.422.)

Accordingly, the consequences of our actions are ethically irrelevant (TLP 6.422). Any consequences would be facts, or relations between facts, which are of no concern to ethics. The next step is therefore the

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connection between our (or my) “will” and the world. Wittgenstein further articulates the TLP 6.373 claim about the world being independent of my will: If the good or bad exercise of the will does alter the world, it can alter only the limits of the world, not the facts – not what can be expressed by means of language. In short the effect must be that it becomes an altogether different world. It must, so to speak, wax and wane as a whole. The world of the happy man is a different one from the world of the unhappy man. (TLP 6.43.)

These remarks refer to what was said in the 5.6s about the self as a “limit” (“Grenze”) of the world (see below). It is also impossible to speak in language of the will as the “carrier” of the ethical (TLP 6.423), as we are here not interested in the will in any psychological sense, as a “phenomenon” (TLP 6.423), but only in the transcendental sense. Ethics, then, belongs to “what must be passed over in silence” (TLP 7). In addition to the Tractatus, a comprehensive discussion of Wittgenstein’s (early) ethics would have to analyze the early Notebooks 1914–1916 (NB) and the 1929 “Lecture on Ethics” (available in, e.g., PO). Here, I will pay only limited attention to those extra-Tractarian sources, making no effort to specify their relations to the Tractatus.

3 Moral Reward and Punishment We often think about ethics in terms of rules, principles, or rewards and punishments. If we breach a promise, we may be punished or face moral criticism. In everyday experience such factual events are relevant to ethics. However, Wittgenstein—taking us very far from any ordinary conception of ethics—maintains that the moral value of an action cannot be measured in terms of any reward or punishment in the usual sense. These are irrelevant to ethics, except insofar as they “reside in the action itself ” (TLP 6.422). It is only one’s inner motivation that counts; the ethical stance focuses, “internally”, on the action itself and one’s inner state of soul as an agent.

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In contrast to any “worldly” theory, Tractarian ethics is transcendental: it concerns the conditions for the possibility of our encountering any worldly facts, including rewards and punishments.6 Wittgenstein even sounds as if he found the discourse of reward and punishment unethical. It is not just intellectually misguided to believe that ethics involves reward and punishment; there is something ethically wrong in such a view. Still, rewards and punishments play a role by residing in the action itself. Our actions are “internally”—irrespectively of external consequences or any psychological states they are associated with—rewarded or punished, and this can only result from our overall attitude to the world. It can be suggested that rewards and punishments are irrelevant because for Wittgenstein ethics is primarily, or even exclusively, concerned with “the meaning of life”, and such meaning cannot be accidental in the way facts are (Bearn 1997, 69–70). The analogy between logic and ethics—both claimed to be “transcendental”—must be taken seriously: violating ethical “laws” is, as much as violating logical laws, “punished by the loss of sense”, “from within the practices of thinking [logic] and living [ethics]” (ibid., 72).7 Arguably, the fundamental ethical question Wittgenstein poses is the one of finding meaning and value in a thoroughly contingent world (Brockhaus 1991, 300). Yet, Wittgenstein is no moral nihilist or skeptic, although he rejects the possibility of ethical facts and propositions (ibid., 305–306). Meaning and value just cannot be discussed the way contingent facts can.

4 Saying vs. Showing—and the Mystical While it might seem that we must be able to discuss ethical disagreements in meaningful language, this conception of moral discourse is challenged by the recognition of “the ethical” as ineffable. In particular, when considering extreme manifestations of evil and suffering, and people’s moral responsibility for them, we may feel that we lack adequate words. This experience of ineffability can be phrased in Tractarian terms. As ethics is nothing “worldly”, it cannot be expressed in words. It can only be “shown”—it makes itself manifest—in our attitude to the world, that is,

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life. Qua moral selves, we are not merely beyond the knowable facts of the world—as Kantian-like “noumena”—but beyond the sayable, beyond meaningful language-use that could represent facts. This, however, is not an epistemic matter concerning the knowability of (say) our merit or guilt. It is a conceptual and (if you like) metaphysical matter concerning any facts of the matter regarding the ethical. There just are no facts of the matter of that kind. Yet, Wittgenstein does not intend this in the sense of emotivism, expressivism, or non-cognitivism. For the non-cognitivist, in a sense there should be ethical facts but “in reality” there aren’t any, and therefore ethical language-use must be analyzed differently. Wittgenstein’s denial of moral factuality takes place at a more fundamental level concerning our relation to factuality generally. While he held an “absolutist” view of obligation, he did not believe moral obligations to be grounded in facts. Ethics and aesthetics,8 together with religion, belong to what Wittgenstein characterizes as “the mystical”. God—any more than ethical value—does not manifest in the world: “Gott offenbart sich nicht in der Welt” (TLP 6.432). The mystical, moreover, is not how the world is but that it is (TLP 6.44). Any “how” would be on the level of facts. How the world is has no ethical significance; that there is a world is of utmost significance. While “resolute” readers have argued against interpretations referring to something “mystical” that cannot be said but can be “shown”, the resolute reading itself involves the idea of the ethical being “shown” in our lives precisely by its not being anything that can be said. This is what Cora Diamond (2000 [1991], 153) emphasizes in suggesting that, like logic, ethics—“an ethical spirit, an attitude to the world and life”—can “penetrate any thought and talk”, as it has no particular subject matter. Ethics is not a specific area of discourse but “tied to everything there is or can be, the world as a whole, life” (ibid.). This also means that there can be no “metaethics” in the standard sense, because metaethics presupposes that there are ethical sentences to be philosophically analyzed (ibid., 162). This is something one may agree about without subscribing to the Conant–Diamond interpretation, according to which nonsense, including ethical nonsense, is just nonsense and the Tractatus is merely

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concerned with an “imaginative activity of understanding an utterer of nonsense” (ibid., 163). The ethical “point” of the Tractatus, whatever it is, can be appreciated by “traditional”, “resolute”, and transcendental readers.

5 Happiness: A Transcendental Account Given the Kantian tone of duty in Wittgenstein’s attitude to ethics—not only in the Tractatus but also in the Notebooks and the “Lecture on Ethics”—it may seem surprising that a central concept in the Tractatus is happiness. Maintaining that the world of the “happy man” is different from that of the “unhappy man”,9 Wittgenstein claims that good or evil will cannot alter the facts that are independent of my will but only the “limits of the world”, so that the world becomes an “altogether different” world (TLP 6.43). As the self, the “I”, is a limit of the world, the ethically relevant altering of the limits of the world due to good or evil will only pertains to the self. When the world “waxes or wanes” as a totality, it is the subject that does so, at the limit.10 When the world changes in toto, the self whose life is identical with the world may become happy or unhappy. Wittgenstein is not concerned with the happiness of empirical selves—or the states of affairs making us happy—but with the transcendental (metaphysical) self for whom any state of affairs is insignificant (Appelqvist and Pöykkö 2020, 73). Thus, he is not interested in happiness as an empirical-factual goal in any psychological sense but, arguably, with what Kant in the Second Critique (1983a [1788]) regarded as our “worthiness” of being happy. From the Kantian point of view, happiness (in the empirical sense) is irrelevant to morality; on the contrary, our empirical pursuit of happiness is what we must struggle against when commanded by the moral law. Our inclination toward selecting maxims that place the pursuit of our own happiness prior to the demands of morality is what Kant (1983b [1794]) calls “radical evil”. Kant drew the full consequences from the idea that our morality may truly require us to sacrifice our happiness. Wittgenstein belongs to this tradition, postulating his version of the Kantian gulf between the realms of nature (what can be spoken about) and freedom (the mystical, the will).

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Wittgenstein, however, goes far beyond Kant and construes happiness itself as a transcendental concept. Consequently, happiness in the Tractatus means something different from what Kant meant when criticizing the pursuit of happiness. The world of the “happy man” is a world seen as a harmonious totality; happiness consists in “being in harmony with the world” (cf. Garver 1994, 89). Given the Tractarian account of the world as a totality of facts (TLP 1.1), this is harmony not “with the substance of the world, since the substance of this world is the same as the substance of any possible world”, but with the facts constituting this world (Garver 1994, 89; cf. TLP 6.373). The way this world is—how its constituents are contingently arranged—is ethically insignificant and has nothing to do with happiness. Yet, happiness consists in our being in harmony with however it is arranged: “For it is the world with its actual miseries, not the world with its possible glories, that we must come to understand and to reconcile ourselves with. It is the world of facts, not of objects” (Garver 1994, 143).11 Happiness in the transcendental sense means, then, harmony with however the world contingently happens to be. Thus, Wittgenstein’s transcendental eudaimonism is a distant relative of ancient Stoics’ ideal of apatheia (cf. De Mesel 2023). The Stoic sage may be happy in not being emotionally moved by anything in the world. However, the Wittgensteinian ethical sage need not view the world as guided by any cosmic logos.12 The “happy man” lives harmoniously in a world (or is identical with the world) that is fundamentally different from the “unhappy man’s” world, no matter how the world is “arranged”. However, this transcendental happiness is subordinate to the ethical requirements the will (the subject) finds the world (life) presenting it with. There can be no harmony or happiness in the absence of obligation. Therefore, the focus on harmony renders the Tractarian view problematic, as the ethical significance of our disharmony with the world must be taken seriously. Ethics may oblige us not to view our relationship with the world as harmonious. The reality of suffering is a fundamental challenge to any such conception of ethics operating with a transcendental-cum-­ metaphysical notion of harmony, or to eudaimonistic ethics generally (cf. Pihlström 2020a, Chap. 6). Indeed, Tractarian unhappiness as transcendental disharmony may itself be a form of suffering.

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6 Ethical Solipsism As there are no ethical facts, I can, on the Tractarian account, only ethically evaluate my own relation to the world (life); hence, ethics is exclusively concerned with me, the “first person”. This brings us to Wittgenstein’s solipsism, which is essential for his conception of ethics. The remarks on the will and the self ’s relation to the world as a limited totality must be read in the context of Wittgenstein’s views on subjectivity and solipsism. Wittgenstein seems to be, in the Tractatus, not merely a transcendental solipsist about the relation between language and the world, that is, regarding the world given to the subject at its “limit” (TLP 5.6421), a subject for whom the world is “one” with life (TLP 5.62-5.64), but also an ethical solipsist.13 The self for whom the world is “my world” (TLP 5.62) “shrinks” to a point without extension, thus disappearing into the world, as solipsism coincides with “pure realism” when strictly thought through (TLP 5.64). Wittgenstein’s transcendental solipsism, like Kantian transcendental idealism, is compatible with empirical realism (Kannisto 1986). Yet, the limits of “my language” designate the limits of my (or the) world (TLP 5.6). The philosophical “I”, as distinguished from any empirical psychological subject, is central here: “I am my world” (See again TLP 5.6-5.63). However, this “I” is literally not the (or any) center of the world, because it is, precisely, a “limit” of the world. Wittgenstein’s solipsism is, clearly, no ordinary solipsism: there “is” no subject of solipsism; as the “limit”, the self does not belong to the world (TLP 5.62-5.63). It does not exist “in” the world as an entity, nor does its happiness belong to the world as a fact. We cannot dwell on the transcendental argument regarding the possibility of linguistic representation that motivates Wittgensteinian solipsism (Kannisto 1986). Instead, we may focus on his finding solipsism a necessary condition for the possibility of ethics. Paradoxically, only for the solipsist can there be ethics, as only the solipsist can have a world at all, insofar as the world is a “limited” totality viewable sub specie aeternitatis. As ethics means having an appropriate relation to the world, only the solipsist can have such a relation, and thus only the solipsist can “have” ethics. Solipsistic ethics is the only possible ethics. Hence, ethics is not

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contingently solipsistic, “factually” tied to me—the “first person”—but must necessarily be considered solipsistic. A conception of ethics ignoring this (unsayable) solipsistic predicament would not really be a conception of ethics. Clearly, this creates a tension within our understanding of ethics, because ethics concerns our actions in a world shared with others. This does not mean that Wittgenstein would ground ethics on any theoretical, even transcendental solipsism. Seeing a link between solipsism and ethics is compatible with the resolutely non-theoretical project of “clarification” in the Tractatus emphasized by Oskari Kuusela (2017). According to Kuusela, Wittgenstein is, instead of putting forward any theory (of ethics or anything else), “remind[ing] us about something we already know”, “our pre-theoretical abilit[ies]” (ibid., 42). Arguably, in order to make sense of this “we”, we need the transcendental self of solipsism. Accordingly, only the subject’s relation to the world, conceived as a limited totality, is what ethically matters—and there can be only one subject, me.14 Transcendental happiness must also be interpreted in terms of ethical solipsism—or possibly “solipsism of the present moment”, as eternity, for Wittgenstein, amounts to “living in the present” (TLP 6.4311). Only the first person, the solipsistic subject, can be happy in the sense of being in harmony with the way the world contingently is, and this can strictly speaking only take place in the present. This also illuminates the view that it is only the self that is good or evil. The independent world possesses no value. As we saw, good or evil will cannot alter the facts of the world but only its limits, so that the world may become “altogether different”. But the relation to the world as a whole is what is significant for the ethical subject.15

7 Transcendental, Not Transcendent? As important as the “non-worldly” conception of ethics is for our understanding of the Tractatus, it would be misleading to read Wittgenstein’s claims about value residing “beyond” (“outside”) the world as references to the “transcendence” of ethics. Ethics is claimed to be transcendental, not transcendent (TLP 6.421).16 Here, Wittgenstein corrects his hasty characterization of ethics as “transcendent” in the Notebooks (NB, July

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30, 1916). Yet, even in the Tractatus he does say, problematically for the transcendental interpreter, that the Sinn of the world must lie outside (“ausserhalb”) the world (TLP 6.41). Propositions cannot express anything “higher” (TLP 6.42), and the ethical, along with the religious, the aesthetic, and the mystical, falls under this “higher”.17 In the “Lecture on Ethics”, the ethical is described as “supernatural” (PO 40, 43), suggesting transcendence. However, there is nothing that can, according to Wittgenstein, lie outside the world. For both logical and ethical reasons, the world must be conceived as a limited totality with no “otherworldliness” beyond it (see also Brockhaus 1991, 315n27, 325). Interpreting Wittgenstein as affirming the transcendentality (not transcendence) of the ethical makes better sense of ethics as manifesting fundamental seriousness in the self ’s relation to the world. Both ethics and logic are transcendental (TLP 6.13, 6.421), pertaining to the sense of the world—the world conceived as life, or as a structure of possible facts isomorphic to the structure of language (see De Mesel 2023). They are not, according to the transcendental reading, mystical in the sense of gesturing at extra-worldly states of affairs available only from a privileged epistemic point of view; nor is this view “morally realistic” in the sense of locating the ethical in any worldly states of affairs. The transcendental reading is also supported by, for example, the Notebooks remark on ethics, along with logic, as a “condition of the world” (NB 77).18 Moreover, ethics (like logic) is not contingently a condition of the world; it “must” be such a condition (NB 77). This is a stronger formulation than Kant’s account of transcendental conditions as necessarily applicable to all possible experience. For Kant, there is a kind of contingency built into transcendentality, because at least some of his conditions for the possibility of experience (e.g., space and time as forms of intuition) are human ways of experiencing reality.19 The relation between the transcendental and the transcendent is complex, however. We might say that both are present here: the subject’s commitment to transcendent, ineffable moral value (e.g., “the right way”, in the “Lecture on Ethics”) is itself a transcendental condition for the possibility of ethics. One might argue, transcendentally, that unless value is transcendent and absolute, in comparison to contingent and transitionary human projects, it cannot be ethical at all. In the terminology of the

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“Lecture on Ethics”, ethical value judgments are absolute, not relative, and the absolutely good or valuable has no more literal sense than the experience of being “absolutely safe” has; thus, in ethics we necessarily misuse language (PO 41).20 As in the Tractatus, Wittgenstein suggests that ethical value is not on a par with worldly facts (which include relative values, means for ends). Anyone trying to write about ethics (or religion) will inevitably “run against the boundaries of language” (PO 44). Ethics, then, is sublime, otherworldly—transcendent. Some scholars emphasize transcendence instead of transcendentality. For example, Dale Jacquette (1997, 306–307) reads Wittgenstein as maintaining that ethics “transcends the natural world”. The subject itself, transcending the world, is the source of the transcendence of ethics. There can be no (deep, interesting, non-vulgar) talk about ethics or values—but only trivial, shallow, relativized value-talk. Jacquette’s views on the transcendence of ethics and the subject are, however, hard to reconcile with Wittgenstein’s statement that ethics is transcendental. Given his Kantian-­ Schopenhauerian background and the carefully constructed text of the Tractatus, it seems implausible that he would have ignored the Kantian distinction or made a slip of pen, especially as the wording changes from “transcendent” (Notebooks) to “transcendental” (Tractatus). Accordingly, ethics does not lie “outside” or “above” the world (life) in any literal sense. It lies, again, at the limit of the world, providing a view to the world as a limited whole, as something valuable.21 Wittgenstein’s transcendental solipsism emphasizes that the subject views their world as a whole under the aspect of value, sub specie aeternitatis. There is no “transcendence” here, only transcendentality.22 While based on transcendental solipsism, ethics clarifies (cf. Kuusela 2017) our relation to the world, instead of the world-relation of some mysterious transcendent metaphysical subjectivity.

8 Transcendence, After All? It remains unclear, however, whether this transcendental, non-­ transcendent interpretation of ethical value and the subject can be consistently carried through. The “Lecture on Ethics” seems to affirm that

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ethics is a (desperate) attempt to speak about something beyond the boundaries of language, illegitimately stepping over the limits within which (only) meaning is possible. One option is to interpret Wittgenstein as offering a transcendental argument for transcendent commitments. The interpretation of Wittgenstein’s early views on ethics and ontology by Martin Stokhof (2002, especially Chap. 4) may help us here.23 Referring to the discussion of the will in the Tractatus, Stokhof speaks about the “ineffability of value” (ibid., 210–212) and the “transcendent nature of the will with regard to the world and the concomitant transcendent nature of ethics” (ibid., 208), but adds that this transcendence is logical, not ontological: “All our acting takes place in the world and hence our will, our ethical attitudes, are immanent at the same time” (ibid., 209). Values, while transcending the world, cannot be found in any “ontologically transcendent realm” (ibid., 238). True, the (ethically) good “in an absolute sense” can—or should—be seen as “an attribute of God’s Will”, but even such transcendence is not absolute but “tied to the world”, given Wittgenstein’s identification of God with “how things stand” (ibid., 215–216).24 Stokhof argues that the distinction between the psychological subject and the metaphysical (willing, ethical) subject is not a distinction between two ontological realms (ibid., 235, 245). Through Wittgenstein’s linguistic turn of the “Kantian program”, transcendence is rearticulated as a linguistic notion (ibid., 236). According to Stokhof, Wittgenstein maintains that we can view the world from the perspective of logic and ontology, “from the midst of things”, but also sub specie aeterni, “as a limited whole, of which the limits are determined by the ethical will”; these are two ways of viewing the same thing, of interacting with the world (ibid., 237).25 Stokhof suggests that this qualified account of ineffability and transcendence may save a “down-to-earth”, practical approach to moral problems, and that the Tractatus invites us to lead a fundamentally ethically concerned everyday life (ibid., 245, 249).26 Thus, Wittgenstein’s remarks on ethical value and the subject as transcendental may yield a rearticulated notion of the transcendent. Insofar as God is involved here as “fate”, or the way the world is (sub specie aeterni), a crucial link between the philosophy of religion and ethics is also established: both rearticulate the Kantian distinction between transcendentality and transcendence.

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While I find it important to emphasize the (mere) transcendentality of the Tractatus, a reader of Wittgenstein needs to reconsider how, or whether, the view that Wittgenstein is only concerned with the transcendental (not with the transcendent) can be maintained. While it is no accident that the word “transcendent” (employed in the relevant remark in the Notebooks) was changed to “transcendental” in the Tractatus, he continuously uses expressions invoking transcendence, including “outside” (“ausserhalb”), when speaking about the Sinn of the world and life having to lie outside the world. The “Lecture on Ethics” even refers to the “supernatural” character of the ethical. Keeping the concepts of the transcendent and the transcendental distinct, it is possible to recognize the transcendental role played by our postulating something transcendent. Recall Kant’s (1983a [1788]) “postulates of practical reason”, viz., God’s existence, the immortality of the soul, and freedom. According to Kant, these are “mere ideas” playing only a regulative role in the theoretical use of reason; however, within the practical use of reason, they are constitutive of our commitment to morality, because the moral law obligates us to pursue the summum bonum (the “highest good”) unrealizable in the empirical world. The postulates are not transcendentally constitutive of morality but have a transcendental role by being constitutively indispensable for us to be committed to what the moral law commands.27 Hence, from the Kantian perspective, it is practically necessary to postulate God, immortality, and freedom, although these postulations transcend experience. It is, thus, transcendentally necessary to postulate transcendence. Analogously, the transcendence of things in themselves could be seen as a transcendental presupposition of the possibility of experience.28 Similarly, for Wittgenstein, ethics as such is transcendental, shaping and constituting the world (life) as logic does. It is “at the limit”, enabling us to view the world as a totality. By so doing, it refers beyond what it limits. It does refer to the transcendent, to the extent that it refers to anything29—or rather, opens a perspective to transcendence—and does so by staying at the limit. This highlights the transcendental status of ethics qua transcendent. That ethics pursues transcendence plays a transcendental role in the way ethics shapes and constitutes the world (life) it limits. Its transcendent aspiration (to the “higher”) is inseparable from its transcendental character, though conceptually these must be distinguished.

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Cora Diamond (2000 [1991], 168) correctly maintains that, according to both Kant and Wittgenstein, “ethics is destroyed, there is no ethics, if you try to move ethical thought into the realm of what we can know, the empirical world”, and that in Wittgenstein’s case, unlike Kant’s, pushing ethics into synthetic a priori judgments would also destroy ethics. Furthermore, both reject empirical psychology of the will as irrelevant to good and evil (ibid.). Where I disagree with Diamond is regarding her claim that when Wittgenstein uses the word “transcendental”, “this does not mean that it is concerned with the activities of some transcendental subject” (ibid.). On the contrary, the transcendental subject, as a limit of the world, renders ethics possible by willing. When Diamond (continuously) invokes our need to “make certain distinctions” in our “talk and thought and life” (ibid., 171), she is, arguably, speaking about the transcendental subject limiting the describable world from within the language we (it) use(s). Accordingly, while we should be aware of the differences in Kant’s and Wittgenstein’s uses of “transcendental” (ibid., 168–169), a relaxed sense of this notion enables us to view Wittgenstein’s remarks as dealing with the transcendental (solipsistic, metaphysical) self. As there is no “other world”, we play this transcendental role, as the ethical penetrates all our discourses. Diamond suggests (“resolutely”) that the “attractiveness” of the nonsensical use of (apparently) ethical language may signal this ubiquitous penetration. However, this is precisely what the transcendental subject does. Ethics reaches out to transcendence, but this reaching-out is performed by us, as psychological selves, qua transcendental subjects. It needs to be performed in such a way that we (can) view the world itself— in its factual contingency—as morally relevant, despite its lack of higher value (Kuusela 2017, 47). A tension remains in Wittgensteinian ethics concerning this possibility, and this functional conception of the transcendental subject (as we may call it) is hard to reconcile with what Wittgenstein actually says about the subject in the 5.6s. From the ethical standpoint, the world must be ethically relevant to us albeit devoid of value.30 But there is no reason to suppose that an analysis of our ethical relation to the world could liberate us from the tensions inherent in our self-understanding as subjects.

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9 Conclusion: The Problem of Life There is no “ethics of the Tractatus” as a theory but only remarks that can, suitably interpreted, be used in seeking an ethical attitude. A person possessing such an attitude does not claim to solve “the problem of life”, which Wittgenstein saw as irreducible to scientific or everyday problems resolvable by acquiring factual knowledge; the solution to the problem of life can only be seen as the disappearance of the problem (TLP 6.521).31 But they need to be able to view the world under the aspect of ethical value in the sense of something “higher” than mere facts, that is, qua transcendent. The Tractatus encourages an ethical attitude to the world conscious of the irresolvability of the problem of life. What I find problematic in Wittgenstein’s account is, unsurprisingly, its solipsism (Pihlström 2020b). We cannot explain solipsism away; it is solipsism that gives Wittgenstein’s ethical thought its “first-personal” seriousness.32 But solipsism also shows what is problematic about it. While this is no ordinary solipsism—the world is not claimed to be metaphysically dependent on my experience— nor ethical solipsism in the sense of egoism, it is solipsistic in locating the ultimate ethical problem in the significance of my life and world. Even such a radically other-regarding ethical thinker as Levinas cannot get rid of the problem of solipsism (see Pihlström 2016, 2020b). It is me for whom the obligation to put the other first is set. The Sinn of my life is the source of any ethical (unsayable) Sinn there may be.33 For me it may be ethically crucial not to be concerned with my life or its meaning, nor with a harmonious relation to a horrible world; yet this concern itself is, solipsistically, subordinated to my pursuit of meaning. Here Wittgenstein’s ethics challenges us to self-criticism. While we cannot get rid of solipsism, nor the pursuit of happiness and meaningfulness at the transcendental level, we may develop a critical attitude to this feature of our human condition.34 “The perspective of ethics”, Hanne Appelqvist and Panu-Matti Pöykkö (2020, 73) write comparing Wittgenstein with Levinas, “shows the world as a happy world by bringing the will into a harmony with the otherwise

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evaluatively neutral facts; it shows the world as having sense or purpose that arises from the a priori form of willing itself ”. This, though interpretively accurate, is what I find problematic in Wittgenstein. The perspective of ethics should recognize the impossibility of a metaphysical harmony with allegedly “evaluatively neutral” facts such as unspeakable sufferings. (Their being unspeakable may be articulated in terms of Tractarian ethical ineffability.) It is the pursuit of harmony that is misguided.35 While there may be no “riddle” in the world (TLP 6.5), the problem with harmony is our inability to see the world itself, as the collection of facts it contingently is, as deeply problematic. Our being “reconciled with” the world and its “actual miseries” (Garver 1994, 143) is ethically disturbing—and here Tractarian ethics is unsatisfactory.36 We should read Wittgenstein with neither mystification nor mere ironism. The ethical remarks of the Tractatus are between “showing”, or gesturing at, ineffable truths, on the one hand, and the resolute readers’ ironic rejection of such gesturings, on the other. This invites us to critical self-reflection on our relation to the world and language that are not just mine but shared with others, especially the suffering others whose “place” in the world I too easily take (borrowing a picture from Levinas) and whose sufferings we may invest with pseudo-meanings serving our own pursuit of harmony. This reflection can only take place at the transcendental level; in engaging in such a process we are (so to speak) acting as transcendental subjects. Appreciating the Tractarian non-worldly conception of ethics may help us adopt a critical distance to views on ethics (especially those tempted by moral realisms analogous to scientific realism) according to which ethical inquiry can discover a “true” answer to a moral problem,37 or tell us the right thing to do. In contrast, the Tractatus reminds us that ethics, even if considered an “inquiry”, is primarily “work on oneself ”, “[o]n how one sees things” (CV 24), our personal viewing of the world and the problem of life. Solipsism is a powerful, albeit incoherent, expression of this idea. If the notion of truth has any applicability here, it is as a result of a personal struggle of viewing the world “rightly”, very different from discovering truths about the factual world.38

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Notes 1. The question concerning Wittgenstein’s methodology divides these lines of interpretation (see, e.g., Conant 2002; Pihlström 2006). My only methodological claim here is that Wittgenstein uses a transcendental methodology of philosophical exposition and argument, not in the original Kantian sense but in a sense distinctive enough to earn him a place in the tradition of transcendental philosophy (cf. Appelqvist 2020). Regarding Wittgenstein’s commitment to the transcendental tradition, it is important to keep in mind his early inspirations from Schopenhauer that shaped his understanding of ethics and the will (cf., e.g., Griffiths 1974; Tilghman 1991). 2. See Appelqvist 2020, especially the editor’s introduction (on ethics, see 8–9). The “Kantian tradition” in interpreting Wittgenstein was largely initiated in Stenius’s (1960) early study. My own approach has been influenced by Kannisto (1986) and Appelqvist (2013, 2016, 2020); see Pihlström (2016, 2020a, 2020b). There are also readings heavily criticizing transcendental accounts, e.g., Fairhurst (2019). 3. This formulation is, I believe, not that different from what Kuusela (2017, 39–40) aims at in his interpretation of Wittgenstein’s project of clarifying how moral value, or the distinction between good and bad, “already informs our lives”—in both the early and the late Wittgenstein. 4. I will partly rely on my discussions of Wittgensteinian ethics in Pihlström (2011, 2016, 2020a, 2020b); however, they serve broader philosophical projects of understanding, e.g., the nature of guilt, mortality, suffering, and solipsism. It may seem that what I am trying to do in this essay is much closer to a traditional interpretation than a resolute one. However, even a resolute reading might, in my view, in its own way investigate Wittgenstein’s articulation of the ethical as conditioning our (or my) relation to the world, and thus its “transcendental” character, without explicating this in terms of any transcendental “theory” and without claiming that the nonsensical sentences of the Tractatus would in some mysterious sense “make sense”, after all. In any event, I have not intended my remarks on the transcendentality of ethics as a direct contribution to the debate on the resolute reading. 5. While “sense” is the standard rendering of the German “Sinn” here, “meaning” might be more appropriate in this context.

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6. See Stokhof (2002); Christensen (2011); Appelqvist (2020); Appelqvist and Pöykkö (2020). 7. For a lucid discussion of this relation between logic and ethics as transcendental, see De Mesel (2023). 8. For discussions of the unity of ethics and aesthetics, see Tilghman (1991) (especially Chaps. 3–4 regarding the Tractatus); Appelqvist (2013, 2016). 9. See also the NB entries on July 8 and 29–30, 1916. 10. Griffiths (1974, 107–108) asks whether the metaphor of “waxing and waning” entails, implausibly, that the meaning of the world could be a matter of degree. It is only “my subjective world”, he concludes, that “must wax and wane” (ibid., 108). 11. Garver’s (1994, 140–145) interpretation of the ethics of the early Wittgenstein comes close to a Spinozistic pantheism. Note that the ethical task of finding harmony with the world would remain unchanged even if the world were “glorious” instead of being miserable. (Thanks to Martin Stokhof for emphasizing this.) 12. Perhaps Wittgenstein is closer to a Christian attitude than a Stoic one. Griffiths (1974, 111) summarizes his view on the “amenities” of life (cf. NB, August 13, 1916) as follows: “Wittgenstein is not saying ‘Learn not to want a warm bed’ but ‘Of course you want a warm bed, but learn to be content to want one and not have one’. As one might say, ‘I wish that so and so, but Thy Will be done’.” (See also Kuusela 2017). 13. For the remark on the world and life as “one”, see TLP 5.6421; for a thoroughgoing discussion, see Stokhof (2002). 14. We cannot here determine in what sense the Tractatus espouses solipsism, or whether solipsism remains its “preferred” view though it cannot be put into words (any more than ethics), but I find the transcendentally solipsistic interpretations in, e.g., Kannisto (1986) and Appelqvist (2016) plausible; see Pihlström (2020b). 15. Tilghman (1991, 51, 59) emphasizes that the “extensionless point” into which the self shrinks is not the thinking but the “willing subject”. Thoughts would be just further facts; hence, the metaphysical subject must in a Schopenhauerian fashion be identified with the will (ibid., 51), which “alters the limits of the world by changing the attitude one takes to the world” (ibid., 60). 16. For lucid accounts, see Appelqvist (2013, 2016); Appelqvist and Pöykkö (2020). Even such a careful transcendental interpreter as Brockhaus (1991, 318) mistakenly quotes TLP 6.421 as “Ethics is transcendent”.

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17. This contrast between transcendentality and transcendence can be carried over into Wittgenstein’s views on death, immortality (or eternity, timelessness; cf. TLP 6.4311), and religion. See Pihlström (2016). 18. It is this transcendentality—of the ethical being a condition for the possibility of there being a world—that Appelqvist and Pöykkö (2020) find common to Wittgenstein and Levinas. On the transcendental (as contrasted with “transcendent”) reading, see also, e.g., Watzka (2000), 100–101. 19. However, the later Wittgenstein arguably places transcendentality within the “natural history” of the human form of life. This remains within a broadly transcendental understanding of our relation to the world, though (cf., e.g., Garver 1994; Moore 2003, 125; Pihlström 2020a, Chap. 5). 20. See Diamond’s (2000 [1991]) analysis of the “attractiveness” of ethical nonsense. 21. According to Kuusela (2017, 47), ethics “clarifies the constitution of the world as something experienced as valuable/valueless or meaningful/ meaningless” and is thus “concerned with […] the experience of the world, which in itself is valueless and meaningless, as valuable and meaningful”. 22. For a different overall reading with a similar rejection of transcendent otherworldliness (without rejecting the term “transcendental”), see Diamond (2000 [1991]). In contrast, Linhe Han (1996, 26, 40–42) misleadingly claims that Wittgenstein places ethics and the subject in a transcendent, otherworldly “domain”. 23. Stokhof also reads Wittgenstein in a Kantian context, examining, transcendentally, the question of how meaning is possible. 24. See NB, August 1, 1916. Another NB entry, July 8, 1916, identifies God with “fate” and with “the world” as independent of our will. 25. I find Stokhof ’s “one-world” reading of the Tractatus analogous to one-­ world treatments of Kant’s distinction between appearances and the thing in itself (e.g., Allison 2004 [1983]). 26. Mounce (1981, 97) also notes that while worldly facts cannot solve ethical problems, they may “give rise to them”. Wittgenstein writes (TLP 6.4321) that the facts “contribute only to the setting of the problem, not to its solution”. 27. See Beiser (2006) for a discussion of the practically constitutive role of the postulates. 28. For discussions relevant to these tentative proposals, see, e.g., Allison (2004 [1983]); Moore (2003); Beiser (2006).

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29. Of course, it does not “refer” in the sense of linguistic representation or designation. But in its own way it still gestures at the transcendent. 30. On seeing the world as ethically relevant, cf. Winch (1972). See Diamond (2004) for a discussion of why no explicitly morally valuational language (e.g., in literature) is necessary for ethical description. 31. Brockhaus (1991, 312) suggests that the “riddle of life” (TLP 6.4312) and the question concerning the “meaning of life” (TLP 6.251) are “nearly identical with the question of a real ethical reward”, while Tilghman (1991, 61) maintains that the ethical reward is “nothing else but the face with which the world looks back at you”. 32. See Brockhaus’s (1991, 321–331) discussion of the solipsistic metaphysical subject (“the bearer of value”) as in its distinctive way particular and unique, though unidentifiable as any element of the world. This “criterionless uniqueness of the metaphysical ego” (ibid., 322) is deeply puzzling, though. 33. As noted, Wittgenstein uses the term Sinn in a double meaning, referring both to what propositions represent and to the meaning of life (or the world) when seen as “valuable” in some sense. In the Notebooks, he spoke about the “purpose” (“Zweck”) of life in the same context (NB 72). Cf. Appelqvist and Pöykkö (2020), 68–69. 34. Kuusela argues that “accepting” reality and the related sense of harmony and happiness should not be understood in the passive sense of accepting the world, including injustices. Rather, ethics is about “how we ought to will”, and harmony as happiness enters the picture as the attitude that “whatever one wills, the outcome must be accepted” (Kuusela 2017, 49). While sympathizing with this, I am not convinced that Wittgenstein’s references to viewing the world “sub specie aeternitatis” can be explained in terms of our actions being parts of a larger whole (ibid., 50); this seems to dismiss the solipsistic dimension. Moreover, non-acceptance, yielding disharmony, may emerge as a key to the ethical relation to the world. 35. Cf. Kivistö and Pihlström (2016); Pihlström (2020a). 36. As Griffiths (1974, 108–109) plausibly explains, here is a difference between Schopenhauer and Wittgenstein: for a Schopenhauerian pessimist, it would be impossible to recommend the attitude of being reconciled with life. 37. Such assumptions of the truth-aptness of (meta)ethical discourse are not restricted to moral realism, as antirealists could maintain that their metaethical view, e.g., expressivism, is a “true” theory of ethical language and its relation to reality.

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38. I am grateful to Martin Stokhof and Hao Tang not only for their excellent comments on an earlier draft but also for the kind invitation to deliver this paper at the online Centennial Lecture Series on Wittgenstein’s Tractatus in 2021, and to the participants, especially Oskari Kuusela, Kevin Cahill, Benjamin de Mesel, and Hans-Johann Glock, for valuable questions and comments.

References Wittgenstein’s Works CV: Culture and Value. Trans. Peter Winch. Eds. G.H. von Wright and Heikki Nyman. 1998 (revised edition). Oxford: Blackwell. Luckhardt, C.G. 1979. Wittgenstein: Sources and Perspectives. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. NB: Notebooks 1914—1916. Eds. G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright. Trans. G.E.M. Anscombe. 1961. Oxford: Blackwell. PO: Philosophical Occasions 1912—1951. Eds. J.C. Klagge and A. Nordmann. 1993. Indianapolis: Hackett. TLP: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Trans. Brian F. McGuinness and David F. Pears. 1974 [1921]. London: Routledge.

Other References Allison, Henry E. 2004 [1983]. Kant’s Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense—A Revised and Enlarged Edition. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT and London. Appelqvist, Hanne. 2013. Why Does Wittgenstein Say that Ethics and Aesthetics Are One and the Same? In Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: History and Interpretation, ed. Peter Sullivan and Michael Potter, 40–58. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2016. On Wittgenstein’s Kantian Solution of the Problem of Philosophy. The British Journal for the History of Philosophy 24: 697–719. ———, ed. 2020. Wittgenstein and the Limits of Language. London and New York: Routledge. Appelqvist, Hanne, and Panu-Matti Pöykkö. 2020. Wittgenstein and Levinas on the Transcendentality of Ethics. In Wittgenstein and the Limits of Language, ed. H. Appelqvist, 65–89. London: Routledge.

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Bearn, Gordon C.F. 1997. Waking to Wonder: Wittgenstein’s Existential Investigations. Albany: SUNY Press. Beiser, Frederick C. 2006. Moral Faith and the Highest Good. In The Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy, ed. Paul Guyer, 588–629. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brockhaus, Richard J. 1991. Pulling Up the Ladder: The Metaphysical Roots of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. La Salle, IL: Open Court. Christensen, Anne-Marie. 2011. Wittgenstein and Ethics. In The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein, ed. Oskari Kuusela and Marie McGinn, 796–817. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Conant, James. 2002. The Method of the Tractatus. In From Frege to Wittgenstein: Perspectives on Early Analytic Philosophy, ed. Erich Reck. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Crary, Alice, and Rupert Read, eds. 2000. The New Wittgenstein. London and New York: Routledge. De Mesel, Benjamin. 2023. Ethics in the Tractatus: A Condition of the Possibility of Meaning? This volume. Diamond, Cora. 2000 [1991]. Ethics, Imagination and the Method of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. In The New Wittgenstein, ed. A. Crary and R. Read, 149–173. London: Routledge. ———. 2004. Having a Rough Story about What Moral Philosophy Is. In The Literary Wittgenstein, ed. John Gibson and Wolfgang Huemer, 127–145. London and New York: Routledge. Fairhurst, Jordi. 2019. The Ethical Subject and Willing Subject in the Tractatus: An Alternative to the Transcendental Reading. Philosophia 47: 75–95. Garver, Newton. 1994. This Complicated Form of Life. La Salle, IL: Open Court. Griffiths, A.  Phillips. 1974. Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer, and Ethics. In Understanding Wittgenstein, ed. Godfrey Vesey, 96–116. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan. Han, Linhe. 1996. Philosophy as Experience, as Elucidation and as Profession: An Attempt to Reconstruct Early Wittgenstein’s Philosophy. Grazer Philosophische Studien 51: 23–46. Jacquette, Dale. 1997. Wittgenstein on the Transcendence of Ethics. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 75: 304–324. Kannisto, Heikki. 1986. Thoughts and Their Subject: A Study of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. Acta Philosophica Fennica 40. Helsinki: The Philosophical Society of Finland.

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Kant, Immanuel. 1983a [1788]. Kritik der praktischen Vernunft. In Werke in zehn Bänden, ed. Wilhelm Weischedel. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. ———. 1983b [1794]. Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft. In Werke in zehn Bänden, ed. Wilhelm Weischedel. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Kivistö, Sari, and Sami Pihlström. 2016. Kantian Antitheodicy: Philosophical and Literary Varieties. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Kuusela, Oskari. 2017. Wittgenstein, Ethics and Philosophical Clarification. In Wittgenstein’s Moral Thought, ed. Reshef Agam-Segal and Edmund Dain, 37–65. London and New York: Routledge. Moore, A.W. 2003. Noble in Reason, Infinite in Faculty: Themes and Variations in Kant’s Moral and Religious Philosophy. London and New York: Routledge. Mounce, H.O. 1981. Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell. Pihlström, Sami, ed. 2006. Wittgenstein and the Method of Philosophy. Acta Philosophica Fennica 80. Helsinki: The Philosophical Society of Finland. ———. 2011. Transcendental Guilt: Reflections on Ethical Finitude. Lanham, MD: Lexington. ———. 2016. Death and Finitude: Toward a Pragmatic Transcendental Anthropology of Human Limits and Mortality. Lanham, MD: Lexington. ———. 2020a. Pragmatic Realism, Religious Truth, and Antitheodicy: On Viewing the World by Acknowledging the Other. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. ———. 2020b. Why Solipsism Matters. London and New York: Bloomsbury. Stenius, Erik. 1960. Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: A Critical Study of Its Main Lines of Thought. Oxford: Blackwell. Stokhof, Martin. 2002. World and Life as One: Ethics and Ontology in Wittgenstein’s Early Thought. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Tilghman, B.R. 1991. Wittgenstein, Ethics and Aesthetics: The View from Eternity. Albany: SUNY Press. Watzka, Heinrich. 2000. Sagen und Zeigen: Die Verschränkung von Metaphysik und Sprachkritik beim frühen und beim späten Wittgenstein. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Winch, Peter. 1972. Ethics and Action. London: Routledge.

6 Metaphysics and Magic: Echoes of the Tractatus in Wittgenstein’s ‘Remarks on Frazer’ Eli Friedlander

In this chapter I trace a number of thematic connections between Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and Notebooks on the one hand, and his ‘Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough’ on the other.1 Pointing to this continuity will, I hope, bring out how the dimension of significance, central to the ‘Remarks on Frazer’, plays a role in the progress of the Tractatus, as well as elucidate how metaphysics is an expression and a distortion of the spiritual, similar to the one we find in magic and mythology.2 It would explain, as Wittgenstein puts it, “metaphysics as a kind of magic”.3 There is no such thing as the subject that thinks or entertains ideas. If I wrote a book called The World as I Found it, it should have to include a report on my body, and should have to say which parts were subordinate to my will, and which were not, etc. … this being a method of isolating the

E. Friedlander (*) Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Stokhof, H. Tang (eds.), Wittgenstein’s Tractatus at 100, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-29863-9_6

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subject, or rather of showing that in an important sense there is no subject; for it alone could not be mentioned in the book. (TLP 5.631)4

The passage quoted figures in a consideration of solipsism, the metaphysical view that all relation to the world is essentially a relation I have to myself, to contents of my own individual consciousness. All the world, in that sense, is in me. Yet, the contents of consciousness as such do not bear any recognizable mark of their being uniquely mine. So as to retain a hold on my uniqueness, that is to be a solipsist rather than an idealist, ‘I’ (the solipsist), must anchor this all-encompassing consciousness in a part of the world that is identified as ‘me’. My body would be the best candidate for such a place in which I would, so to speak, uniquely identify myself at the same time as I would be everywhere in the field of experience. But, as the proposition quoted suggests, this so-called method to isolate the subject would misfire. It would make evident that “in an important sense there is no subject.” That is, no subject in the world. Rather, in bringing out what Wittgenstein calls the truth in solipsism, the relation must be reversed. It is only insofar as the world involves me, that I am myself. Ipseity and being in the world are correlative. I recognize spirit ‘in me’ insofar as I partake in the spiritual as such, in the world being significant, involving, or to put it succinctly in the world being “my world” (TLP, 5.641). From that perspective, locating the metaphysical subject in what I can ‘isolate’ as a body that belongs to me, is mythology. Myth and magic express an understanding of the spiritual, though in a distorted way. Indeed, they recognize that spirit is a limit condition of the world (a “world soul” as Wittgenstein calls it in NB 49) and at the same time localize it, not necessarily in my individual body, but in what becomes the object of ritual. To clarify, consider a variation on this localization of my relation to the world as such that can be called ‘The world as I chose it’: “… the feeling we have for our lives” Wittgenstein writes “is comparable to that of … a being who could choose for himself his viewpoint in the world … [it] underlies, I believe, the myth – or the belief – that we had chosen our bodies before birth (P.O. 137). The choice at issue must express a feeling for one’s life as a whole. It is not deciding on something or other but taking a viewpoint on the world. Insofar as I conceive of my life as having a

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unity of character, that character being a viewpoint on the world, I would express it through that choice. The residence I choose for my soul need not be in a human body. Indeed, there is a way in which the unity of a life is more clearly expressed by an animal. There is something about the animal that we see as ‘simple’, being more clearly of a certain ‘character’ (think of the way animals figure in fables). Nor should we think of the choice that would be most beneficial to me, choosing the most beautiful or strongest, but as that which truthfully expresses my sense of the unity of life and world, how, to use a locution from the Tractatus, “the world and life are one”. The residence of the ‘soul’ must express my sense of spirit (or world-soul): I could imagine that I had the choice of picking a creature of the earth as the dwelling place for my soul [Seele], and that my spirit [Geist] had chosen this unattractive creature as its residence and vantage point (viewpoint) ... (RF, 135)5

Maybe choice is not the right term to express the fundamental form of the localization of spirit. Indeed, choice would always be between options, that is, within a space of possibilities. The mythological reflection of the world as my world must express the very opening of possibilities.6 There would be no justification at all for a primordial choice, but neither would it be arbitrary.7 It was not a trivial reason, for really there can have been no reason that prompted certain races of mankind to venerate the oak tree, but only the fact that they and the oak were united in a community of life, and thus that they arose together not by choice, but rather like the flee and the dog. (If fleas developed a rite, it would be based on the dog.) (RF, 139)

It is notbecause the oak belongs to the familiar surroundings that it happens to be a ritual object. Rather through the veneration of that distinct object one is referred back to the original unity or community of life in which man and oak partake. Only thereby would it stand for the ground that underlies choices, or as Wittgenstein puts it, “the origin of choice” (RF, 139). The original moment is not a choice in which I pair

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myself with something or other external to me, but rather one in which there occurs a separation from an original ground. As though we refer to the very constitution of an intellect which can then stand opposed to objects: “One could say that it was not their union (the oak and man) that has given rise to these rites, but in a certain sense their separation. For the awakening of the intellect occurs with a separation from the original soil, the original basis of life” (RF,139). Note the expression “awakening of the intellect”. Awakening is not an experience of change, but rather a limit experience of emergence from sleep as an enclosed state, into the wakeful world. It is a threshold state. Our relation to the object of veneration, one could also say, expresses the character of being towards a limit. Wittgenstein writes “The form of awakening spirit is veneration” (RF, 139) and adds “… the characteristic feature of the awakening spirit [Geist] of man is precisely the fact that a phenomenon comes to have meaning [significance] for him” (RF, 129). What form of meaning is “coming to have meaning”? It is distinct from the bipolar judgment that says how things are (which is always a position within a space of possibilities). It is also prior to the consideration of the simple object, the ‘what’, at least insofar as what makes something venerable is that it points back to the original basis of life. I will refer to it as ‘the significant’. As I understand it, the character of magic is bound, for Wittgenstein, with the nature of significance. In his ‘Remarks on Frazer’ Wittgenstein also uses such terms as ‘remarkable’, ‘important’, ‘meaningful’, ‘deep’, ‘majestic’, ‘sinister’, or ‘impressive’, to point to the same dimension of a ritual practice. These are all terms for an experience of meaning that is inherently involving, or one could also say valuable in itself. Significance is not relative. It does not have the form ‘this (is significant) compared to that’ (which is insignificant). Nor is one thing more significant than another. Wittgenstein identifies the significant as that which has meaning in itself. This in turn can be expressed by saying that the significant cannot be “explained” if explanation means grounding our understanding of some phenomenon by referring it to something external to it, be it another fact, a general statement, a theory, an opinion and so on. Significance does not assume the conditional or hypothetical form of explanation but is immediate: “Compared with the impression which the

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thing described makes on us, the explanation is too uncertain” Wittgenstein writes, “Every explanation is after all a hypothesis” (RF, 123). Significance cannot be explained; not that it is ineffable but rather it has no ground other than itself.8 We cannot explain why something is significant even if the explanation refers to attributes of that which is taken to be so. To take an example, if fire figures in a ritual practice, it is not because fire is bright, or fire is hot. The brightness of fire can belong to its impressive character, but this is not to say that it is the reason that fire figures in a ritual practice. Just as a green patch in a painting can enter into our aesthetic judgment of it but is not thereby the reason it is beautiful. (In that respect beauty belongs to the significant.9) There are no distinguishing features of the significant. In a sense anything can become significant: “… one thing will impress this person and another that. For no phenomenon is in itself particularly mysterious, but any of them can become so to us …” (RF, 129). Wittgenstein does not preclude finding significance in an individual thing. But this would mean that in such a case, that thing opens for me the unity of the significant, so that the rest fades out of the picture: “As a thing among things, each thing is equally insignificant; as a world each one equally significant” (NB, 156). The last quote makes clear that the significant pertains to the dimension of involvement in the world as such.10 But this ‘involvement’ is not simply subjective, and there being no objective mark of the significant should not be taken to imply that it is we who project it onto phenomena that are, strictly speaking, neutral facts. Conversely, we should not conceive of significance as what lies out there, for me or others to observe from aside. I grasp it in its being significant for me.11 In an entry of his Notebooks in 1916, Wittgenstein writes “For it is only from yourself that you are acquainted with spirit at all” (NB, 84). Let me try to clarify this through an example. Frazeropens his book with a description of the ritual of the priest king of the woods of Nemi, a ritual involving a golden bough, hence the book’s title. Wittgenstein remarks on the tone of this opening:

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When Frazer begins by telling us the story of the King of the Wood of Nemi, he does this in a tone which shows that he feels, and wants us to feel, that something strange and dreadful is happening. But the question “why does it happen?” is properly answered by saying: Because it is dreadful. That is precisely that which makes this incident strike us as dreadful, magnificent, horrible, tragic etc. as anything but trivial and insignificant, is also that which has called this incident to life. Here one can only describe and say: this is the human life [So ist das menschliche Leben]. (RF, 121, translation modified)

When it comes to significance, there is no ‘why?’: “The very idea of wanting to explain a practice” Wittgenstein writes “seems wrong to me” (RF, 119). Indeed, the proper response to ‘why?’ is a tautological repetition: ‘Why does such a dreadful thing happen? – because it is dreadful.’12 “So is human life”: The ritual is an expression of the unity of life through its limits, death. But the ritual is not a representation of death, at least if we conceive of such a representation as giving a vivid example of something we already understand as an abstract concept. It is precisely because death is not a concept but a limit that the ritual is bringing the majesty of death to expression at all. “If one places the priest king of Nemi and ‘the majesty of death’ side by side in a narrative, one realizes that they are the same. The life of the priest-king shows what is meant by that phrase.” Death is neither a fact in nor an event of life: “we do not live to experience death” (TLP 6.4311). Nor does it belong in my world, to quote the Tractatus again, “at death the world does not alter but comes to an end.” The unity of life as a whole can be expressed in a ritual in which its limit is given an intuitable form. The following suggests the nature of this transposition: “To drive out or slay death; but on the other hand it is represented as a skeleton, as itself dead in a certain sense. ‘As dead as death.’ ‘Nothing is as dead as death; nothing is as beautiful as beauty itself.’ The picture in terms of which one conceives of reality here is such that beauty, death, etc. are the pure (concentrated) substances, while they are present in a beautiful object as an admixture.—And do I not recognize here my own observations about ‘object’ and ‘complex’?” (RF, 135) ‘Object’ and ‘complex’ are what Wittgenstein calls in the Tractatus ‘formal concepts’.13 A formal concept stands for the internal connection of a

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series of propositions. Our understanding of it is shown in our capacity to move in language through an expanse of meaning and occupy it. By taking it on par with a real concept, we, as it were, treat this whole space of meaning as an attribute captured by that concept. Whereas ‘is red’ is a concept that can determine a possibility in the space of color, say that ‘the ball is red’, our grasp of ‘is a color’ is shown in our use of the grammar of color. Wittgenstein’s comment on the mythology of the Corn-wolf suggests what is at stake in reifying a form: “And when I read Frazer, I continually would like to say: We still have all these processes, these changes of meaning, before us in our verbal language. When what hides in the last sheaf of corn is called the ‘Corn-wolf ’ but also this sheaf itself as well as the man who binds it, we recognize herein a familiar linguistic occurrence” (RF, 135). Note, how, we have not two but three dimensions coming together. What is in the last sheaf of corn, that is the inward essence is identified with an object, that is the last sheaf, but importantly this serves to make visible for us the unity of spirit of the subject, that is it is identical to the one who cuts the last sheaf. It is this last moment that must be added to the transposition from the formal to the material mode. It is in order to make present the limit of the world or the metaphysical subject, that we concentrate what is only form into an object with which we are involved in ritual. The transposition succumbs to what Wittgenstein refers to in another context as “the great temptation to try to make the spirit explicit” (CV, 8).14 The consideration of formal concepts clarifies why for Wittgenstein “… magic is always based on the idea of symbolism and language” (RF, 125). A simplistic way to understand ‘word-magic’ would take operations performed on a representation to be efficacious in the world, the cause of what will happen to the thing represented. Thus, for instance, a savage would stab the picture of his enemy in a ceremony, hoping thereby to cause his death in battle. Such an account would attribute to the ritual a primitive and essentially false view of causal connection. Yet as Wittgenstein reminds us: “The same savage who stabs the picture of his enemy apparently in order to kill him, really builds his hut out of wood, and carves his arrows skillfully and not in effigy.” (RF, 125)

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What our preceding discussion suggests is that the importance of language should be understood at a different level. It is only in language that we are towards limits; only in language can there can be truth to their ‘localization’. Magic operates in the medium of meaning, and expresses the access we have to the world from within, being as we are in language. What makes possible magical operations, that is operations without any means would be our partaking in the medium of symbolization itself. We express our relation to such limits as death or love in human existence, not in knowledge or action but in hoping or wishing.15 But merely to say that magic is ‘wishful thinking’ would be to fall into the view that it is a false view of causation. Rather than the consideration of the relation of wish and fulfillment, Wittgenstein writes that “… magic brings a wish to presentation [bringt einen Wunsch zur Darstellung]; it expresses a wish [sie äußert einen Wunsch].” (RF, 125). To bring “a wish to presentation” is not merely to utter “I wish so and so…”. The formation of the wish itself is the concretization of our relation to a limit, so that through the wish that limit condition is made intuitable at all. Thus, to use an example of Wittgenstein’s, in kissing the picture of one’s beloved, one does not believe that the kiss will magically land on her cheek. Rather it serves to make visible, to present that love permeates one’s existence. Love is not the concept of a well-defined quality that has a more or less intense degree. It is a limit, meaning its waxing and waning transforms one’s world. The satisfaction such a ‘ritual action’ might afford is in the occasion to give expression to one’s condition, to the form of love one is in.16 And, of course, this symbolic gesture of kissing the picture is not that different from kissing one’s beloved…. Or, do we believe that love is wholly present in the kiss? Maybe only when we really mean it? (Seeking in a kiss the certainty of love can only lead to skepticism, to the anxious attempt to ‘prove’ that the soul of the other enters in contact with you, that is, to prove the existence of the other by touch.) As Wittgenstein puts it: “Of course a kiss is a ritual too and it isn’t rotten, but ritual is permissible only to the extent that it is as genuine as a kiss” (CV, 8). A kiss is a gesture. Wittgenstein notes that “in the ancient rites we have the use of an extremely developed gesture-language” (RF, 135). Gesture language is not a code, say a sign language. A gesture is also to be distinguished from an action. Indeed, in some cases the production of gestures

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occurs through the arrest of action midway. The gesture raises bodily movement onto a symbolic plane. Through gestures the body is as it were inserted into language at all.17 The body partakes through gestures in the medium of meaning from within. One could call this ‘mimetism’ as long as we understand that it is not play-acting that achieves vicarious satisfaction of what would bring fulfillment only in truly acting, but a mode of partaking in the symbolic. A further indication of the character of a ritual gesture is suggested in the following: “When I am furious at something, I sometimes beat the ground or a tree with my walking stick. But I certainly do not believe that the ground is to blame or that my beating can help anything. ‘I am venting my anger’. And all rites are of this kind. Such actions may be called Instinct-actions” (RF, 137). Anger has indeed visible bodily manifestations (such as beating the ground with a stick). But this movement of the body in anger is not done for a reason nor is it supposed to achieve a purpose. (One would even say that if the behavior had a purpose, then it was not really an outburst of anger….) The bodily gestures are expressions of an underlying state to which an occasion to manifest itself is given. And the occasion, as we know with anger, can be a trifle (it is definitely not the justification for the outburst). We shouldn’t infer from that example that ritual is thoughtless impulsive behavior. Instinct, after all, is activity that has a form, yet without representing to oneself some state of affairs that one is to achieve in acting. The spider weaves a web instinctively not impulsively and the web is a fitting product of this life form. With animals, instinctive activity is an expression of their being, of what they are. Instinct in that sense can almost be seen as an extension of growth, rather than an inflection of action. Similarly, Wittgenstein’s use of the term ‘instinct-action’ to characterize rituals, suggests that they bring to visibility what belongs to the underlying form of life of the human, to our natural history: “… one could begin a book on anthropology by saying: When one examines the life and behavior of mankind throughout the world, one sees that, except for what might be called animal activities, such as ingestion, etc. etc. etc., men also perform actions which bear a characteristic peculiar to themselves, and these could be called ritualistic actions” (RF, 129). And he

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adds “One could almost say that man is a ceremonial animal. That is, no doubt, partly wrong and partly nonsensical, but there is also something right about it” (RF, 129). Mythology is inevitable, it is an inherent necessity of language, if we recognize in language the external form and manifestation of thought. [I]t is in fact the dark shadow that language throws upon thought and which can never disappear so long as language has not become entirely commensurate with thought, which can never be the case.18

The quote is not from Wittgenstein but from Max Müller, who developed an account of the formation of myths as having their source in paronymie. The imagination develops mythical figures due to a linguistic confusion between similar signs standing for different things. In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein similarly conceives of fundamental confusions of philosophy produced by such cases where for instance “‘is’ figures as the copula, as a sign of identity, and as an expression of existence…” (TLP, 3.323) But, what is exactly the character of the confusion? If we have the same coat, I can surely mistake yours for mine at the end of the party (especially after a few glasses). But, it is not as though when I say “the table is heavy” I can discover that I have mistakenly used the symbol for identity (because the sign looked just the same and I was so tired from carrying the table). It is not so much the similarity of signs as such that generates a confusion of symbols, but rather our confusion, or better our drive to make a limit explicit, that avails itself of such similarity. This might be even clearer if we note that everyday language does not distinguish in the character of the sign between different logical forms. It can provide therefore opportunities for, say, personification, so central to magical practices: “The power language has to make everything look the same … which makes the personification of time possible” (CV, 22). Now, personification is not the use of the wrong logical form to speak about time. There is no such thing as the wrong use of a symbol. Rather, personification would be the ritual concentration of the symbolic space, the form of time, in the individual sign. We could even, as Wittgenstein remarks, “make divinities of the logical constants” (CV, 22). The logical constants are not representatives of

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objects. Indeed, the sign “~” in “~p” does not stand for a concept or function of negation. Wittgenstein calling it an operation means that it is reflected in a whole space of transformations, that includes ~p.~p, ~p v~p, ~~~p, ad infinitum (TLP, 5.512). By identifying negation with an entity corresponding to the individual sign, we are at risk of venerating the ‘tilde’. “A entire mythology is laid out in our language” (RF, 133 translation modified). The magical ritual is concentrating, say, in a formula or spell what belongs to a limit. Magic in our language seeks to make a symbolic space appear in signs. Rather than constructing a logically perspicuous language, it seeks to bind the symbolic space to a particular, visible expression, to the individual sign.19 Words can be used magically, when they concentrate for us, or seek to keep bound in themselves, the unity of spirit. Indeed, this is most probably the case with the word ‘spirit’ itself. We can take ourselves to be capturing it when we speak of ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’, in the same way that we speak of a chair or butter: “… much too little is made of the fact that we count the words ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’ as part of our educated vocabulary. Compared with this the fact that we don’t believe that our soul eats and drinks is a trifling matter” (RF, 133)”.20 So maybe we can’t capture ‘spirit’ or ‘world’ in one word, but wouldn’t a longer stretch of language allow us to express it? How about in a whole book? Such a book might begin with “the world” and end with “the world”. If this is a fair enough characterization of the Tractatus, how are we to think of the viewpoint on the world it ends up with, of its way of seeing the world aright? Wittgenstein himself had doubts about his book: “For, back then, when I began talking about the ‘world’ (and not this tree or table) what else did I want but to keep something higher spellbound (bannen) in my words” (RF, 117). This last mention of the Tractatus might suggest that we have sidestepped the most important question: Is there a genuine expression of spirit in the ritual practice? Or does the very attempt to concentrate spirit ultimately comes to nothing? In trying to give the direction for an answer consider what Wittgenstein says of the scapegoat ritual. “The scapegoat, on which one lays one’s sins, and who runs away into the desert with them is a false picture, similar to those that cause errors in philosophy” (PO, 250). We might think of the ‘error’ in the scapegoat ritual in several

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ways. It could be too similar to the “… simple, childlike theory of illness, that it is dirt which can be washed off.”21 It gives us the wrong picture of what it would be to atone for one’s sins. Or we can say that the very idea of concentrating sins on a beast is in error. But would we say the same about a person taking upon themselves the sins of others?22 Consider in comparison tragedy, sometimes traced to the ritual of the scapegoat. Tragic figures are not sinners, but noble individuals who through no fault of their own become guilty, as fate gathers on them. The form of the tragic is such that an action is conceived as decisive for the very character of life as a whole, obstructing the very possibility of a life in agreement with the world. It is in that sense that the tragic hero or heroine can be said to incorporate the limits of life in a complete action. Indeed, such an action expresses the disappearance of every possibility, and only atonement through sacrifice is fit to express its significance. At the same time as we might want to leave room for the genuine spiritual force of tragedy, we can understand why Wittgenstein would find the tragic framework problematic. “We must plow through the whole of language23”(RF, 131) he writes. The ‘concentration’ of spirit is to be opposed by a vision of a world in which nothing will stand out: “When I ‘have done with the world’ I shall have created an amorphous (transparent) mass and the world in all its variety will be left on one side like an uninteresting lumber room … In the world (mine) there is no tragedy …” (CV, 9 my emphasis). To be “done with the world” suggests a way of departing this life in the right way. Arguably, it is one of the teachings of philosophy. For Wittgenstein as it was for Socrates, it is a way to forego the sacrificialform internal to the mythical presentation of spirit.

Notes 1. I will focus on the remarks that were composed around 1931. The ‘Remarks on Frazer’ have received numerous interpretations, some of which are mentioned in the following endnotes. Commentators almost exclusively relate those remarks to Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. My attempt here is to trace them back to the Tractatus.

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2. Important background to my reading on the Tractatus is discussed in a number of earlier papers of mine, primarily in Friedlander (2001, 2014, 2017, Forthcoming). 3. The expression occurs in a remark that was initially part of his material of Frazer, but which did not make it into the typescript because it was considered by Wittgenstein bad (or badly formulated): I now believe that it would be right to begin my book with remarks about metaphysics as a kind of magic. But in doing this I must not make a case for magic nor may I make fun of it. The depth of magic should be preserved. Indeed, here the elimination of magic has itself the character of magic (RF, 116). 4. References to these works will appear immediately following the quote according to the following abbreviations: TLP—L.  Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, translated by David Pears and Brian McGuiness, New York, Routledge, 2003 (second edition) NB—L.  Wittgenstein, Notebooks 1914–1916, edited by G.H. von Wright, and G.E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell, 1961. RF—‘Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough’ in Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, edited by Alfred Nordmann and James C.  Klagge, pp. 119–154 Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993. CV—Culture and Value, edited and translated by Peter Winch, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. 5. If a man were given the choice to be born in one tree of a forest, there would be some who would seek out the most beautiful or the highest tree, some who would choose the smallest, and some who would choose an average or below average tree, and I certainly do not mean out of philistinism, but rather for the exactly the same reason, or kind of reason that the other had chosen the highest (RF, 137). 6. “The human body is the best picture of the human soul” Wittgenstein writes in the Philosophical Investigations, but one should stress that it is a picture, and not the only one. The ‘paradigmatic’ role of the human body can be expressed by giving the soul its form. Thus commenting on Frazer’s somewhat condescending report that “ the Malays conceive of the human soul as a little man … who corresponds … to the man in whose body he resides”, Wittgenstein writes in response: “How much

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more truth there is in this view, which ascribes the same multiplicity to the soul as to the body, than in a watered-down theory. Frazer doesn’t notice that we have before us the teaching of Plato and Schopenhauer” (RF, 141). One can understand, the reference to Schopenhauer, precisely insofar as for him, the body, my own body, is my access to the aspect of the world as will, apart from the forms of representation that obey the principle of sufficient reason (i.e. the different forms of explanation). The mention of Plato comes also probably via Schopenhauer who invokes the myth of Er (from book X of the Republic) in discussing Kant’s idea of the timeless choice of intelligible character that underlies all choices in time. Choosing an abode for one’s soul is the mythical expression of the ‘responsibility’ we have for our intelligible character. 7. Wittgenstein suggests the fundamental level of consideration of ritual practices with the following, somewhat surprising remark: One sees how misleading Frazer’s explanations are  – I believe  – by noting that one could very easily invent primitive practices oneself, and it would be pure luck if they were not actually found somewhere (RF 127). Yet, wouldn’t inventing ritual practices precisely go against our sense of their primal character? Isn’t their significance bound with the conviction that they were not invented by some individual at some specific point in time, that they as it were emerge as humanity emerges out of nature? But note that for Wittgenstein the fact that we can invent a practice which turns out to be already existing somewhere, precisely shows that ritual practices belong to a dimension of meaning that precedes all choice within a space of possibilities: That is the principle according to which these practices are arranged is a much more general one than in Frazer’s explanation and it is present in our own minds, so that we ourselves could think up all the possibilities (PO 127). A different way of putting this point is to say that rituals seek to present the very unity of a space of meaning, rather than one specific possibility in that space. This is why significance is not affected by negation: We can easily imagine, for example, that the king of a tribe is kept hidden from everyone, but also that every man in the tribe must see him. … Perhaps no one will be allowed to touch him, but perhaps everyone must touch him (RF, 127).

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Even though, one or the other must be chosen, the ritual could have, so to speak, gone ‘either way’ without losing its significance. We could also say that, in ritual practices we find a tendency to extremes. Neither extreme is preferable, but that it is an extreme is important to express its non-accidental character: “The ceremonial (hot or cold) as opposed to the haphazard (lukewarm) characterizes piety” (RF, 127). Even though something determinate is performed, the ritual must express that ‘contingency’ is not playing a part in it. This is why a ritual is ‘orderly’. As Wittgenstein writes, it “will not be left to happen in some more or less chance manner”. 8. Compare: Poetic truth differs from correspondence truth or logical truth and is not falsifiable. It is true as a line is true. You either grasp it or you do not. Insofar as Frazer mistakes a poetic response for an intellectual one, he is in error (Lambek 2018, 186). 9. The work of art is the object seen sub specie aeternitatis. …The usual way of looking at things sees objects as it were from the midst of them, the view sub specie aetemitatis from outside. In such a way that they have the whole world as a background (NB, 83). 10. In the Notebooks, Wittgenstein considers finding significance in what, among other things, may appear trivial, Wittgenstein writes: If I have been contemplating the stove and then am told: but now all you know is the stove, my result does indeed seem trivial (kleinlich). For this represents the matter as if I had studied the stove as one among many things in the world. But if I was contemplating the stove it was my world, and everything else colorless by contrast with it (NB, 83). 11. The transformations of meaning one encounters in magical practices strikes a familiar chord in us. Indeed, this must be the case insofar as we recognize these practices as significant: It is a multiplicity of faces with common features which continually emerges here and there. And one would like to draw lines connecting these common ingredients. But then one part of our account would still be missing, namely that which brings this picture into connection with our own feelings and thoughts. This part gives the account its depth (RF, 143). He further writes: Indeed, if Frazer’s explanations did not in the final analysis appeal to a tendency in ourselves, they would not really be explanations.” Meaning,

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that the illumination we attribute mistakingly to the explanation is actually of a completely different character. The recognition of significance draws from its echoing something identical in oneself. Wittgenstein further writes of instinct-actions: “Once such a phenomenon is brought into connection with an instinct which I myself possess, this is precisely the explanation wished for, that is, the explanation which resolves this particular difficulty (RF, 138). 12. See the discussion of the ‘unquestionable’ in my ‘Logic, Ethics and Existence in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus’. 13. Martin Stokhof interestingly relates this passage to the Tractatus picture of simple objects or pure substance that underlies the working of language. See Stokhof (2002), 291. 14. Michael Taussig suggests a more literary inclined interpretation of this moment based on figural transposition: [Wittgenstein] refers us to a movement or slithering and shaking that occurs in figures of speech, tricks you might say, which can occur with terms of reference that slip over into allied terms of reference such that cause becomes effect and insides outsides (Taussig, 2010, 26–33). 15. See in this context Peter Winch’s discussion of “limiting notions which he clearly relates to death being a limit: I wish to point out that the very conception of human life involves certain fundamental notions? which I shall call “limiting notions”  – which have an obvious ethical dimension, and which indeed in a sense determine the “ethical space,” within which the possibilities of good and evil in human life can be exercised. The notions which I shall discuss very briefly here correspond closely to those which Vico made the foundation of his idea of natural law, on which he thought the possibility of understanding human history rested: birth, death, sexual relations (Winch, 1964, 322). 16. Paul Redding (1987) develops a different interpretation of this moment and thinks of the ritual gesture as mimicking the action and thereby achieving something of the satisfaction in performing the action. 17. The special status of the body in ritual practice is understandable if we recognize that through my body I become involved in the world. Pain, for instance, involves me immediately. The body insofar as it is immediately involving, say in pain, is an entry point into the immediacy of being in a meaningful world. It is not that the internal standpoint pertains only to my own body and I now have to extend it by indirect means

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such as analogy to the rest of the world and to others in it. I do not project for myself meaningful surroundings. 18. Max Müller (1873), 353–355. The quote is from Cassirer (1946), 134. 19. This might be why Wittgenstein thinks that “a theology which insists on the use of certain particular words and phrases and outlaws others, does not make anything clearer” (CV, 85e). I thank Martin Stokhof for drawing my attention to this passage. 20. The mythical localization of spirit in my head is in a sense far more innocuous than its ‘sublimation’ in the idea that spirit and soul is an immaterial substance that is located in something I call ‘my mind’: So long as one imagines the soul as a thing, a body, which is in our head, this hypothesis is not dangerous. The danger of our models does not lie in their imperfection and roughness, but in their unclarity (fogginess). The danger sets in when we notice that the old model is not sufficient but then we don’t change it, but only sublimate it as it were. So long as I say the thought is in my head, everything is all right; things get dangerous when we say that the thought is not in my head, but in my spirit (Wittgenstein 1993, 196). 21. Magical operations need to be distinguished from “operations which depend on a false, overly simple idea of things and processes … For example if one says that the illness is moving from one part of the body to another…” If we think of hanging the person upside down to drain the illness, we wouldn’t be practicing magic. 22. See Hoyt (2012), 165–182, for an excellent discussion of the debates relating to the scapegoat remark. In particular, he brings out why the remark should not be read through the contrast of the Jewish ritual practice of laying sins on an animal (which is dismissed) and the Christian idea of a person, Christ, taking on the sins of humanity. 23. As Stanley Cavell has argued, the whole of the Philosophical Investigations can be seen as the expanse of meaning in which we dissolve the initial ‘Augustinian picture’.

References Cassirer, E. 1946. Language and Myth. Trans. S. Langer. New York: Harper. Friedlander, E. 2001. Signs of Sense: Reading Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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———. 2014. Missing a Step up the Ladder. Philosophical Topics 42 (2): 45–73. ———. 2017. Logic, Ethics and Existence in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. In Wittgenstein’s Moral Thought, ed. Edmund Dain and Reshef Agam-Segal, 97–132. New York: Routledge. Friedlander E. Forthcoming. “The World Is My World”: Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and Schopenhauer’s World as Will and Representation. In J.  Conant and G. Nir (eds), Early Analytic Philosophy. London: Routledge. Hoyt, C. 2012. Wittgenstein on the Language or Rituals: The Scapegoat Remark Reconsidered. Religious Studies 48 (2): 165–182. Lambek M. 2018. Remarks on Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough: Ritual in the Practice of Life. In The Mythology in Our Language. Chicago, IL: HAU Books. Max Müller, Friedrich. 1873. The Philosophy of Mythology, appended to Introduction to the Science of Religion. London: Longmans. Redding, P. 1987. Anthropology as Ritual: Wittgenstein’s Reading of Frazer’s Golden Bough. Metaphilosophy 18 (3&4): 253–269. Stokhof, M. 2002. World and Life as One: Ethics and Ontology in Wittgenstein’s Early Thought. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Taussig, M. 2010. The Corn-Wolf: Writing Apotropaic texts. Critical Inquiry 37 (1 (Autumn)): 26–33. Winch, P. 1964. Understanding a Primitive Society. American Philosophical Quarterly 1 (4): 307–324. Wittgenstein, L. 1961. In Notebooks 1914–1916, ed. G.H. von Wright and G.E.M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell. ———. 1993. Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough. In Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, ed. Alfred Nordmann and James C.  Klagge, 119–154. Indianapolis: Hackett. ———. 1998. Culture and Value. 2nd edition. Edited and translated by P. Winch. Oxford: Blackwell. ———. 2003. Tractatus Logico Philosophicus. Trans. D. Pears and B. McGuiness. New York: Routledge. ———. 2018. The Mythology in Our Language: Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough, translated by S. Palmié, edited by G. da Col and S. Palmié with critical reflection. Chicago: HAU Books.

7 The Tractatus and the Carnapian Conception of Syntax Kevin M. Cahill

1 Introduction Herbert Feigl recounts in the following passage what he believed to be the origin of a “profound schism in modern analytic philosophy”: Although I believe that Carnap’s and Wittgenstein’s basic substantive positions were fairly similar in the twenties, their manners of approach were radically different. Later, this led to the sharp divergence between the method of Carnap’s rational reconstruction and the procedure of informal analysis of the “ordinary language philosophy”, in England as well as in America, and that was inspired by Wittgenstein. (Quoted in Misak 2016, 136)

The research for this chapter was conducted as part of the Norwegian Research Council Grant “Mathematics with a Human Face”. See https://www.uib.no/en/mast

K. M. Cahill (*) University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Stokhof, H. Tang (eds.), Wittgenstein’s Tractatus at 100, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-29863-9_7

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In his intellectual biography, Carnap himself refers to two fundamental insights by Wittgenstein that had a profound influence on his own conception of philosophy: For me personally, Wittgenstein was perhaps the philosopher who, besides Russell and Frege, had the greatest influence on my thinking. The most important insight I gained from his work was the conception that the truth of logical statements is based only on their logical structure and on the meaning of the terms. Logical statements are true under all conceivable circumstances; thus their truth is independent of the contingent facts of the world. On the other hand, it follows that these statements do not say anything about the world and thus have no factual content. (Carnap 1963, 24–25)

And yet, Carnap adds a few pages later: When we found in Wittgenstein’s book statements about “the language,” we interpreted them as referring to an ideal language; and this meant for us a formalized symbolic language. Later Wittgenstein explicitly rejected this view. He had a skeptical and sometimes even a negative view of the importance of a symbolic language for the clarification and correction of the confusions in ordinary language and also in the customary language of philosophers which, as he had shown himself, were often the cause of philosophical puzzles and pseudo-problems. On this point, the majority of British analytic philosophers share Wittgenstein’s view, in contrast to the Vienna Circle and to the majority of analytical philosophers in the United States. (Carnap 1963, 28)

In what follows, I will argue that despite whatever “basic substantive positions” they may have shared, Carnap and Wittgenstein were in truth always far apart on issues of fundamental importance, even on one of the questions one might have supposed them to be close. Specifically, I will try to show that beneath what at first sight could appear to be a philosophical difference over a mundane question regarding the nature of the propositions of logic, in fact exemplified a chasm between Wittgenstein’s and Carnap’s understanding of our relation to language and the world.

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Feigl’s talk of a schism within analytic philosophy recalled for me another basic schism in Western philosophy, that between the two camps known broadly as “Analytic” and “Continental.” One critical episode in this rift, the Davos disputation between Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger, has been richly detailed by Michael Friedman in his A Parting of the Ways (Friedman 2000). There, too, it is Carnap who plays a pivotal role in the split, in particular in the way his work from the early 1930s cemented the divide between the thought of the ascendant Heidegger and what would soon become the dominant trend in analytic philosophy of language. Because Carnap and the Vienna Circle had already discussed the Tractatus well before the Davos disputation, a suitable title for this paper might have been “A Parting of the Ways: The Prequel”: this to underline my sense that Wittgenstein’s profound differences with Carnap over the nature and communication of philosophy in the early 1920s were close to Carnap’s profound differences with Heidegger in the late 1920s and early 1930s. But eventually it seemed to me to be the case that the sharp differences between Carnap and Wittgenstein on the one hand, and Carnap and Heidegger on the other, were themselves in fact indicative of something deeper that was already in the air of the German-speaking intellectual world of the 1920s and 1930s and that therefore there was something misleading about making my story seem too dependent on the eight years separating the publication of the Tractatus and the debate between Cassirer and Heidegger. Perhaps “Wittgenstein at Davos” would have been appropriate. After first laying out Carnap’s own understanding of his difference between himself and Wittgenstein on the nature of tautology, I explicate Wittgenstein’s rejection of what would soon become Carnap’s metalogical stance in The Logical Syntax of Language. I do this in terms of Wittgenstein’s reception of Frege, the significance for Wittgenstein of the sign/symbol distinction, and his views of ordinary language and skepticism already at work in the Tractatus. I point out a connection between Heidegger and Wittgenstein on ordinary language that distinguishes them both from the dominant traditions in analytic philosophy of language and from much contemporary post-modernist views of language. Finally I bring out what was at stake personally and culturally for Wittgenstein in his difference from Carnap on logical syntax.

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2 Carnap on Wittgenstein and the Propositions of Logic Let us return to Carnap’s assessment of the Tractatus: We read in Wittgenstein’s book that certain things show themselves but cannot be said; for example the logical structure of sentences and the relation between logic and the world. In opposition to this view, first tentatively, then more and more clearly, our conception developed that it is possible to talk meaningfully about language and about the fact described. Neurath emphasized that…[s]poken language consists of sound waves; written language consists of marks of ink on paper. Neurath emphasized these facts in order to reject the view that there is something “higher,” something mysterious, “spiritual” in language, a view which was prominent in German philosophy. I agreed with him, but pointed out that only the structural pattern, not the physical properties of the ink marks, were relevant for the function of language. Thus it is possible to construct a theory about language, namely the geometry of the written pattern. This idea led later to the theory which I called “logical syntax” of language. (Carnap 1963, 29)

Michael Friedman has explained Carnap’s “own distinctive conception of the philosophical enterprise” in his logical syntax period as resulting from a synthesis first of what he took to be Wittgenstein’s view of the propositions of logic and second the metamathematical work of Hilbert, Gödel, and Tarski (Friedman 1997, 21). This synthesis, however, was not one in which Wittgenstein’s views on logic remained unadulterated. For the new conception of philosophy as logical syntax of language involved a rejection of difficulties Wittgenstein attached to the very idea of a metalogical stance. But for Carnap at least, this move was key to the new approach to philosophy. In particular, this move entailed a sharp boundary between the level of language in which things are said, the so-called object language, and the level in which the forms in which the object language says whatever it does say are stipulated, the so-called metalanguage. It is only in the latter in which genuine philosophical reflection and discussion is carried out. As Carnap puts it, “[s]ince in our view the issue in

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philosophical problems concerned the language, not the world, these problems should be formulated, not in the object language, but in the metalanguage” (Carnap 1963, 55). Friedman maintains that the influence of the Tractatus on Carnap’s work at this time was utterly decisive, in terms of what was both accepted and rejected (Friedman 1997, 21). The key move of Logical Syntax is the rejection of the “logical absolutism” of the Tractatus. There is no longer a single language in which all meaningful sentences are formulated, and there is no longer a single set of privileged logical sentences (such as the tautologies of the Tractatus). Instead, there is an indefinite multiplicity of distinct formal languages or linguistic frameworks, each with its own characteristic set of logical truths or analytic sentences. (Friedman 1997, 25)

On Friedman’s reading, it was the manner in which the Tractatus essentially tied the nature of language, including the propositions of logic, to the elementary propositions and thus to a substitutional interpretation of quantification, that accounts for Carnap’s break with Wittgenstein’s so-called “logical absolutism” (Carnap 1963, 28–39). For on Friedman’s account, a substitutional understanding of quantification makes higher-order quantification problematic and thus complicates attempts to regard mathematics as part of logic.1 Carnap recounts that Wittgenstein … did not count the theorems of arithmetic, algebra, etc., among the tautologies. But to the members of the Circle there did not seem to be a fundamental difference between elementary logic and higher logic, including mathematics. Thus we [sic] arrived at the conception that all valid statements of mathematics are analytic in the specific sense that they hold in all possible cases and therefore do not have any factual content. We read at 6.113 of the Tractatus: It is the characteristic mark of logical sentences that one can recognize from the symbol [sic] alone that they are true; and this fact contains in itself the whole philosophy of logic. (Carnap 1963, 47)2

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In The Logical Syntax of Language, Carnap flatly states that this conception is “incorrect” and takes Wittgenstein to task for neglecting the allimportant conventional component of analyticity: Yes, we can certainly recognize the truth of a tautology without checking to see how the world is, but this is only because we have already stipulated the syntax for the signs making up the tautologies (Carnap 1937, §51).3 And how this is done is for us to determine. There is no magical “absolutism” about language per se that constrains our choices. For many, perhaps most, readers, it must seem as though Carnap’s metalogical positions on logical syntax amount to direct denials of what are ostensibly identical propositions of the opposite views expressed in the Tractatus. Yet it would be more true to say that Wittgenstein and Carnap are talking past one another. As Friedman rightly points out: It is clear, however, that by thus extending the notion of tautology, Carnap has also transformed this conception into something that would be completely unacceptable from the standpoint of the Tractatus. (Friedman 1997, 30)

3 Frege, Logic, and the Immediacy of Understanding Friedman provides an excellent summary of why Wittgenstein’s and Carnap’s respective perspectives do not align in any neatly dichotomous manner: When the Tractatus denies that logical syntax is expressible … it of course does not intend to deny that one can formulate a combinatorial theory of strings of symbols. But, from the point of view of the Tractatus, this would simply be a particular theory formulated within a more comprehensive language—a language that embodies and presupposes logical form and logical syntax in precisely the sense of the Tractatus. The symbol in Carnap’s syntactic metalanguage designating the negation sign in the object language, for example, has nothing to do with the truth operation associated with negation in the sense of the Tractatus. On the contrary, Carnap’s

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symbol is simply a name for a particular object—of the negation symbol in the object language. (Friedman 1997, 34)

This makes it clear that from a Tractarian point of view, Carnap’s metalinguistic stratification, far from solving any philosophical problem, merely amounts to displacing the same questions Wittgenstein’s alleged “absolutism” already raises about the language to a more abstract, yet ultimately no more explanatory, level. Friedman thus reads the two philosophers at an impasse that arises from two irreconcilable visions of language. On the one hand, he reads various Tractarian doctrines, such as the nature of tautology, as rooted in Wittgenstein’s holding to a “philosophical picture” of the nature of meaningful representation based on the priority of the elementary propositions. Carnap, on the other hand, is not wedded to any such dogma and so is free to treat language as a “purely combinatorial syntactic object” if that serves other philosophical goals, like accommodating logic to higher-order quantification (Friedman 1997, 28, 32–33). Curiously, however, Frege’s conception of logic plays little or no role in Friedman’s retelling of the clash between Carnap and Wittgenstein. Yet to many readers of early analytic philosophy, the long quotation above from Friedman contains obvious resonances with certain Fregean themes, for example with Frege’s odd claim about “the concept horse” in “On Concept and Object” (Frege 1980, 42–55).4 These resonances are hardly surprising, given that several of the early Wittgenstein’s most distinctive ideas about logic were worked out substantially, even though not exclusively, through reflection on Frege’s writings. For example, among leading Frege scholars, Thomas Ricketts has long maintained that Frege’s commitment to a view of logic as framing all thought is one that “precludes any serious metalogical perspective and hence anything properly labeled a semantic theory” (Ricketts 1986, 76).5 Ricketts elaborates the upshot of this aspect of Frege’s philosophy of logic: Frege’s conception of logic … differs markedly from more contemporary views. His logical laws do not describe valid forms of argument; they are about neither sentences nor the thoughts sentences express; they do not use a truth-predicate. Furthermore, in his controversy with Hilbert, Frege

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scorns talk of varying interpretations of sentences as a confused way of expressing what is properly said by the use of quantification, including quantification into predicate positions. He has then no semantic conception of logical consequence, in the post-Tarskian sense of “semantic”. (Ricketts 1996, 124)

Ricketts makes it plain that Frege’s rejection of metalinguistic approaches places him radically at odds with programs such as Carnap’s. It is a consequence of this view that there can be, in a sense, no genuine theorizing about logic. There is only theorizing within logic—the proof of derived logical laws from basic logical laws and the application of logic in formal proofs within the framework of the Begriffsschrift to the laws and facts uncovered by the special sciences. Here Frege’s view of judgment meshes with and motivates his universalist conception of logic. Our grasp of the goal of judgment, our occupancy of the status of cognizers, is exhibited, not in our applications of the predicate ‘true’, but in our manifestations of judgments in assertions. (Ricketts 1996, 136)

While Wittgenstein rejected Frege’s and Russell’s shared assumption that there could be anything intelligibly called “axioms” or “laws of logic,” he did draw fundamental inspiration from their universalist vision of logic as framing all thought, as well as from their efforts to develop languages for the unambiguous expression of that thought.6 In fact, the Tractatus brushes aside fundamental parts of their systems that he believed fail to live up to their own anti-semantic principles. This is perhaps clearest in his dismissive remarks on the need for Russell’s theory of types (see TLP, 3.33, 3.331, 3.332). But it is manifest generally in his hostility to any part of Frege’s or Russell’s notations that he considered to be somehow extra-logical. Any such machinery is for Wittgenstein just a sign of defect in our symbolism, which should make it possible for us to grasp intuitively what is going on with our sentences and their relations. Thus, we read at TLP 5.132: If p follows from q, I can make an inference from q to p, deduce p from q. The nature of the inference can be gathered only from the two propositions.

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They themselves are the only possible justification of the inference. “Laws of inference”, which are supposed to justify inferences, as in the works of Russell and Frege, have no sense [sinnlos, KC], and would be superfluous.

If I cannot already see the justification for a deductive step in the relation between two sentences, it is unclear how invoking an inference rule is supposed to help me. Carnap of course might object that that is precisely a problem that the metalogical move eliminates: questions about why one thing follows from another can be given brute answers by the “instructions,” so to speak, that one is given in the meta-language for how to manipulate certain strings of signs in the object language. From Wittgenstein’s point of view, however, this only pushes the issue of justification back one more step, to the level of the meta-language; it does not really resolve anything philosophically. Friedman is right to place weight on the role that the elementary propositions play in the strategy of the Tractatus. Nevertheless, I want to argue that there is a prior issue, only in the light of which that role can be fully appreciated. Without acknowledging the fact of our typical immediate grasp of the sense of propositions and of the inferential relations between them, the story that Friedman tells about the role of elementary propositions in the Tractatus will risk seeming like an external, theoretical imposition on language: perhaps convincing to some, unconvincing to others. It will hardly approach the sort of finality regarding the logic of our language that is Wittgenstein’s stated aim in the Preface.7 It was, therefore, not the ‘impossibility; of talking beyond the alleged pictorial limits of language that led to Wittgenstein’s conception of tautology and to his rejection of the metalinguistic approach. Rather, Wittgenstein’s rejection of the Carnapian vision of logic as a science of syntactical objects is of a piece with the Fregean idea that, normally at least, our judgements manifest an immediate grasp of the meaning of propositions, including their logical relations. But there are two further aspects of the Tractatus that still need to be made clearer. The first is the book’s radicalization of Frege’s context principle. This is, I believe, already implicit in what I have said above

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about Wittgenstein’s having taken over Frege’s aversion to theorizing about logic. The second aspect is connected to Wittgenstein’s unexpected claim at 5.5563 that the propositions of our colloquial language are “logically completely in order” (logisch vollkommen geordnet). With the fusion of these two themes, one obtains a perspective on logic and philosophy that makes any similarity over substantive issues there may have been between Carnap and Wittgenstein appear largely cosmetic.

4 The Context Principle, the Sign/Symbol Distinction, and Everyday Language I already noted above the “resonances” between Friedman’s apt description of what, from a Tractarian viewpoint, is wrong with a Carnapian treatment of logical constants on the one hand, and Frege’s dispute with Benno Kerry from 1892 on the other. These go to the very heart of Wittgenstein’s rejection of a Carnapian approach to logical syntax. In an oft-cited passage from the introduction to his 1884 Foundations of Arithmetic Frege articulates three fundamental principles that guide the explication of the concept of number that he will give in his essay. They run as follows: always to separate sharply the psychological from the logical, the subjective from the objective; never to ask for the meaning of a word in isolation, but only in the context of a proposition; never to lose sight of the distinction between concept and object. (Frege 1978, x)

While only the second principle has come to be known as “the context principle,” the three principles seem indistinguishable in practice. Frege’s criticism of Kerry eight years after the Grundlagen was rooted in the insight that the meaning of concept expressions or object expressions can never be taken in by just looking at an ink mark on paper. Such marks may trigger our imaginations to run in this or that direction, but in and of themselves they have nothing that Frege was willing to call “meaning.”

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To gather the meaning of an expression in a given case, we have to understand how it is being used in the context of a full-blown proposition, and this requires an appreciation of the inferences we can legitimately draw between those propositions in which the expression occurs. Lacking any such overview, we simply have no handle on what a word is doing logically, including what kind of entity it is supposed to refer to (see Frege 1980, 42–55). Drawing the consequences of this, Ricketts laconically sums up Frege’s point of view, stating, “Frege’s ontological categories track his logical ones—I believe that this is the import of his context principle” (Ricketts 1997, 190). Clearly echoing Frege, TLP 3.3 states: Only propositions have sense; only in the nexus of a proposition does a name have a meaning.

Soon after this remark comes an explication of the distinction between sign and symbol. 3.32 A sign is what can be perceived of a symbol. 3.321 So one and the same sign (written or spoken, etc.) can be common to two different symbols—in which case they will signify in different ways. 3.326 In order to recognize a symbol by its sign we must observe [achten] how it is used with a sense. 3.327 A sign does not determine a logical form unless it is taken together with its logico-syntactic employment.

These remarks encapsulate a great deal of Wittgenstein’s “Fregean” rejection of the metalogical elements in Russell that preceded the Tractatus and what would come to be the dominant metalogical approach in logic by the late 1920s. Three lessons can be drawn from our discussion here. The first is that our primary relation to language is not to uninterpreted marks.8 While it would be an exaggeration to read Wittgenstein giving priority simpliciter to the symbol aspect of the sign/symbol

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relation, it remains true that we would have no idea what to do with an uninterpreted sign if we could also not perceive (wahrnemen) how it is symbolizing in a given context, and this requires our recognition (erkennen) of its use, its logico-syntactic application.9 At some point, it is unclear how these very same issues will not apply to any meta-language; explanations end somewhere, here with a direct perception of meaning. The second lesson concerns the nature of tautology, the propositions of logic. If we consider what the Tractatus says about tautology in light of the distinction between sign and symbol, we get a much different understanding than we do from Carnap’s attribution of some sort of naïve logical absolutism to Wittgenstein. The Tractatus is fairly clear that tautology (and contradiction) do not even arise at the level of mere signs. TLP 6.113, which we have already seen Carnap cite above begins thus: It is the characteristic mark of logical sentences that one can recognize from the symbol [am Symbol] alone that they are true….

Earlier in the book, TLP 4.4611 states that Tautologies and contradictions are not, however, nonsensical [unsinnig]. They are part of the symbolism [Symbolismus], just as “0” is part of the symbolism of arithmetic.

Later we read at TLP 4.462 In a tautology the conditions of agreement with the world—the representational relations—cancel one another, so that it stands in no representational relation to reality.

This dependency on the “representational relations” in ordinary propositions is why the sense of a tautology’s symbolic constituents can “cancel” one another out in the first place. Tautologies in the Tractatus are not mere strings of signs assigned a truth-predicate in the metalanguage. They are “degenerate propositions” and so very much part of, or parasitic on, their constituents’ occurrences as symbols in ordinary true/false propositions.10 By including the equations of mathematics among the

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propositions stipulated in the metalanguage as analytic, Carnap has, rather than merely liberalizing a doctrine already contained in the Tractatus, warped the book’s whole philosophy of logic. The third lesson one can draw from Wittgenstein’s elaboration of Frege’s context principle in terms of the distinction between sign and symbol is that it can help to make sense of the Tractatus’ late, enigmatic, and too-little discussed pronouncement on skepticism at 6.51: Scepticism is not irrefutable, but obviously nonsensical, when it tries to raise doubts where no questions can be asked. For doubt can exist only where a question exists; a question exists only where an answer exists, and an answer only where something can be said.

One thing we might wonder about is just what Wittgenstein means by “scepticism” here. This word can be taken in different directions (at least provisionally). One very natural way to read what skepticism refers to in this remark is the Cartesian worry about how I can ever know my thoughts reach a world beyond my immediate awareness. Because of the identification of thought and proposition in the Tractatus, this worry can be directly converted into the question as to how I can ever know if my propositions reach a world independent of my mind. Here, however, I am taking skepticism to refer to an ostensibly different issue, namely the question, “How can I ever understand what a proposition means in the first place, when all I really hear are meaningless noises or all that I really see are meaningless squiggles on paper?”11 I hope by now it is fairly evident how this issue should be addressed. To anticipate Philosophical Investigations §189, “The question contains a mistake.” The mistake, of course, is the assumption that my primary relation to language is to uninterpreted squiggles on a page or mere noise on which I must impose a logical articulation. But as we have seen, first, this requires that I have some kind of grasp of what a mere sign is in conceptual independence of its being a possible perceptible manifestation of a full-blown symbol with a sense, and second, the idea that I can indeed conceive of my relation to language as of one to brute signs gives way once we get to the level of the metalanguage, which purportedly is supposed to tell us how to operate

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(logically!) with these signs.12 Our question, “How do I ever know if I understand what a proposition really says?” has no answer, and so makes no sense.13 The three points just discussed all derive from Wittgenstein’s radicalization of Frege’s context principle. But Wittgenstein tells us in the Preface to the Tractatus that the problems of philosophy arise due to our misunderstanding of the logic of our language, and this would seem to encompass much more than our relation to sentences that have been regimented into a Begriffsschrift.14 Wittgenstein will break profoundly with Frege over the nature of everyday language and its significance for philosophy.15 Now the Tractatus does state at 3.323-3.325 that Begriffsschrift such as those developed by Frege and Russell can help us avoid the fundamental confusions that fill philosophy due to the errors embodied in everyday language. But this should only make it utterly perplexing when we read at TLP 5.5563 that In fact, all the propositions of our everyday language, just as they stand are in perfect logical order. —That utterly simple thing, which we have to formulate here, is not an image of the truth, but the truth itself in its entirety. (Our problems are not abstract but perhaps the most concrete that there are.)

Earlier, I implied that Friedman’s emphasis on the representing function of the elementary propositions in the Tractarian picture of logic, though right, comes in too late in the way it does not give proper weight to the fact of our default immediate grasp of the sense of propositions and of the inferential relations between propositions. My elaboration of Wittgenstein’s appropriation of Frege’s context principle just now was meant to make this point clearer. But what of those elementary propositions and their concatenated names? And what of the whole machinery of truth-functions, truth-tables, and the general form of proposition? And what, for that matter, of the whole idea of a Begriffsschrift that was supposed to help us imagine laying bare all of this underlying structure? My somewhat deflationary answer starts from my reading of TLP 4.002:

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Man [der Mensch] possesses the ability to construct languages capable of expressing every sense, without having any idea how each word has meaning or what its meaning is—just as people speak without knowing how the individual sounds are produced. Everyday language is part of the human organism and no less complicated than it. It is not humanly possible to gather from it what the logic of language is. Language disguises the thought. So much so that from the outward form of the clothing it is impossible to infer the form of the thought beneath it, because the outward form of the clothing is not designed to reveal the form of the body, but for entirely different purposes. The tacit conventions on which the understanding of everyday speech depends are enormously complicated.

The Tractatus begins from a commonsense, realist, yet fallibilist, outlook on our ordinary linguistic understanding, that is, our grasp of sense. Whether in ordinary life or in philosophy, we do not typically relate immediately to strings of signs that acquire meaning only after being interpreted in terms of a metalanguage. To assume that the model-­ theoretic picture could be primary leads us directly into skeptical quandaries, as it tries to reconstruct the very understanding we need to take for granted for communication in the first place. As far as the role of a Begriffsschrift in the Tractatus goes, I read it as a clarificatory tool meant to aid us in clearing up misunderstandings, misperceptions, due to various kinds of logical unclarities that plague ordinary language. It is not meant to be a kind of universal language as Frege and Russell had envisioned. The so-called picture theory, and its attendant doctrine of elementary propositions and simple objects, falls out of the prior metaphysical assumption held by Wittgenstein, namely that the propositions of ordinary language, whose sense we typically immediately grasp, have the kind of determinate sense that would reveal its essential structure if we went ahead and fully analyzed it.

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We see, nonetheless, that even if Wittgenstein claimed that ordinary propositions are logically in order just as they are, he was also wedded to certain tacit metaphysical commitments regarding what underlay that order and these dictated the kind of tools he believed were needed to avoid occasional confusion. But I do not think he assumed that our typical understanding of the sense of a proposition required us to invoke the very underlying structure that vouchsafed sense. For reasons I cannot go into here, this tension in the Tractatus between the occasional requirement for analysis and our default grasp of ordinary propositions cannot be completely resolved. But the problem points ahead to the development of Wittgenstein’s thought from 1929 forward.16 The immediacy of our understanding and perception of ordinary language and the expression of rules are of course central themes in Wittgenstein’s mature work, with the important difference that the tools for philosophical clarification we may occasionally need are not typically drawn from any sort of technical apparatus that reveals some concealed structure, but from our ordinary language resources themselves (see Wittgenstein 1997, §108, §120, §201, §§431–432 and Wittgenstein 1972, §370).

5 What Kind of Ordinary Language Philosopher? Carnap’s ambition in the Aufbau was to reconstruct our symbolic-­ conscious life as theory all the way down, that is, entirely in terms of associationist psychology and formal logic. It goes without saying that this was wholly alien to Wittgenstein. Much the same can be said about Cassirer, who saw human symbolic life as necessarily progressing through various autonomous stages: from a mythological, expressive stage, to a representational stage of ordinary language, to a theoretical or “significative” stage best exemplified by theoretical physics (Friedman 2000, 100–104, 134–35).17 For his part, while Wittgenstein never held that ordinary language was immune to piecemeal critique from theoretical disciplines, a view that would have in effect made everyday intelligibility akin to the synthetic a priori, he did question whether the conceptual

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primacy of ordinary language might be intelligibly eliminated by theory. He was hardly alone in giving primacy to the significance of ordinary language. It forms the very core of the debate between Heidegger and Cassirer and seems to have been a central concern in the German-speaking philosophical world in the 1920s and early 1930s.18 Friedman frames the historical and intellectual background in German philosophy leading up to the Davos disputation in terms of a crisis brought about by the demise of the Kantian and especially neo-Kantian traditions. Kant’s system had sought to achieve a systematic yet delicate balance between the demands of science, religion, art, and morality. But this balance relied heavily on accepting Kant’s sharp distinction between understanding and sensibility, something neither the Marburg nor the Southwest schools of neo-Kantianism did in fact accept. Once space and time were rejected as a priori forms of intuition that necessarily condition human knowledge, sharp disputes arose in German philosophy as to how to accommodate physics and mathematics, especially new work in physics and mathematics, within an intelligible conceptual framework. Once the Kantian architectonic was abandoned, old philosophical wounds about the relation of natural science and human lived experience were reopened. We are still living with the consequences today. I have spent most of this paper discussing the schism between the Wittgenstein and the Carnapian traditions in analytic philosophy. Above, I briefly touched on the affinity between Wittgenstein and Cassirer over the autonomy of everyday intelligibility. But I have as of yet said nothing about Heidegger, the other participant in the Davos disputation. Friedman mentions Scheler, Dilthey, Nietzsche, and Kierkegaard as writers who exerted an influence on Heidegger (and to a lesser but still significant degree on Cassirer). All of these writers belonged in different ways and to varying degrees to the Lebensphilosophie tradition, one of whose main preoccupations was to defend the everyday human Lebenswelt from the encroachments of scientism and instrumental thinking. In Wittgenstein’s case, among the more relevant exemplars of Lebensphilosophie are perhaps Weininger, Spengler, Dostoyevsky, and Kierkegaard. Despite their obvious differences, I believe that Heidegger’s and Wittgenstein’s common philosophical preoccupations with the place of everyday language in human life and culture make it reasonable to place them together as

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constituting the core of what we might call the Lebensphilosophische wing of ordinary language philosophy. Strangely, the schism between Wittgenstein and the Carnapian tradition in analytic philosophy also mirrors a schism in Continental Philosophy between the hermeneutic tradition of Heidegger and Gadamer and the (mostly French) post-structuralism. Part of the reason for placing Wittgenstein and Heidegger together is their shared rejection of the idea that our fundamental relation to language and the world is to meaningless signs or objects on which we are always forced to place an interpretation, moving in the case of language from sign to symbol, in the case of world from representation to object represented. It is striking that from Heidegger’s and Wittgenstein’s perspectives, the likes of Carnap and Derrida are not so far apart in some of their fundamental assumptions. This gets things backwards, with disastrous philosophical and cultural consequences.

6 Why Did Wittgenstein Despise the Carnapian View? I have been arguing that in a very real sense Wittgenstein was already a kind of ordinary language philosopher in the Tractatus. But saying this may obscure an utterly vital point, since for many the term “ordinary language philosophy” will inevitably remind them primarily of certain British philosophical figures. Stephen Toulmin once wrote, The difference in priorities that divided Wittgenstein from so many of his fellow philosophers in Britain after 1945 is well captured in a remark by the Oxford analyst J. L. Austin. In the course of rebutting objections to the supposed triviality of his own laborious explanations of linguistic usage, Austin replied that he had never been convinced that the question, whether a philosophical question was an important question, was itself an important question. (Janik and Toulmin 1973, 259)

Contrast this with Carnap’s recollection of his first encounter with Wittgenstein:

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At our very first meeting with Wittgenstein, Schlick unfortunately mentioned that I was interested in the problem of an international language like Esperanto. As I had expected, Wittgenstein was definitely opposed to this idea. But I was surprised by the vehemence of his emotions. A language which had not “grown organically” seemed to him not only useless but despicable. (Carnap 1963, 25)

Examples in Wittgenstein’s writings which suggest why he was repulsed by the “Carnapian” view of our relation to language are not difficult to find.19 Wittgenstein’s animosity to the Carnapian view of language (and Carnap) had to do with a sense that his relation to the world was under attack, personally and culturally. Statements that exemplify this attack are “All you see are ink marks on the page and then you give them an interpretation” or “You don’t really hear anything but meaningless noise and then the brain interprets the noises to give them meaning.” More typical examples in our current context might be “There aren’t really green trees.” Or “The smell of the rose is really in your brain,” “The floor isn’t really solid because….,” etc. These ideas all pass for common sense now among many in our educated classes. What is so often at stake for Wittgenstein in philosophy is not only the immediacy, and so reality, of our connection to the world and each other, but also a deep reverence for the mystery of the intelligibility of those connections. In the “Lecture on Ethics” from 1929 Wittgenstein said: Now I am tempted to say that the right expression in language for the miracle of the existence of the world, though it is not any proposition in language, is the existence of language itself. (Wittgenstein 1993, 43–44)

Consider in this vein, finally, this remark from 1947: The mathematician too can of course marvel (anstaunen) at the miracles (the crystal) of nature; but can he do it, once a problem has arisen about what he sees? Is it really possible as long as the object he finds awe-inspiring or gazes at with awe is shrouded in a philosophical fog? I could imagine someone admiring trees, & also the shadows, or reflections of trees, which he mistakes for trees. But if he should once tell himself that

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these are not after all trees and if it becomes a problem for him what they are, or what relation they have to trees, then his admiration will have suffered a rupture, that will now need healing. (Wittgenstein 1998, 57)

Wittgenstein refers here to a “miracle” of nature and he points to the poverty for human experience that results from the intrusion of scientific epistemology in our relation to it. While this remark does not mention language per se, it should take no great stretch of the imagination to appreciate that he would have regarded the Carnapian view of language and a culture subservient to it as showing an equally dire need of healing.

Notes 1. I suggest that here are the philosophical roots of PI §124. 2. The remark from the Tractatus quoted in Schilpp is from the Ogden/ Ramsey translation of the Tractatus. See Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-philosophicus. Translated by C.K. Ogden (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1922). All other references to the Tractatus are from the Pears and McGuinness translation. See Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-­philosophicus. Translated by D.  F. Pears and B.  F. McGuinness (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974). On the propositions of mathematics, Friedman neglects to mention the influence that Frank Ramsey likely exerted on the Vienna Circle’s understanding of analytic propositions. For while in the Tractatus equations are said to be pseudopropositions (cf. TLP 6.2), Ramsey explicitly advocates for the view that equations of mathematics be regarded as analytic in the essay “The Foundations of Mathematics,” a piece which was widely read in the Circle. I am grateful to Cheryl Misak for this point. See “The Foundations of Mathematics” in Foundations: Essays in Philosophy, Logic, Mathematics and Economics, ed. D.H. Mellor (Cambridge: CUP, 1978): 162–165. 3. See also (Friedman 1997, 32). Note that Carnap simply rides roughshod over the fact that Wittgenstein uses “symbol” and not “sign” at TLP 6.113. I return to this issue below. 4. Juliet Floyd recounts a wonderful exchange between Burton Dreben and Quine on this issue, after a 1992 lecture in which Dreben maintained his anti-semantical reading of Frege. See Floyd (1998, 151).

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5. Other Frege scholars who interpret Frege this way are Juliet Floyd, Warren Goldfarb, and Joan Weiner. For criticism of this view of Frege, see Tappenden (1997, 213–264). Whether or not Tappenden is correct in arguing that certain commentators have vastly overstated the degree to which Frege’s conception of logic is fundamentally at odds with a generally post-Tarskian approach, I think a very strong case can be made that Wittgenstein, at any rate, took Frege’s work to entail a rejection of Carnap’s program. 6. See Ricketts (2018, 54) and Ricketts (1985, 3–4). 7. See Wittgenstein (Wittgenstein 1974, 23–24). 8. Correlatively, our primary relation to the world is not to brute objects, but to a discursively articulated environment. 9. For recent work on the distinction between sign and symbol, see Conant (2020, 7–36). 10. See Wittgenstein (Wittgenstein 1974, §317). 11. James Conant refers to this sort of skepticism as a “Kantian” variety. See Conant (2012). Cora Diamond addresses primarily the first, Cartesian type of skepticism, as an issue between the early Wittgenstein and Russell. Without framing things as I am doing here, Diamond does, however, briefly address the question of how I can understand a proposition at all, as opposed to understanding how it might reach the world beyond my own thought. See Diamond (2014). 12. Unless one wishes to try to make sense of Russell’s prescient though equally problematic suggestion in his Introduction to the Tractatus of the intelligibility of an infinite hierarchy of languages. See TLP, xix. 13. I am not taking up how these considerations pertain to TLP 5.473 where we read “Logic must take care of itself ” and “In a certain sense we cannot makes mistakes in logic.” For recent work on these remarks, see Nir (2021). 14. TLP, 2–3. 15. Joan Weiner has long argued that Frege regarded everyday language as so logically defective that, strictly speaking, it is not even a vehicle for the expression of thought. See Weiner (1990). 16. The “resolution,” which took several years, involved dropping the idea of elementary propositions as the end product of analysis and instead regarding language as consisting of different calculi in the early 1930s. This led finally to grammar and language games.

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17. We can see Wittgenstein’s distance from Cassirer’s teleological outlook in his attack on Sir James Frazer’s anthropological study of magic. See “Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough” in Wittgenstein (1993, 133). I discuss the way in which progress figures into Wittgenstein’s later philosophy at length in Chapter Four of Cahill (2011). 18. There is a marvelous quotation by Herman Weyl on the relation between scientific theory and natural language in Stenlund (2015, 82). See also Michael Friedman (1999, fn. 7, 58). 19. We find the same attitude expressed in a 1930 draft for a preface for the MS that would go on to be published as Philosophical Remarks. Wittgenstein declares his estrangement from an unconscious metaphysics of progress and science he finds shaping both modern civilization and philosophy. His hostility is arguably directed at the sort of view one finds in Carnap’s Aufbau. See Wittgenstein (1998).

References Cahill, Kevin. 2011. The Fate of Wonder: Wittgenstein’s Critique of Metaphysics and Modernity. New York: Columbia University Press. Carnap, Rudolph. 1937. The Logical Syntax of Language. London: Kegan Paul. ———. 1963. Autobiography. In The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap, ed. P. Schilpp. La Salle, IL: The Open Court Publishing Company. Conant, James. 2012. Two Varieties of Skepticism. In Rethinking Epistemology, ed. Guenter Abel and James Conant, 1–72. Berlin: De Gruyter. ———. 2020. Wittgenstein’s Critique of the Additive Conception of Language. Nordic Wittgenstein Review 9: 7–36. Diamond, Cora. 2014. The Hardness of the Soft: Wittgenstein’s Early Thought about Skepticism. In Varieties of Skepticism: Essays After Kant, Wittgenstein, and Cavell, ed. Andrea Kern and James Conant, 145–182. Berlin: De Gruyter. Floyd, Juliet. 1998. Frege, Semantics and the Double-Definition Stroke. In The Story of Analytic Philosophy: Plot and Heroes, ed. A.  Biletzki and A.  Matar, 141–166. London: Routledge. Frege, Gottlob. 1978. The Foundations of Arithmetic: A Logico-Mathematical Enquiry into the Concept of Number. Trans. J. L. Austin, 2nd rev. ed. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

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———. 1980. Translations From the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, edited by P. Geach and M. Black, index prepared by E. D. Klemke, 3rd ed. Oxford: Blackwell. Friedman, Michael. 1997. Carnap and Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. In Early Analytic Philosophy, ed. William W. Tait, 19–36. Chicago: Open Court Press. ———. 1999. Carnap and Weyl on the Foundations of Geometry and Relativity Theory. In Reconsidering Logical Positivism, 44–58. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2000. A Parting of the Ways: Carnap, Cassirer, and Heidegger. Chicago & La Salle: Open Court. Janik, Allan, and Stephen Toulmin. 1973. Wittgenstein’s Vienna. New  York: Simon and Schuster. Misak, Cheryl. 2016. Cambridge Pragmatism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nir, Gilad. 2021. In a Certain Sense We Cannot Make Mistakes in Logic— Wittgenstein, Psychologism and the so-called Normativity of Logic. Disputatio 10 (18): 165–185. Ricketts, Thomas. 1985. Frege, the Tractatus, and the Logocentric Predicament. Nous XIX (1): 3–15. ———. 1986. Objectivity and Objecthood: Frege’s Metaphysics of Judgement. In Frege Synthesized: Essays on the Philosophical and Foundational Work of Gottlob Frege, ed. L. Haaparanta and J. Hintikka, 65–95. Dordrecht: Reidel. ———. 1996. Logic and Truth in Frege. Aristotelian Society 70: 141–175. ———. 1997. Truth-Values and Courses-of-Value in Frege’s Grundgesetze. In Early Analytic Philosophy, ed. W.W. Tait, 187–211. Chicago: Open Court. ———. 2018. Pictures, Logic, and the Limits of Sense in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. In The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein, ed. Hans Sluga and David Stern, 54–95. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stenlund, Sören. 2015. On the Origin of Symbolic Mathematics and Its Significance for Wittgenstein’s Thought. Nordic Wittgenstein Review 4 (1): 7–92. Tappenden, Jamie. 1997. Metatheory and Mathematical Practice in Frege. Philosophical Topics 25 (2): 213–264. Weiner, Joan. 1990. Frege in Perspective. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1972. In On Certainty, ed. G.E.M.  Anscombe and G.H. von Wright. New York: Harper. ———. 1974. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Trans. D.F.  Pears and B.F. McGuinness. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

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———. 1993. In Philosophical Occasions, 1912 – 1951, ed. James C. Klagge and Alfred Nordmann. Indianapolis: Hackett. ———. 1997. Philosophical Investigations. Trans. G.E.M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell. ———. 1998. In Culture and Value, ed. G.H. von Wright. Oxford: Blackwell.

8 “The Only Strictly Correct Method of Philosophy”: Logical Analysis and Anti-Metaphysical Dialectic Hans-Johann Glock

1 Introduction The Tractatus is the only philosophical book Ludwig Wittgenstein published during his lifetime. He always referred to it as Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung. Nevertheless, the latinized title Moore suggested for the English edition, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, has carried the day and has become an academic household name. Alas, the work itself has remained obscure. Exegetical controversies rage not just about matters of detail but about the very nature of the book. It is clear, however, that the Tractatus revolves around the relation between thought and language on the one hand, reality on the other. But its interest in that relation differs fundamentally from the epistemological concerns that dominated Western philosophy in the wake of Descartes. Instead, the focus is on logical or semantic questions that are in some

H.-J. Glock (*) University of Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Stokhof, H. Tang (eds.), Wittgenstein’s Tractatus at 100, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-29863-9_8

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respects prior to those of epistemology and metaphysics. The issue is not: Do we possess knowledge of reality? How can we can represent reality accurately, that is, arrive at beliefs that are true and justified? It is rather: How can we represent reality at all, whether truly or falsely? What gives content to our beliefs and meaning to our sentences? What enables them to be about something? Two major themes emerge from this new focus: the essence of representation or intentionality on the one hand, the nature of logic and philosophy on the other. The two are interrelated, since for Wittgenstein logic comprises the most general preconditions for the possibility of representation. We represent reality through thought. But the Tractatus breaks with the traditional view that language is merely a medium for transmitting a pre-­ linguistic process of thought. Thought is intrinsically linked to the linguistic expression of thought. Wittgenstein’s first masterpiece features a striking account of the essence of symbolic or linguistic representation— the famous picture theory of the proposition—which at the same time furnishes a novel understanding of logic, a metaphysical account of the basic constituents of reality, pregnant remarks about the mystical, and a revolutionary if hugely controversial conception of the proper task and method of philosophy itself. This conception envisages a combination of logical analysis and anti-­ metaphysical philosophical dialectic. My piece explores these two ideas both historically, tracing their parting of the ways in subsequent analytic philosophy (comparing and contrasting Davidson with the later Wittgenstein), and systematically. It argues that philosophical dialectic should not pursue formal depth-analysis, yet that it cannot be pursued independently of a kind of conceptual analysis.

2 Logic, Thought, and Language Wittgenstein’s early work builds directly on that of Frege and Russell. The two pioneered logicism, the project of providing mathematics with secure foundations by deriving it from purely logical concepts and principles. To this end, they had to replace the old syllogistic logic by a more powerful one. Both Frege and Russell thought of their novel formal systems as ideal

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languages. They were supposed to avoid the alleged logical defects of natural languages, and to replace the latter for the purpose of science and scientific philosophy (more on this in Sect. 8). Wittgenstein’s prime ambition was not to develop the formal aspects of the new logic, to provide new proofs or tools, but to elucidate its philosophical foundations and implications. First and foremost among his concerns was the question “What is logic?”. Wittgenstein took over and transformed important elements of Frege’s and Russell’s logical systems, notably the idea that a proposition is a function of its constituents and that it is composed of function and argument. Moreover, he followed Russell in identifying philosophy with the logical analysis of propositions which avoids philosophical confusions through “distrust of grammar” (NL 106, see TLP 3.323f, 4.003f.). Yet his “philosophy of logic” departed radically from his predecessors. With considerable chutzpah he included their work under the label “the old logic” (4.126)1, and castigated them for having failed to clarify the nature of logic. At the turn of the century, there were four accounts of the nature of logic. According to Mill’s radical empiricism, it consists of well-­ corroborated inductive generalizations. According to psychologism, logical truths are “laws of thought”. They describe how human beings (by and large) think, their basic mental operations, and are determined by the nature of the human mind. Against both positions Platonists like Frege protested that logical truths are both necessary and objective, and that this special status can only be secured by assuming that their subject matter—thoughts and logical objects—are abstract entities inhabiting a “third realm” beyond space and time, rather than material objects or private ideas in the minds of individuals. Finally, the early Russell held that the propositions of logic are supremely general truths about the most pervasive traits of reality. They are derived from empirical propositions not by way of induction, but through a process of abstraction that replaces categorematic expressions by variables. Wittgenstein eschews all four alternatives (see Glock 1996, 198–202). The necessity and a priority of logical propositions is due not to the fact that they describe a peculiar reality, but to the fact that they reflect rules for describing empirical reality (for details see Sect. 4). Logic embodies the necessary preconditions of symbolic representation. Philosophy qua

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logic is a second-order discipline. Unlike science, it does not itself represent any kind of reality. Instead, it reflects on the preconditions of representing reality, just as Kant’s critical philosophy reflects on the transcendental preconditions of experiencing reality. Philosophy is the “logical clarification of thought”. It investigates the nature and limits of thought, because it is in thought that we represent reality. Echoing Kant, the Tractatus aims to draw the bounds between legitimate discourse, which represents reality, and illegitimate speculation—notably metaphysics (TLP 4.11ff.). At the same time, it gives a linguistic twist to the Kantian tale. Thus the aim of the book is to draw a limit to thought, or rather – not to thought but to the expression of thoughts: for in order to be able to draw the limits of thought, we should have to find both sides of the limit thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought). It will therefore only be in language that the limit can be drawn, and what lies on the other side of the limit will simply be nonsense (TLP Preface).

Language is not just a secondary manifestation of something nonlinguistic. For thoughts are neither mental processes nor abstract entities. Instead, a thought (Gedanke) is a proposition (Satz), a sentential sign which has been projected onto reality (TLP 3.5–4). Accordingly, thoughts can be completely expressed in language, and philosophy can establish the limits and preconditions of thought by establishing the preconditions and limits of the linguistic expression of thought. Indeed, these limits must be drawn in language. They cannot be drawn by propositions talking about both sides of the limit. By definition, such propositions would have to be about things that cannot be thought about and thereby transcend the bounds of sense. The limits of thought can only be drawn from the inside, namely by delineating the “rules of logical grammar” or “logical syntax” (TLP 3.32–3.325). These rules determine whether a combination of signs is meaningful, that is, capable of representing reality either truly or falsely. What lies beyond these limits is not unknowable things in themselves, as in Kant, but only nonsensical combinations of signs, for example, “The concert-tone A is red”. The special status of logical propositions is due not to the fact that they describe a

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peculiar reality, but to the fact that they reflect “rules of symbolism” (TLP 6.12ff.). Logical syntax antecedes questions of truth and falsity. It cannot be overturned by empirical propositions, since nothing contravening them counts as a meaningful proposition.

3 The Essence of Symbolic Representation At the very start of his investigations into the nature of logic, Wittgenstein had envisaged a “theory of symbolism” (CL 22.6–26.12.12). This quest became part of a quasi-transcendental investigation into the preconditions of symbolic representation. And the core of that investigation is an account of the essence of the proposition, the so-called picture theory. “To give (angeben) the essence of the proposition is to state the essence of all description, and thus the essence of the world” (TLP 5.471–1; see 3.342–1, 4.016, 4.027; NL 106; NB 22.1.15, 2.8.16). The general propositional form is “Things are thus and so” (TLP 4.5). Representing things as being thus and so constitutes the essence of the proposition. This idea is epitomized by the claim that propositions are models or “logical pictures”, maximally abstract pictures that do not rely on a particular medium, by contrast to speech, writing, painting, or sculpture, for instance (TLP 2.18ff., 3, 4.032ff., 5.474f.). A proposition must be isomorphic with what it represents, that is, it must have the same logical multiplicity and form. Propositions are not just bivalent, as Russell had it, that is, either true or false, but bipolar. That is to say that they are capable of being true, but also capable of being false. All propositions, all sentential signs with a sense, can be analyzed as truth-functional combinations of “elementary propositions”. These are logically independent of each other: the truth-value of any elementary proposition does not depend on that of any other. The ultimate constituents of elementary propositions are unanalyzable “names” or “simple signs”. They stand for simple, that is, indecomposable “objects” (TLP 3.144–3.26; 2–2.034). The object a name stands for is its “meaning”. A possible combination of objects is a “state of affairs” (Sachverhalt); the obtaining of such a combination is a “fact”.2 In an elementary proposition, names are assembled in such a way that their

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combination depicts a possible combination of the corresponding objects, a possible state of affairs. If that combination actually obtains, if it is a fact, the elementary proposition is true, otherwise it is false (see Glock 2006b). The “sense” of an elementary proposition is the possible state of affairs it depicts.

4 A “Logic of Depiction” Elementarypropositions combine to form molecular propositions. Wittgenstein’s account of these complex propositions is shaped by what he calls his “fundamental thought” (TLP 4.0312). The logical constants (propositional connectives and quantifiers) are not names of logical objects or functions, as Frege and Russell had it. Instead, they express a truth-functional operation through which complex propositions are constructed out of simple ones. All possible forms of truth-functional combination can be generated by the operation of joint-negation on the set of elementary propositions. And all logical relations between propositions are due to the complexity of molecular propositions, the fact that they are the result of truth-functional combination of their constituent elementary propositions. There are two limiting cases of truth-functional combination, namely “tautologies”, which are unconditionally true, and “contradictions”, which are unconditionally false. They constitute the propositions of logic.3 These propositions do not describe any kind of reality. The necessity of tautologies simply reflects the fact that they combine bipolar propositions in such a way that all the informational contents conveyed by the latter cancel out. They exclude and hence say nothing, which means that they are “senseless”, that is, have zero sense. “It rains” says something true or false, and so does “It does not rain”. By contrast, “It rains or does not rain” says nothing about the weather (TLP 4.46ff., 6.1–6.13). In this way the Tractatus interrelates the essence of representation and the nature of logic-cum-philosophy. Logic is the “logic of depiction” (Logik der Abbildung, TLP 4.015). Unlike science, which consists of true bipolar propositions (TLP 4.11), logic does not itself describe reality.

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“Logic is not a doctrine, but a mirror of the world. Logic is transcendental” (TLP 6.13; see NM 108). It reflects the most general preconditions of representing reality in thought and language. Put differently, logic is a fall-out from the essential bipolarity of elementary proposition. For all logical operations, and hence the whole of logic, are given with the very idea of a bipolar elementary proposition (TLP 5.47ff., 4.001; NB 22.1./5.5.15, 2.8.16).

5 Ordinary Language Is Alright Since logic comprises the preconditions of symbolic representation, there can be no such thing as a logically defective language. Any language, any sign-system capable of representing reality, must conform to the “rules of logical syntax.” Natural languages are capable of “expressing every sense”. Therefore their propositions must be “in perfect logical order” just as they are; “they are not in any way logically less correct or less exact or more confused than propositions written down ... in Russell’s symbolism or any other ‘Begriffsschrift’ (only it is easier for us to gather their logical form when they are expressed in an appropriate symbolism)” (OL 10.5.22; see 4.002; 5.5563). To be sure, ordinary language allows the formulation of nonsensical pseudo-propositions because it conceals the underlying logical form of propositions: quantifiers look like proper names (“nobody”) or predicates (“exists”), ambiguities lead to philosophical confusions (“is” functions as copula, sign of identity and existential quantifier), and formal concepts like “object” look like legitimate genuine concepts. To guard against such deception, however, we require not an ideal language capable of expressing things natural languages cannot express, but an ideal notation (Zeichensprache). Such a notation is “governed by logical grammar – by logical syntax” (TLP 3.325); it displays the hidden logical form that ordinary propositions possessed all along. “The idea is to express in an appropriate symbolism what in ordinary language leads to endless misunderstandings ... where ordinary language disguises logical structure, where it allows the formation of pseudo-propositions, where it uses one

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term in an infinity of different meanings, we must replace it by a symbolism which gives a clear picture of the logical structure, excludes pseudo-­ propositions, and uses its terms unambiguously” (RLF 163). Russell’s Introduction went wrong, therefore, in treating the Tractatus as a contribution to ideal language philosophy. The mistake was already pointed out by Ramsey (1923), yet this has not deterred subsequent generations of commentators from repeating it.

6 Logical Analysis and the Critique of Metaphysics Logical propositions(tautologies and contradictions) are limiting cases of propositions with a sense. By contrast, the pronouncements of metaphysics are nonsensical “pseudo-propositions”. They try to say what could not be otherwise, for example, that red is a color, or 1 a number. What they seem to exclude—for example, red being a sound—contravenes logic, and is hence nonsensical. But the attempt to refer to something nonsensical, if only to exclude it, is itself nonsensical.4 For we cannot refer to something illogical like the class of lions being a lion by means of a meaningful expression. What such philosophical pseudo-propositions try to say is shown by the structure of genuine propositions (e.g., that “red” can combine only with names of points in the visual field, not with names of musical tones). The only necessary propositions which can be expressed are tautologies and contradictions; these are, respectively, analytically true and analytically false. The distinction between what can be said by meaningful propositions and what can only be shown pervades the Tractatus from the Preface to the famous final admonition “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent”. In a letter to Russell, Wittgenstein referred to it as “the main point of the book” (RUL 19.8.19). While the bipolar propositions of science make factual statements, depict combinations of objects that may or may not obtain, metaphysics attempts to say things that could not be otherwise. Heeding that point, the pronouncements of the

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Tractatus itself are in the end condemned as nonsensical, because they concern the essence of representation rather than contingent facts. My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them – as steps – to climb up beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.) He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright (TLP 6.54).

The propositions of the Tractatus are repudiated because they try to express—to “say”—metaphysical truths about the essence of language which, by Wittgenstein’s own lights, cannot be expressed in philosophical propositions. Yet these truths manifest—“show”—themselves in non-­ philosophical propositions properly analyzed. This paradoxical conclusion provoked Russell into observing that “after all, Mr Wittgenstein manages to say a good deal about what cannot be said” (1922). Similarly, it invites Ramsey’s complaint “if you can’t say it you can’t say it, but then you can’t whistle it either. If philosophy is nonsense, we should simply refrain from it” (Ramsey 1931, 238; see also 263). Recent commentators (Diamond 1991; Crary and Read 2000) have repudiated such criticism. According to them, Wittgenstein was not trying to whistle it. Instead of “chickening out” we should acknowledge that the autodafé at the end of the book must be taken literally. The Tractatus does not propound illuminating nonsense, nonsense that vainly tries to hint at ineffable truths about the essence of representation; instead, it consists of “plain nonsense”, nonsense in the same drastic sense as gibberish like “ab sur ah” or “piggly tiggle wiggle”. The purpose of the exercise is therapeutic. By producing such sheer nonsense, Wittgenstein tries to unmask the idea of metaphysical truths (effable or ineffable) as absurd and to wean us off the temptation to engage in philosophy. The plain nonsense interpretation promises to rescue the Tractatus from the charge of being self-defeating. Alas, it has fatal exegetical and substantive drawbacks. First, it is at odds with the external evidence, numerous writings, letters, and conversations before and after the Tractatus in which Wittgenstein professed his allegiance to the idea of ineffable truths. Secondly, it employs hermeneutical double standards.

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On the one hand, it must reject as deliberate nonsense remarks which insist that philosophical pseudo-propositions are attempts to say something that can only be shown, and that the proper method of philosophy is to “signify what cannot be said by clearly delineating what can be said” (TLP 4.115, see 4.122, 5.535, 6.522). On the other hand, it must accept as genuine those remarks that provide the rationale for declaring philosophical pronouncements to be illegitimate, notably the claim that any well-formed sentence with a sense must be bipolar and that “formal concepts” like “proposition”, “object” and “fact” cannot be employed in meaningful propositions. Yet these two types of remarks are inextricably interwoven. Furthermore, any concession that some parts of the book furnish the standards by which the Tractatus in particular and metaphysics in general qualify as nonsense reintroduces a distinction between illuminating and non-illuminating nonsense that the plain nonsense interpretation condemns with such fervor. The only consistent interpretation of the text is therefore that it condones the idea of truths that language, by its very nature, cannot express. Thirdly, if the pronouncements of the Tractatus were meant to be mere nonsense, Wittgenstein would have to be neutral between, for example, Frege’s and Russell’s idea that propositions are names of objects and the idea that they differ from names in saying something, or between the claim that the propositions of logic describe abstract objects and the claim that they are tautologies. This is obviously not the case. On the contrary, Wittgenstein continued to defend the latter ideas even after abandoning much of the Tractatus. Finally, the idea that metaphysical pronouncements are nonsense in the same way as gibberish is untenable and at odds with important strands in the Tractatus, not to mention Wittgenstein’s later work (Glock 2004). The plain nonsense interpretation demeans the book, by sweeping aside both its hard-won insights and its illuminating errors and assimilating it to an existentialist gesture or a protracted nonsense poem with a numbering system (see Glock 2006a, see also Hacker 2001: ch. 4; Schroeder 2005: ch. 2.5; Cheung 2017). Fortunately, however, we need not rest content with lumbering the text with the idea of ineffable truths. It is crucial to take seriously the propaedeutic nature of the Tractatus, made explicit in 6.53. The book is self-defeating, because, in delineating the essential preconditions of

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representation, it violates its own restrictions on what it makes sense to say. This is a pitfall for any attempt to draw the bounds of knowledge or of sense in such a way as to exclude metaphysics or philosophy—witness Kant’s restriction of knowledge to appearances of things as they are in themselves or the logical positivists verificationist criterion of sense. Wittgenstein heroically tried to overcome this obstacle by violating his self-imposed prohibitions solely to attain a “correct logical point of view” (TLP 4.1213), an insight into the essence and structure of language which would allow one to engage in critical logical analysis without committing any further violations. Once we have achieved an ideal notation that displays the logical structure of meaningful propositions, we can throw away the ladder on which we have climbed up, namely the pronouncements on the essence of meaningful propositions that we needed to construct the ideal notation. From this perspective, Russell’s aspiration to introduce scientific method into philosophy is misguided. Proper philosophy cannot be a doctrine or theory, since there are no philosophical propositions. It is an activity, not of deliberately uttering nonsense with the aim of debunking philosophy, however, but of logical analysis. “All of philosophy is a ‘critique of language’” (Sprachkritik—TLP 4.0031). Without propounding any propositions of its own, it reveals the real logical forms of propositions beneath their school-grammatical appearances. This critical analysis has both a positive and a negative side. Positively it clarifies the logical form of the meaningful propositions of science by translating them into the ideal notation. Such piecemeal analysis is employed in what Wittgenstein meant by the “application of logic” (TLP 5.557). However, sticking to its propaedeutic brief, the Tractatus advocates this method without practicing it. This positive task of logical analysis is complemented by the negative task of demonstrating that the would-be propositions of metaphysics are nonsensical. They violate the rules of logical syntax, and therefore they resist being paraphrased in the ideal notation. The only correct method of philosophy would be this: to say nothing except what can be said, i.e. propositions of natural science5 – hence something, which has nothing to do with philosophy –, and then, when someone else tries to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that

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certain signs in his sentences have no meaning. This method would be unsatisfactory to the interlocutor – he wouldn’t have the feeling that we are teaching him philosophy – but it would be the only strictly correct one. (TLP 6.53)

7 A Two-Fold Legacy According to the Tractatus, proper philosophy is an activity, namely of revealing the hidden logical forms that allow language to represent reality. At the same time the main purpose of such logical analysis consists in overcoming metaphysics. In the subsequent development of analytic philosophy, these two ideas parted company. One of them resulted in a program within formal semantics that is most closely associated with Donald Davidson, namely a “theory of meaning for natural languages” that yields metaphysical corollaries. The other ushered in the activity of dissolving the conceptual confusions of metaphysics without employing logical analysis, initiated by the later Wittgenstein. The next two sections explore these two trajectories of the Tractatus. I shall diagnose problems in both trajectories. Just like the Tractatus, the Davidsonian program goes wrong in projecting artificial formal calculi into natural languages. This mistake is criticized and avoided in Wittgenstein’s later dialectic critique of philosophical confusions. But that critique requires, if not a formal theory of meaning, then  at least a conceptual analysis of epistemic, logical and semantic notions. In so far as Wittgenstein and some of his followers have pursued the project of a critical procedure that does not rely on any philosophical assumptions, they have fallen prey to a “myth of mere method”.

8 Theories of Meaning and Metaphysics After World War I and the publication of Tractatus, Wittgenstein all but abandoned philosophy for a while. Immediately on returning to the subject in earnest, he wrote “Remarks on Logical Form” (RLF). It was intended to be delivered at the Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association in 1929. Wittgenstein withdrew from the

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event, but the paper was nevertheless published in the proceedings. It comes closest to providing a record of what a Tractarian application of logic might look like. While it takes account of Ramsey’s criticism of the Tractatus handling of the color exclusion problem and explicitly brings into play the idea of a “phenomenological language”, it predates the fundamental transformations of his thinking that eventually led him to abandon his earlier quest for identifying the underlying logical form of natural languages. That positive goal of logical analysis as envisaged by the Tractatus stimulated the so-called movement of  “Cambridge Analysis” (Ramsey, Stebbing, Wisdom, Braithwaite) and Carnap (1928, 1937). But like Frege and Russell, they tended to conceive of interpreted artificial logical calculi as ideal languages. In this Carnap was followed by Quine (1960). The Tractarian idea that logical analysis reveals the structures underlying vernacular discourse came to fruition only later and by way of detours, namely in contemporary formal semantics. The proximity is particularly pronounced in the work of Donald Davidson. Like his teacher Quine, Davidson follows the example of the logical positivists in his tools of philosophical analysis. Whereas the latter Wittgenstein and so-called ordinary language philosophy sought to clarify philosophically troublesome expressions by describing their ordinary use, Davidson relies heavily, though not exclusively, on analyzing them in the idiom of formal logic. Nevertheless, his attitude towards formal logic is significantly different. Along with Frege, Russell, Tarski and the logical positivists, Quine is an exponent of what has come to be known as “ideal language philosophy”. What unites its representatives is the conviction that natural languages suffer from various logical defects (ambiguity, referential failure, vagueness, type-confusions, category-confusions, etc.), and that they must therefore be replaced by an ideal language—an interpreted logical calculus—at least for the purpose of philosophical and scientific inquiry. Davidson, by contrast, has been an eminent champion of a “theory of meaning for natural languages”. The immediate roots of this project lie in the logical semantics of Tarski and Carnap. Although the Tractatus was intimately concerned with linguistic meaning, it had officially put semantics on the index. “In logical syntax the meaning of a sign must never play a role” (3.33; see also 3.332, 6.23).6 In Logische Syntax (1937) Carnap

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had accepted the Tractarian proscription of talking about the meanings of expressions. Under the influence of Tarski’s semantic theory of truth he changed his mind, however. Instead, he reached the conclusion that the notion of meaning could be elucidated through the idea of truth-­ conditions (1956, 10), an idea anticipated by the Tractatus (4.024, 4.061-3; see Glock 1996, 237–238). Davidson’s semantics is equally informed by the conviction that the meaning of a sentence is determined by the conditions under which it is true. But a Davidsonian theory of meaning for a specific language does not directly explain what meaning is. Instead, it generates for each actual or potential sentence s of a particular language a theorem “that, in some way yet to be made clear, ‘gives the meaning’ of s”, and shows in particular how that meaning depends on that of its components (1984, 23). By contrast to Tarski and Carnap, the languages Davidson is interested in are natural rather than artificial. A Davidsonian theory for a particular natural language like English is empirical; and actually to construct such a theory is a task for linguistics (see Larson and Segal 1995). The philosophical work consists in establishing “what form” such a theory could or should take (1984, 55), that is, what it looks like, how it can be constructed, what concepts it employs, how it can be empirically confirmed, etc. And as part of this work, Davidson’s formal semantics seeks to identify the fundamental logical structure of all languages. In this respect, Davidson stands in the tradition not of ideal language philosophy, but of the Tractatus (see Baker and Hacker 1984, ch. 1, 140–53; Smart 1986). As indicated above, the early Wittgenstein regarded Frege’s and Russell’s new logic not as blue-print for an ideal language, but as indicating the underlying logical form that sentences in the vernacular possessed all along. Just as the Tractatus maintains that the depth-structure of ordinary language is given by a version of Russellian logic, Davidson maintains that it is given by a version of Tarski’s formal theory of truth (see Glock 2003, chs. 4–5).7 Accordingly, neither the early Wittgenstein nor Davidson are strictly speaking ideal language philosophers, contrary to received wisdom. In explicit opposition to Quine, Davidson aims to bring out the “metaphysics implicit in natural language”. He is interested not in “improving on natural language, but in understanding it”. Alluding to a famous simile

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of the later Wittgenstein, he describes “the language of science not as a substitute for our present language, but as a suburb of it” (Davidson 1984, 203; 1985, 172, 176). Formal logic is philosophically important because it reveals the underlying structure of ordinary discourse. In addition, like the early Wittgenstein Davidson  draws ontological conclusions from the disguised underworld of the city of language. Thus the logical analysis of sentences involving adverbial modifications is supposed to demonstrate that a certain type of particulars—events—exist (1980, ch. 6). He maintains that the only way of accounting Validity variational account of for the validity of inferences like (1) Mary kissed John in the garden at midnight; therefore Mary kissed John is to analyze premise and conclusion as quantifying over events. (1) is thereby paraphrased as (2) ∃x (Kissing (x, Mary, John) ∧ Occurred-in (x, the garden) ∧ Occurred-at (x, midnight)) ⊨ ∃x (Kissing (x, Mary, John)) And from this he concludes that ordinary discourse ontologically commits us to the existence of events. Given the assumption that ordinary discourse is not fundamentally wrong about the structure of reality, this in turn allows Davidson to deduce the existence of a type of particulars, namely events. Their existence is a necessary precondition for the soundness of our ordinary inferential practices. This is a transcendental strategy. It seeks to demonstrate metaphysical conclusions by showing that they state necessary preconditions of something we can take for granted—in Davidson’s case our inferential practices. In this respect it is reminiscent of the early Wittgenstein. The latter insisted on “purely logical grounds” that “analysis must come to an end” with simple signs standing for objects. For there must be elements of reality on the one hand, of thought and language on the other, if the latter are to represent the former (NB 14.-17.6.15; TLP 5.55/7, 4.221; RUL 19.8.19; AWL 11; WAM 70). There is also an analogy between Davidson’s execution of the transcendental strategy in the specific case of adverbial modifications and events on the one hand, and what the Tractatus envisaged as the “application of logic” (Anwendung der Logik — 5.557). Through the analysis of ordinary

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bipolar propositions and their inferential relations, that application is supposed to settle more specific ontological questions, such as “Are there 27-place relations?” (see 5.553-5.5542).

9 Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Dialectic What I have called a transcendental strategy is the project of deriving metaphysical conclusions from a logical analysis of ordinary discourse, plus the assumption that the latter is capable of representing reality and/ or sound patterns of inference. Such a strategy runs diametrically counter to Wittgenstein’s later outlook. Wittgenstein continued to reject metaphysics, though in a more nuanced way (see Glock 2017, 241–242). And he would have poured scorn on the idea that philosophy can or should demonstrate that, for example, events exist, that is, that something happens (see also Hacker 1982). For one thing, he continued to question the intelligibility of ontological questions and statements. Utterances like “There are physical objects” at best manifest allegiance to a conceptual framework. For “logical concepts” (formerly “formal concepts”) do not pick a class of things the existence of which could be asserted or denied. Instead, they signify a domain of quantification (see BB 57-9; OC 35-7; Arrington 1996; Fogelman 2022, Chap. 3). For another, he insisted that the task of philosophy was to describe rather than to deduce conclusions. And the main rationale for this (excessive) restriction was a rejection of the idea that language must possess certain features: Philosophy simply puts everything before us, and neither explains nor deduces anything. (PI §126) In philosophy we do not draw conclusions. “But it must be like this!” is not a philosophical proposition. Philosophy only states what everyone admits. (PI §599)

The Tractatus had insisted that logical syntax must possess certain features if language is to represent reality. After his return to philosophy,

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Wittgenstein came to reject this imputation as “dogmatic” (PI §§81, 92–7, 108–9, 131). Ordinary language is alright. But this is not because, underneath its messy surface, it is governed by a precise calculus of arcane rules (WVC 77; LWL 16 –7; PG 114 –5; PI §§126–9). By this token, both the Tractatus and formal semantics go wrong in seeking “deep” or “unheard of ” discoveries through logical analysis. There are no “surprises” in grammar (see WVC 77; LWL 16–7; BT 418–9, 435-6; PG 114–5, 210; PI §133; MS 109, p.212; MS 116, pp.80–2).8 “What is hidden, is of no interest to us” (PI §126). As competent speakers we are already familiar with the grammar of our language. Pace Davidson, one cannot explain the fact that ordinary speakers recognize the validity of (1) by reference to their implicit grasp of (2). To be sure, competent speakers often follow rules without explicitly consulting them, just like proficient chess-players. In most cases, they will be able to state these rules when prompted. But there are exceptions. For example, competent speakers who use these terms proficiently are incapable of explaining the difference between terms like “by accident” and “by mistake”, “automatically” and “inadvertently”, or “bottle” and “jar” (Rundle 1990, ch. 4). However, these speakers are nevertheless capable of recognizing the correct explanations, and hence the relevant rules. By contrast, (1) is accepted by many people who are incapable of as much as learning the rules thereby imputed to them, even when these are expressed in a less formal way. This means that while such rules may capture regularities of linguistic behavior, they do not guide it (see Glock 2003, 247–248). A “correct logical point of view” is achieved not through a quasi-­ geological excavation, but through a quasi-geographical “overview”, which displays, in a synoptic fashion, features of our linguistic practice that lie open to view. It is vain to hope for a decomposition of propositions into ultimate components, or even for detecting a single definite structure in them. Insofar as analysis is legitimate, it either amounts to the description of grammar, or to the substitution of one kind of notation by another, less misleading one (PR 51; WVC 45–7; BT 418; PI §§90–2). But Wittgenstein’s only example of the latter method is a notation which paraphrases “is” by either “=” or “∃” (TS 220, §§98–9). And the former method is a version of “connective analysis” in Strawson’s sense (1992, ch. 2):

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the explanation of concepts and the description of conceptual connections by way of implication, presupposition and exclusion. By contrast to Strawson, Wittgenstein engages in critical analysis mainly in order to resolve or dissolve philosophical confusions. In this respect he remains true to the “only strictly correct” method of philosophy envisaged in the Tractatus. But he later realized that such connective analysis with critical intent cannot assume a once-and-for-all vision of the essence of language. Instead of wielding a ready-made ideal notation for an almost algorithmic resolution of philosophical problems, philosophy turns into a dialectic process, namely of showing in a piece-meal fashion that metaphysicians create conceptual confusions by using words according to conflicting rules. This process must involve continuous reminders of how philosophically relevant words are actually used (see Glock 1991). Nevertheless, one central element of philosophizing in the vein of the later Wittgenstein is to practice the dialectic method that TLP 6.53 had preached. This dialectic method • serves “the logical clarification of thought” (TLP 4.112). • proceeds through analysis in the wide sense of conceptual elucidation, clarification, and explication; • is performed in the context of a particular philosophical dialectic. As before, philosophy is not a cognitive discipline, instead it is  an activity which aims at clarity. But the ineffable metaphysics is dropped, and the mere promise of critical analysis is replaced by a dialectic-cum-­ therapeutic practice: philosophy dissolves the conceptual confusions to which philosophical problems are alleged to owe their existence. And if we extend this vision beyond tackling metaphysical or more generally philosophical problems, philosophy turns into the art of critical thinking.

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10 The Myth of Mere Method In this last section I would like to point out a limitation of anti-­ metaphysical or more generally critical dialectic à la Wittgenstein. To be sure, it is a limitation rooted in the very nature of meta-philosophical debate. But that limitation has not always been recognized by Wittgenstein and his followers. The nature of philosophy is itself a contested philosophical issue, and views about this issue are philosophically controversial. The label “metaphilosophy” notwithstanding, it is not a distinct higher-order discipline, but an integral part of philosophy itself. Wittgenstein himself was aware of this point (PI §121), by contrast to his follower Lazerowitz (1964) who coined the label and theorized about philosophy from the external vantage point of psychoanalysis. However, once it is acknowledged that one cannot engage in metaphilosophy without doing philosophy, a dilemma looms. Different conceptions of philosophy (ways of philosophizing) rest on controversial philosophical views. These views can only be supported by using and hence relying on certain philosophical methods. Hence arguments in favor of a certain conception of philosophy appear either question-­ begging or circular (see Fig.  8.1; see also Rorty 1967, 1–2; Tugendhat 1976, ch. 1). They either take a certain way of philosophizing for granted or use their chosen methods for validating philosophical views which in turn vindicate these methods. This dilemma of dogmatism and circularity notwithstanding, many philosophical revolutionaries have succumbed to what I have called the myth of mere method (2017, 248–249). By this I mean the illusion that one can fashion philosophical methods in a presuppositionless manner, one which does not in turn draw on philosophical views, for example, about knowledge, rationality, mental properties, logical necessity or linguistic meaning. Descartes, Kant and Husserl have fallen prey to this myth in some of their meta-philosophical reflections. Yet the victims also include at least the early Wittgenstein. In the Tractatus the prescribed method, in particular using an ideal notation for

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Fig. 8.1  This figure illustrates the circulatory horn of the dilemma. A Philosophical View (e.g. that meaning is use) is derived through a Philosophical Method (e.g. the description of the use of semantic expressions) which in turn is based on that Philosophical View

the paraphrase of propositions, is supposed to be put in place by propaedeutic claims about the essence of representation that are then disowned as nonsensical on the basis of the application of that method. The procedure would be legitimate only if the method could be taken for granted as not relying on an philosophically controversial views. In the Investigations it seems that the method and the metaphilosophical remarks describing it are supposed to emerge automatically as a spin-off from reflections on specific philosophical problems. But as we have seen, the Tractatus procedure is self-refuting. And the problems discussed in the Philosophical Investigations only cry out for Wittgenstein’s treatment on a certain understanding of their logical and epistemological peculiarities, an understanding which itself is philosophically contentious. For it rests on a particular construal of the connection between notions like a priori, necessary, meaning, rules and use. From this it follows: while philosophical dialectic à la Wittgenstein does not require formal semantics à la Davidson, it does presuppose connective analysis à la Strawson.

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One cannot swim without venturing into the water. And one cannot address philosophical problems, the nature of philosophy included, without doing philosophy, and hence without philosophical arguments and commitments of one’s own. What one can do is to ensure consistency between philosophical methods, metaphilosophical and substantive views, and to argue for all of them in as plausible and unassuming a way as possible. A mere method without any assumptions simply is a chimera. In this respect, the Investigations marks a clear advance over the Tractatus. Instead of starting out with thundering pronouncements about the nature of the world which are highly presumptuous and later disowned as nonsensical, it begins with describing specific examples. Whether that advance goes far enough is another matter (see Glock 2017, 248–249). But resolving that delicate issue must await another occasion.9

Notes 1. The specific target of his criticism in this passage is their failure to notice that “formal” concepts, i.e., those for logico-syntactical categories, cannot be used in bi-polar propositions with a sense, but instead are manifested by the type of symbol used in the analysis of such propositions through an ideal notation. See Sects. 5 and 6 and Glock (1996), 215–216, 330–336. 2. There is a terminological unclarity here (see Glock 1996, 115–20). In a letter to Russell Wittgenstein stated that a Sachverhalt is what corresponds to a true elementary proposition, e.g., p, while a Tatsache is what corresponds to a true molecular proposition, e.g., ‘p.q.r’ (RUL 19.8.19); and he approved of Ogden’s translation of Sachverhalt as atomic fact. Nevertheless, “state of affairs” is the literal translation and does not beg exegetical questions. For there is also evidence that the difference is also one between what is possibly and what is actually the case (see below), with states of affairs being possible combinations of objects depicted by elementary propositions and situations (Sachlage) being potentialities depicted by molecular propositions. The sense of a proposition, what it depicts, is a state of affairs or situation. A state of affairs is a possible combination of objects which obtains if the proposition is true, and does not if it is false. By contrast, a fact is something which is actually the case (TLP 1ff.; 2.201ff., 4.02ff.; NB 2.10./2.11.14).

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3. 6.1 restricts “the propositions of logic” to tautologies. But in their contrast to empirical propositions on the one hand, nonsensical pseudo-­ propositions on the other, the two are completely on a par. This includes in particular that they “say nothing” and are hence “senseless” (4.461), which is supposed to be a central characteristic of the propositions of logic according to 6.11. Note also that according to 6.1201-2, the logical relations that are shown by certain truth-functional combinations of propositions being tautologies can also be shown by the negations of these combinations being contradictions. And in the same context NM 108 suggests that the use of tautologies instead of contradictions in “ordinary Logic” is optional. 4. Russell’s theory of types endeavours to protect logicism from set-theoretic paradoxes by prohibiting as nonsensical formulae that predicate of sets properties which can only significantly be predicated of their members (as in “The class of lions is a member of the class of lions”). But according to Wittgenstein this would only be possible if the class of lions being a member of itself were a genuine possibility that could then be excluded as not obtaining. 5. There is an inconsistency here that has gone unnoticed, namely between this passage which identifies the propositions of natural science with those that can be said, i.e. bi-polar propositions with a sense that include false propositions, and 4.11, which identifies “the totality of natural science”, with the “totality of true propositions” (my emphasis). 6. The reason is twofold. First, a rule that projects a sign onto its meaning is not a contingent proposition; it thereby falls foul of the criterion of sense implicit in the picture theory. Wittgenstein later abandoned this undue restriction, and thereby one rationale for proscribing  statements about meaning. The second rationale anticipates his later idea of the autonomy of language. The rules of logical syntax cannot capture an independently existing relation of signification between a sign and its meaning; for they are precisely constitutive of the sign signifying something. A sign only comes to signify something by being used according to such a rule (3.327-8). 7. Like the Tractatus, Davidson uses a version of the first-order predicate calculus to bring out the underlying structure of natural languages. There is an alternative approach to the formal semantics of natural language, adopted by Kripke, Lewis and Montague. They do not share Davidson’s conviction that a theory of meaning for natural languages should be con-

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fined to an extensional, first-order language; in consequence they employ intensional rather than extensional logic. But their approach is equally hospitable to the project of drawing metaphysical conclusions from the diagnosed logical depth-structure of natural languages. See Montague (1969). 8. Admittedly, according to the Tractatus, “there can never be surprises in logic” (6.1251). But as the context demonstrates, this is meant to rule out empirical discoveries only. The book’s a priori claims about the logical structure language must possess (e.g., all meaningful propositions are descriptive and arise out iterated joint negations of elementary propositions) are surely surprising in any other respect. 9. This chapter has profited from the discussion at the Tractatus Centennial Lecture Series and from copyediting by Christoph Wagner. I am particularly grateful to the editors Martin Stokhof and Hao Tang for their incisive yet constructive comments.

References Works by Wittgenstein Letters to C. K. Ogden [= OL], ed. G. H. von Wright. 1973. Blackwell, Oxford. Letters to Russell [= RUL]. In Briefe, ed. B. F. McGuinness and G. H. von Wright. Ludwig Wittgenstein: Cambridge Letters [= CL], ed. B. McGuinness and G.H. von Wright. 1995. Blackwell, Oxford. Notebooks 1914-16 [= NB] ed. G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright, tr. G. E. M. Anscombe. 1979 (revised edition). Blackwell, Oxford. Notes dictated to Moore in Norway [= NM]. 1914. In NB, 108–19. Notes on Logic [= NL]. 1913. In NB, 93–107. Philosophical Grammar [= PG], ed. R.  Rhees, tr. A.  J. P.  Kenny. 1974. Blackwell, Oxford. Philosophical Investigations [= PI] [1953], ed. G. E. M. Anscombe and R. Rhees. 1958. Blackwell, Oxford. Philosophical Remarks [= PR] [1929-30], ed. R.  Rhees, tr. R.  Hargreaves and R. White. 1975. Blackwell, Oxford. Some Remarks on Logical Form [= RLF]. 1929. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, suppl. vol. 9, 162–71. The ‘Big Typescript’ [= BT]. In TS 213.

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Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [= TLP] [1922], tr. D.F. Pears and B.F. McGuinness. 1961. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London. Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle [= WVC] [1929-32], shorthand notes recorded by F. Waismann, ed. B. F. McGuinness. 1979. Blackwell, Oxford: Blackwell. Wittgenstein-A Memoir [= WAM] [1958], N. Malcolm. 1984 (second edition). University Press, Oxford. Wittgenstein’s Lectures, Cambridge 1930-32 [= LWL]. from the notes of J. King and D. Lee, ed. Desmond Lee. 1980. Blackwell, Oxford. Wittgenstein’s Lectures, Cambridge 1932-35 [= AWL], from the notes of A. Ambrose and M. MacDonald, ed. A. Ambrose. 1979. Blackwell, Oxford.

Other Works Cited Arrington, Robert L. 1996. Ontological Commitment. In Wittgenstein and Quine, ed. R. L. Arrington and H.-J. Glock. London and New York: Routledge. Baker, Gordon P., and Peter M.S. Hacker. 1984. Language, Sense and Nonsense. Oxford: Blackwell. Carnap, Rudolf. [1928] 1969. Der Logische Aufbau der Welt. Trans. R.A. George as The Logical Structure of the World & Pseudoproblems in Philosophy. Berkeley: University of California Press. ———. 1937. The Logical Syntax of Language. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. ———. 1956. Meaning and Necessity. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Cheung, L. 2017. Ineffability and Nonsense in the Tractatus. In The Blackwell Companion to Wittgenstein, ed. H.-J.  Glock and J.  Hyman, 195–208. Marsden: Wiley. Crary, Alice, and Rupert Read, eds. 2000. The New Wittgenstein. London: Routledge. Davidson, Donald. 1980. Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 1984. Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 1985. Reply to Quine on Events. In Actions and Events: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson, ed. E.  LePore and B.  McLaughlin, 172–176. Oxford: Blackwell. Diamond, Cora. 1991. The Realistic Spirit. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Fogelman, Alexis. 2022. Beyond Doubt, Beyond Justification: Hume, Strawson, and Wittgenstein on the Existence of Bodies. Oxford: Unpublished D. phil. thesis. Glock, Hans-Johann. 1991. Investigations §128: Theses in Philosophy and Undogmatic Procedure. In Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, ed. R.L. Arrington and H.-J. Glock, 69–88. London and New York: Routledge. ———. 1996. A Wittgenstein Dictionary. Oxford: Blackwell. ———. 2003. Quine and Davidson on Language, Thought and Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2004. All Kinds of Nonsense. In Wittgenstein at Work, ed. E. Ammereller and E. Fischer, 221–245. London: Routledge. ———. 2006a. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. In Central Works of Philosophy, ed. J. Shand, vol. 4, 71–91. Chesham: Acumen. ———. 2006b. Truth in the Tractatus. Synthese 148: 345–368. ———. 2017. Philosophy and Philosophical Method. In The Blackwell Companion to Wittgenstein, ed. H.-J. Glock and J. Hyman, 231–251. Wiley: Marsden. Hacker, Peter M.S. 1982. Events, Ontology and Grammar. Philosophy 57: 477–486. ———. 2001. Wittgenstein: Connections and Controversies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Larson, Richard, and Gabriel Segal. 1995. Knowledge of Meaning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Lazerowitz, Moritz. 1964. Studies in Metaphilosophy. London: Routledge. Montague, Richard. 1969. On the Nature of Certain Philosophical Entities. The Monist 353: 159–194. Quine, Willard Van Orman. 1960. Word and Object. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Ramsey, Frank P. 1923. Review of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Mind 32: 465–478. ———. 1931. In The Foundations of Mathematics, ed. R.B.  Braithwaite. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Rorty, Richard. 1967. Metaphilosophical Difficulties of Linguistic Philosophy. In The Linguistic Turn, ed. R.  Rorty, 1–41. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Rundle, Bede. 1990. Wittgenstein and Contemporary Philosophy of Language. Oxford: Blackwell. Russell, Betrand. 1922. Introduction to Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. In TLP.

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Schroeder, Severin. 2005. Wittgenstein: The Way Out of the Fly-Bottle. Cambridge: Polity. Smart, J.J.C. 1986. How to Turn the Tractatus Wittgenstein into (Almost) Donald Davidson. In Truth and Interpretation: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson, ed. E. LePore, 92–100. Oxford: Blackwell. Strawson, Peter F. 1992. Analysis and Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tugendhat, Ernst. [1976] 2016. Traditional and Analytical Philosophy. Trans. P.  Garner with a Preface by H.J.  Glock. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

9 Wittgenstein’s Tractatus in Context: Modernity and its Critique Dimitris Gakis

1 Introduction While thetheme of the relation of Wittgenstein’s life and thought to their broader historical context has a long and, even if slowly, growing history—starting with the publication of Janik and Toulmin’s seminal Wittgenstein’s Vienna in 1973—it has never managed to occupy center stage in Wittgenstein scholarship. The centenary of the publication of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which, like all anniversaries and commemorations, constitutes a potential call for historical reflection or at least for reflection with historical sensitivity and awareness, provides a great opportunity for this theme to attract some more attention. The present chapter aims to contribute to the relevant discussions by focusing on the relation of both the early Wittgenstein and the Tractatus to their times, aspiring in the end to provide a different understanding of the early phase of Wittgenstein’s thought. The chapter proceeds as follows.

D. Gakis (*) KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Stokhof, H. Tang (eds.), Wittgenstein’s Tractatus at 100, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-29863-9_9

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After this introductory section where I engage with the role of the broader historical context in relation to philosophers and their works, I clarify in the next section the ways in which the concepts of modernism and modernity—concepts which play a central role in the discussions regarding the relation of the early Wittgenstein and the Tractatus to their times—are understood and employed in this approach. Then, in the third section I examine the relation of the early Wittgenstein and the Tractatus to various modernist figures, movements, and features, while in the fourth section I engage with the relation of the early Wittgenstein and the Tractatus to some of the main characteristic qualities of modernity. In the fifth section, and on the basis of the preceding discussion, I explore the paradoxical character of the Tractatus as a modernist, immanent critique of modernity, while in the sixth and final section I briefly sketch the legacy, present status, and possible future pathways of the Tractatus. Before proceeding to the main discussion, however, it should be noted that while the examination of the broader historical context (e.g., biographical, cultural, intellectual, or socio-political) of a philosopher’s life and work may be viewed as undisputedly valuable from the point of view of intellectual history, that is not the case as far as the (philosophical) utility of such an examination for understanding the philosopher and their work is concerned. This is actually a topic that not only has been much discussed and debated within philosophy as a discipline but one that is also closely connected to the (metaphilosophical) question of philosophy’s relation to history in general and to its own history in particular. Although a proper discussion of this quite complex and controversial issue exceeds the scope of the present chapter, I should at least highlight two of the dangers that contextual approaches to philosophers and their work should avoid, as well as a methodological guideline to be followed. The two dangers which must be avoided, as Conant argues, are those of reductivism: the situation where the understanding of a philosopher’s work is reduced to a quasi-scientific explanation based on biographical facts and historical data; and compartmentalism: the sharp distinction between a philosopher’s work and life and the commitment to the idea of the irrelevance of the latter to the former (see Conant 2001, 17–19). Thus, what the approach adopted in this chapter is after is a non-­ explanatory role for the broader historical context, which at the same

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time still succeeds in shedding some light on our understanding of the philosopher and their work, an understanding that stems from description itself—and not from explanation—and is demonstrated in practice by “seeing connections” (see Wittgenstein 2001 (henceforth: PI), 122, 681–684, 689 for more on this type of understanding). From such a perspective, this approach is led by a case-by-case methodological guideline, that is, by considering the fact that different cases of philosophers will lead to different results as far as the connections between their life and work and their broader historical context are concerned. And Wittgenstein’s case emerges as an ideal candidate for an approach of such a contextual character, since Wittgenstein does not maintain a sharp distinction between the philosophical and the personal. This is something that can be viewed in the nature of his manuscripts and notebooks where remarks of a philosophical character are mixed with remarks of a more personal character, as well as in his expressed views according to which not only world and life are one (see Wittgenstein 1922 (henceforth: TLP), 5.621, 5.64), but philosophy and life are one as well (see Wittgenstein 1998 (henceforth: CV), 24; 2008, 63 and Rhees (ed.) 1981, 193).1

2 On Modernism and Modernity In a large part of the existing literature on the relation of Wittgenstein’s life and thought to their times the themes of, first, Wittgenstein’s affinity to various aspects of modernism and, second, Wittgenstein’s alienation from, or even hostility to, modernity emerge as central.2 However, both ‘modernism’ and ‘modernity’ are concepts that have been, and still are, discussed and analyzed in a multitude of ways. Hence, a few remarks about the specific way in which the concepts are understood and employed in this chapter are in order. Regarding ‘modernism’, the term, like the vast majority of ‘-ism’ terms, may be viewed as a characteristic example of a ‘family-resemblance’ concept, since it comprises a diversity of movements, tendencies, figures, and periods which are not connected by a single shared common feature, or a fixed set of shared common features, but rather by a network of overlapping similarities.3 Actually, certain

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modernist movements, tendencies, and figures stand in divergence or even in opposition to each other. Compare, for example, the communist-­ leaning Soviet futurism with the fascist-leaning Italian futurism. Or, compare both these forms of futurism, and their shared glorification of industry and fetishization of the machine, with the functionalist, but strongly anti-industrial, proto-modernism of the British Arts and Crafts movement. Then again, compare all the aforementioned, politically engaged forms of modernism with the apolitical tendencies of many of the adherents of the ‘l’ art pour l’ art’ motto in the aesthetic modernism of Art Nouveau. Or, consider, on the one hand, the prominent role and status of ornamentation in Art Nouveau and surrealism and, on the other hand, the polemics against ornamentation by Loos and the Bauhaus school. Thus, the term ‘modernism’, as understood and employed in this chapter, is not supposed to refer to some kind of a unifying modernist essence, but signifies the existence of certain features—such as (paradoxical) self-reference, ahistoricity, constructivism, the sharp distinction between fact and value, the strong commitment to autonomy, authenticity, purity, and simplicity—which allow for the relevant characterization of works, individuals, and movements of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. From a similar perspective and in a similar manner as the one regarding ‘modernism’, ‘modernity’ too is approached in this chapter as a family-­resemblance concept. Hence, modernity is not exclusively understood as an epoch, a historical period, that starts with the Enlightenment, but also as an ethos, paradigmatically expressing “the will to ‘heroize’ the present” (see Foucault 1984, 40). It is viewed as a socio-historical, but also cultural and ethical concept that covers various periods over different places, as well as diverse forms of human activity, from the late seventeenth century up to the first half of the twentieth century, that exhibit a multiplicity of characteristics. These are features such as the industrialization of the world, the objectification and mastery of nature, the rise of the nation-state and liberalism, and the development and establishment of (private and state) capitalism, as well as the (sharp) separation between different spheres of human activity, typically between science (knowledge), ethics (morality), and aesthetics (art) (see Habermas 1991, 162); the dominance of reason over faith and its exclusive authority over

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knowledge in the form of scientific rationality; the conception of (scientific and technological) progress as a goal in itself; the dogmatization of the Enlightenment principles; and the cultural imperialism of science (i.e., scientism).

3 (Early) Wittgenstein, the Tractatus, and Modernism While the claim that Wittgenstein’s philosophical agenda was shaped by the (modernist) context of late nineteenth/early twentieth-century Vienna—where he was born and raised—is more widely accepted today, to a certain extent at least, it was quite a radical one when first put forward in Wittgenstein’s Vienna in 1973 (see Janik and Toulmin 1973, 22). By focusing on a number of figures, movements, and ideas with which Wittgenstein came into direct or indirect contact in Vienna, Janik and Toulmin highlight how the problematics of communication and language, especially in relation to logic, ethics, and the constitution of individual subjectivity—the broader problematics that characterizes the Tractatus as well—occupied center stage in the milieu of Viennese modernism. Janik would later explicitly distinguish between two strands of Viennese modernism that both were reactions to the failure of liberalism in Austria. The first is aesthetic modernism (e.g., Art Nouveau, Jugendstil, Vienna Secession), which through its shift of emphasis from the exploration of reason to the exploration of irrationality and from content to form, as well as its self-referentiality, ahistoricity, and solipsism offers a complete rejection of modernity. The second is critical modernism (e.g., Kraus, Loos, Kokoschka), which provides a critique of both modernity and aesthetic modernism aiming through an immanent critique of modernity’s limits at its reform and further development, and Janik in fact categorizes Wittgenstein as a critical modernist.4 From the various figures that Janik and Toulmin discuss in their works in relation to the formation of Wittgenstein’s early thought, three cases should be singled out in regard to the aims of this chapter. First, the satirist, polemicist, and prototypical critical modernist, Karl Kraus, with his fierce critique of

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Viennese society and culture—especially their corruption and hypocrisy—as based on the complete, but creative, separation between the sphere of reason and the sphere of fantasy and sentiment, between factual discourse and literary discourse, between facts and values.5 Second, the architect Adolf Loos, one of the forerunners of architectural modernism (as expressed, e.g., in the Bauhaus school), in whose architectural and theoretical work the creative separation between facts and values in the sphere of design and plastic arts takes the form of a clear distinction between objects of (everyday) use and items of art, accompanied by a commitment to the principle of the elimination of decoration from functional articles.6 Third, and last, the author and philosopher Fritz Mauthner—an influence on eminent figures of literary modernism such as Joyce, Beckett, and Borges—whose social critique took the shape of a critique of language (Sprachkritik), with philosophical problems being reduced to problems about language, thought and language being isomorphic, and language providing not knowledge of the world, but metaphorical descriptions of it.7 Interesting, albeit ambivalent, connections with modernism also emerge once we consider Wittgenstein’s own cultural ideal and personal aesthetics. His taste in literature (e.g., Goethe, Nestroy, Lichtenberg, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky) and music (e.g., Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Brahms, Haydn) was rather classical (see McGuinness 1988, 33–38, 112, 123–127 and Monk 1991, 61, 78, 213), to the extent that he believed in 1929 that his cultural ideal was mostly coming from “the time of Schumann” with the second half of the nineteenth century having been left out (see CV 4).8 At the same time, when Wittgenstein decided to donate in 1914 an amount of money from the fortune he inherited after his father’s death, some of his beneficiaries, such as Loos and Kokoschka, were prominent figures of Viennese modernism (see Monk 1991, 106–110). However, the field in which the connections between Wittgenstein’s personal aesthetics and modernism appear the strongest is that of architecture, especially once we consider his own architectural endeavor. Wittgenstein worked on his sister Margaret’s house, together with the architect Paul Engelmann (a pupil and friend of Loos), from 1926 to 1928. The final result may be viewed as a typical example of modernist architecture, since it is a house characterized by an austere

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appearance, complete absence of external decoration, high functionality, and a series of features that exhibit Wittgenstein’s commitment to exactitude and proportion—a “house embodied logic”, as Wittgenstein’s other sister, Hermine, remarked (see Monk 1991, 237).9 As far as the Tractatus is concerned, it has been approached as an exemplar of philosophical modernism, since “like many a modernist work of art, the Tractatus secretes a self-destruct device within itself ” in an attempt to “occupy philosophy itself from the inside”.10 Apart from the sharp separation between facts and values, which in the Tractatus is reflected in the distinction between the effable world of contingent facts (as described by science) and the mystical, that is, the sphere of ineffable absolute value—ethics, aesthetics, and logic (see, e.g., TLP 1-1.21, 2.013-2.225, 5.6-5.641, 6.37-7)—three more modernist features of the Tractatus should be emphasized. First, its self-referential character, with self-­ reference being pushed to the extreme, leading in the end to self-­ destruction, as the famous ladder metaphor that Wittgenstein employs in the penultimate proposition of the work demonstrates (see TLP 6.54). Second, the prominent role that the idea of autonomy plays in the Tractatus, regarding both philosophy in general, not being one of the natural sciences and not standing beside them, and logic in particular, being transcendental and taking care of itself (see, e.g., TLP 4.111, 5.473, 6.13). Third, the profoundly ahistorical character of the Tractatus, as exhibited not only in the almost complete absence of any historical element or reference in the work—the sub specie aeternitatis perspective that Wittgenstein adopts in the Tractatus stands of course beyond space and time (see TLP 6.45)—but also in Wittgenstein’s explicit indifference to history as expressed in his notebooks of that time (see Wittgenstein 1979a, 82). Further interesting connections with modernism are revealed once we consider the literary style of the Tractatus—a work which according to Wittgenstein was “strictly philosophical and at the same time literary” (see von Wright 1982, 81). The unique fusion of a hierarchical, numbering structure with non-argumentative aphorisms articulated in an authoritative, austere tone provides the Tractatus with a certain formalist and constructivist appearance, as it emerges as an ordered edifice, a systematic construction.11 Furthermore, the articulation of the Tractatus as a system,12 and especially as a system in which the human subject is

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almost totally absent, bears also certain structuralist features. The human subject is conceived in the Tractatus in individualist/solipsist terms (in opposition to its later social conception in the Philosophical Investigations) as completely disengaged from the constitutive aspects of the relation between language and the world and is approached only metaphysically (the metaphysical subject) as their limit or condition (see TLP 5.6-5.641). Finally, the aphoristic style of the Tractatus, its polemical character as a critique, and its dogmatic tone brings it close to the tradition of manifesto, a common literary medium for conveying the theses of various modernist movements, with the aphorisms of Wittgenstein’s early work playing a double role as both programmatic declarations and revelatory manifestations.13

4 (Early) Wittgenstein, the Tractatus, and Modernity The short text known as ‘Sketch for a Foreword’ constitutes the clearest expression of Wittgenstein’s alienation from and even hostility to modernity. In that piece, written in 1930, during the so-called “middle” phase of Wittgenstein’s thought, Wittgenstein articulates his antipathy to the spirit of the modern Western civilization as manifested in the aesthetics and intellectual activity of the era, in the (cultural) imperialism of science, the fetishization of (ceaseless) progress and construction—progress/ construction for progress’s/construction’s sake—and the (individualist) fragmentation of society, the pursuing of “purely private ends” (see CV 8-11). Wittgenstein’s broader attitude to his times has been characterized—and there are some good reasons for that—as of a strongly Spenglerian nature and as a clear exhibition of cultural pessimism,14 even to the extent of being an expression of a culturally and politically conservative stance (see, e.g., Nyiri 1982). However, two things should be noted. First, that the issue of the exact nature and extent of Spengler’s influence on Wittgenstein is quite complex, especially considering the points in which Wittgenstein appears critical of certain aspects of Spengler’s approach in relation to intellectual tendencies such as

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essentialism and dogmatism (see CV 21-22, 30-31). And second, that cultural pessimism may take different forms and should not be necessarily equated with cultural and/or political conservatism. Alienation from, or an unsympathetic stance toward, the way things have developed does not necessarily imply a heroization of the past state of things. Furthermore, the critique of the idea of (perpetual) progress, especially of the scientific/ technological kind, does not necessarily express a regressive/conservative stance as prominent examples from first generation Frankfurt School (e.g., Adorno, Horkheimer), French post-structuralism (e.g., Foucault, Baudrillard), and radical ecology (e.g., the degrowth movement) demonstrate. In any case, elements of Wittgenstein’s critical stance toward modernity as expressed in the early 1930s can also be found in his later phase,15 but, even more importantly for the purposes of this chapter, in his early phase as well. In the Tractatus, after discussing the scientific modus operandi and ascribing to the propositions of science the monopoly over the description of the world (see TLP 6.341-6.3432), Wittgenstein approaches the idea that science (as the totality of true propositions) provides an explanation of natural phenomena and, in the end, an explanation and measure of everything—one of the main characteristics of scientism—as the illusionary and still heteronomous foundation of the modern worldview (see TLP 6.371-6.372, 6.52). However, the Tractatus, despite its explicit anti-scientistic aspirations, does not remain immune to certain scientistic lapses, while it also exhibits further related characteristic tendencies of modernity such as foundationalism, essentialism, and dogmatism, as the later Wittgenstein would realize and criticize. Beginning with scientism, on the one hand, the early Wittgenstein may be viewed as trying to protect fields such as ethics and aesthetics— but also philosophy itself—from disputes, speculation, and the imperialist tendencies of science by ascribing them an absolute status outside the sphere of sense, a sphere which in the Tractatus is exhausted by science, based on a series of sharp distinctions, such as between saying and showing or between the contingent effable and the absolute ineffable (see, e.g., TLP 4.11-4.1212, 6.37-7). On the other hand, and at the same time, the ascription to the propositions of science of the exclusive authority over meaningful discourse—science as “everything that can be said without nonsense”—overestimates the role of science and in fact reinforces its

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imperialistic tendencies over the other aspects of human life, thought, and activity (see CV 70). Wittgenstein diagnoses also further scientistic characteristics in his early logico-philosophical approach as presented in the Tractatus in the modelling of logical analysis on chemical analysis and more broadly on the standards and methods of science.16 Moving to foundationalism, and following a rather standard/traditional reading of the Tractatus, the role that, first, (non-analyzable) objects play for the construction of the Tractarian ontology, second, (non-analyzable) names play for the Tractarian conception of language, and, third, truth conditions play for the isomorphic picturing relation between language and world, provides us with characteristic examples of the foundationalist aspects of Wittgenstein’s early work (see, e.g., TLP 2.15-2.1512, 2.2-2.225, 3.1-3.263, 4.023-4.024, 4.431, 5-5.101). Furthermore, Wittgenstein would later explicitly criticize also the broader Tractarian conception of logic as the “one fundamental calculus […] on which any other calculus could be based”, relating that (mistaken) conception— derived from Frege and Russell—once again to the (mis)conception of logic as a form of natural science (see Wittgenstein 1979b, 138–139). Regarding the essentialist sides of the Tractatus, there are three points that need to be mentioned. The first point has to do with what the later Wittgenstein calls “the craving for generality”, that is, the tendency to look for something that is, or rather must be, common to all the different entities subsumed under a general term (see Wittgenstein 1969, 17–20). The general and abstract character of key Tractarian concepts such as ‘names’ and ‘objects’, together with the complete absence of relevant concrete examples—a demonstration of a “contemptuous attitude toward the particular case”—constitute telling examples of such a tendency, a tendency which Wittgenstein once more associates with “our preoccupation with the method of science” (see Wittgenstein 1969, 18; 1979b, 11). The second point concerns the formal character of the Tractarian approach. The key terms of the Tractatus, for example, ‘names’, ‘objects’, ‘facts’, ‘states of affair’, ‘propositions’, ‘language’, were supposed to express formal concepts, with their attributes and interrelations—the rules of the logical calculus governing language and reflecting the logical structure of the world—bearing a formal unity essential for their general character. This formal unity, the “crystalline purity of logic”, would later be

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explicitly denounced by Wittgenstein, recognized as an essentialist prejudice (see PI 101–108). The third point lies in the nature and role of the ‘general propositional form’ in the Tractatus. In his early work, Wittgenstein explicitly equates the ‘general propositional form’ with the essence of language and the world (see TLP 5.471-5.4711)—a common essence that allows for their hidden (before analysis), isomorphic, picturing relation—and that is a prototypical essentialist approach that is clearly identified as misguided in the Philosophical Investigations and is thus abandoned by Wittgenstein (see PI 65, 91–92). Finally, as far as the dogmatic inclinations of the Tractatus are concerned, Wittgenstein’s later criticisms revolve mainly around two themes. First, Wittgenstein retrospectively detects signs of dogmatism in the Tractarian method of logical analysis, which, due to its quasi-scientific character, maintains the idea of a future discovery of hidden results. Once again, the complete absence of any concrete examples in regard to key Tractarian concepts (e.g., ‘names’, ‘objects’, ‘atomic propositions’) constitutes an instantiation of that attitude, illustrating at the same time a messianic belief that further application of the method of logical analysis will at some future point finally lead to the expected results (see Wittgenstein 1979b, 11). Second, when the later Wittgenstein discusses dogmatism as the attitude where the prototype, model, or ideal does not function as an “object of comparison” but as a “preconception to which everything must conform” (see CV 21-22, 30-31; PI 131), it is difficult not to think about the dogmatic role and nature of key Tractarian concepts such as ‘logical form’ and ‘general propositional form’ when it comes to the relation between logic, language, and the world (see, e.g., TLP 2.18-2.2, 3.315, 4.121, 4.5, 5.47-5.472, 6-6.002).

5 The Tractatus as an Immanent Critique of Modernity What are the conclusions that can be drawn from the above discussion of the various connections between (the early) Wittgenstein, the Tractatus, modernism, and modernity, especially in relation to the understanding of

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Wittgenstein’s early work as a coherent whole?17 First of all, what needs to be stressed is the strong resemblances between some of the modernist traits of the Tractatus and some of the tendencies it shares with modernity, as, for example, between formalism and essentialism, the manifesto form and dogmatism, or constructivism (and analysis as its mirror image), ahistoricity, and foundationalism. These converging features, despite the often antagonistic relation between modernism and modernity, constitute key parts of their common agenda as based on a “return to abstract fundamentals” through “a move away from the historical, concrete, or psychological toward the formal, abstract, or logical” (see Toulmin 1990, 153, 156). From such a perspective, the Tractatus may be viewed as a characteristic example of the shared, but often antagonistic, agenda of modernism and modernity. On the one hand, a critique of modernity in the form of a critique—as rejection and/or exploration of limits—of the scientistic worldview is explicitly articulated in the Tractatus and is connected to the ethical point of the book as expressed by the call to silence in its ultimate proposition. On the other hand, the quasi-scientific and, as the later Wittgenstein would recognize, in the end scientistic approach based on logical analysis adopted in his early work is not merely instrumental, but integral to the whole Tractarian project.18 Thus, the Tractatus emerges not just as a quasi-scientific, and in fact scientistic, critique of scientism, but also, as both the discussion in the previous sections of this chapter and early Wittgenstein’s own treatment of scientism as the basis of (the spirit of ) modernity suggest, as a modernist critique of modernity. This modernist critique of modernity may be further specified as a form of internal critique, as the early Wittgenstein attempts to draw the limit between facts and values, sense and nonsense, the contingent effable and the absolute ineffable, “from the inside” (see von Wright 1982, 83). Even more specifically, as the so much discussed proposition 6.54 of the Tractatus suggests through the explicit acknowledgment of the fundamentally contradictory character of the Tractarian approach (since according to its own criteria of sense it is nonsensical) and its treatment through the ladder metaphor, early Wittgenstein’s critique of modernity—of its spirit, worldview, and metaphysics—as developed in the Tractatus may be indeed viewed as a form of immanent critique.19 However, even this last specification of the Tractatus as an immanent

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critique of modernity20 stands in need of further discussion once we consider that there are various different types of immanent critique.21 Among the various distinctions that can be drawn between the different types of immanent critique, as, for example, between the type of immanent critique that focuses on the explicit inconsistencies or contradictions of its object and the type that focuses on the implicit ones or between the form of immanent critique that focuses exclusively on the internal inconsistencies or contradictions of the object of critique and the one which in a self-critical manner considers the (immanent) critique itself as belonging to the object of critique, the most important in regard to the conception of the Tractatus as an immanent critique of modernity is the one that relates to the goals of the critique. That is the distinction between the form of immanent critique which by focusing on the inconsistencies or contradictions between the object of critique and its own methods and standards aims at reforming and strengthening its object— ‘reformist’ immanent critique—and the one that radically challenges, in order to finally reject, not just (some of ) the methods and standards of its object of critique, but the object and its goals and values as such—‘radical’ immanent critique. The crucial question that emerges at this point concerning the purposes of this chapter is, of course, how is the Tractatus to be positioned in regard to this last distinction. On the one hand, the Tractatus may be viewed as engaging in reforming, improving, and strengthening certain aspects and (intellectual) tendencies of modernity. From the Tractarian conception of logic and its innovations to the metaphysics of the Tractarian version of logical atomism and the picture theory of language, Wittgenstein’s early work appears as an attempt to further develop and improve the quasi-scientific style of logical analysis as developed by Frege and Russell and modernity’s metaphysics in general.22 On the other hand, the remarks in the Tractatus regarding science and (the problems and limits of ) the modern worldview, together with the recognition of the Tractatus itself as nonsensical and the employment of the ladder metaphor, as well as the work’s final injunction to silence, suggest a radical rejection of the scientistic worldview and the metaphysics of modernity. Thus, the Tractatus may be viewed in the end as oscillating between a reformist and a radical immanent critique of modernity and some of its basic tenets as discussed in the previous section of this

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chapter.23 Wittgenstein tries to make tenable the tension between the reformist and the radical aspects of the Tractatus by approaching it as the teleiosis (i.e., as both the perfection and the completion, surpassing, and rejection) of the metaphysics of modernity, as the preface and the penultimate proposition of the work suggest. That is one of the ways in which Wittgenstein’s early work may be viewed as highly paradoxical, with the ladder metaphor employed in proposition 6.54 emerging as the high point of the Tractarian paradox. In any case, soon after the last attempts to improve the Tractarian system in 1929, Wittgenstein would realize that the paradoxical immanent critique of modernity his early work articulated could not be further maintained. It is highly telling that in the same ‘Sketch for a Foreword’ where Wittgenstein most explicitly criticizes the spirit of modernity and declares his alienation from it, he also rejects the very ladder metaphor (see CV 8-11). In the Tractatus, the surpassing and rejection of modernity is still related with and conditioned by the perfection and completion of modernity itself, an approach that Wittgenstein’s later philosophy—paradigmatically, in the Philosophical Investigations—would reject in terms of all style, tone, method, perspective, and content, enabling us this way to “enter into the postmodern” (see Negri and Dufourmantelle 2004, 177–178).

6 The Tractatus: Legacy, Present, and Possible Futures The legacy of the Tractatus both within and outside (academic) philosophy cannot be overestimated. From its constitutive influence on the Vienna Circle and logical positivism, the development of logical analysis and analytic philosophy, and the linguistic turn in twentieth-century philosophy in general, to its role as a continuous source of inspiration in various forms of art (theatre, music, cinema, literature and poetry, painting and the plastic arts), Wittgenstein’s early work has not only become part of the Western philosophical canon, but may also be viewed as an early twentieth-century Western cultural artifact, that is, as an article informative of the culture of its creator and users. Nevertheless, and

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especially after the development and propagation of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy and the demise of logical positivism in the second half of the twentieth century, a demise for which Wittgenstein’s later criticisms of his earlier philosophical outlook played an important role, the status of the Tractatus today within (academic) philosophy is mostly that of a magnificent failure which through its faults triggered the development of Wittgenstein’s later philosophical outlook that has remained much more (philosophically) relevant and influential today. Thus, the Tractatus is mostly approached today, especially outside Wittgenstein scholarship, as that which the Philosophical Investigations dialectically negates, as a “dead” philosophical artifact which however may be helpful, or even necessary, for understanding Wittgenstein’s later philosophy.24 Within Wittgenstein scholarship, the last major attempt to philosophically “revive” the Tractatus was signaled by the ‘New Wittgenstein’ debate in the early 2000s and the development of a family of deflationary, austerely therapeutic readings of Wittgenstein’s early work, which in such a way was considered as being much closer to Wittgenstein’s later philosophical outlook, or, more precisely, to the austerely therapeutic readings of the Philosophical Investigations. However, more than 20 years since the publication of The New Wittgenstein and the numerous contributions that followed, the debate today appears rather stagnated, or even exhausted, characterized by a frequent repetition, sometimes with merely minute modifications, of already articulated arguments by both sides, verging thus often toward the transformation of Wittgenstein scholarship into Wittgenstein scholasticism.25 At the same time, most of the present approaches to the Tractatus, including both ‘traditional’ and ‘therapeutic’ readings, while they do acknowledge the highly paradoxical character of the work, also exhibit a shared stance to it as a logical riddle which needs to be resolved, paradigmatically, through the employment of the Tractarian distinction between saying and showing for the traditional readers and the distinction between the sensical frame and the (austerely) nonsensical body of the Tractatus for the therapeutic readers (see, e.g., Crary and Read (eds.) 2000, 149–217, 353–388). The question thus rises whether there may be future approaches to the Tractatus that surpass the currently rather stagnated status quo of Wittgenstein scholarship, as shaped in the aftermath of the

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‘New Wittgenstein’ debate, by treating the paradoxical character of the work in a different manner than as a logical riddle to be resolved. While this chapter can only just hint toward an answer to the above question, the discussions in the previous sections regarding the various aspects of the constitutively paradoxical character of the Tractatus as a modernist, immanent critique of modernity suggest that the acceptance, embracement, and experience of the Tractarian paradox may constitute an alternative stance to the ones that either explicitly or implicitly entertain the paradox’s logical resolution. Employing the cases of two filmmakers that engage extensively and deeply with paradoxes in their cinematic works, and by means of analogy, we could say that the (paradox of the) Tractatus may be further explored by approaching it more as a Lynch movie than a Nolan one, more as a mystical experience, than a logical riddle.26 This approach to the (paradox of the) Tractatus as a mystical experience has the potential to engage with the important unwritten part of Wittgenstein’s early work and the (ineffable) ethical point of the book (see von Wright 1982, 83), since it is fully in line not only with the Tractarian conception of (ineffable and mystical) ethics as a matter of experience and action (see, e.g., TLP 6.42-6.43, 6.44-6.45, 6.522), but also with Wittgenstein’s explicit approach to ethics as a matter of experience as articulated in his ‘Lecture on Ethics’ (see Wittgenstein 1993b). Such a conception of the Tractarian paradox as an ethical, mystical experience and, in general, an austerely mystical reading of the Tractatus may thus indeed open a path for new insights regarding a work, which, a hundred years since its first publication, may often look outdated, but has not cease to attract, both because and despite its complexity, attention for its understanding.27

Notes 1. At the same time, according to Wittgenstein, the primary point of the Tractatus is an ethical one and the most important part of his early work is the one that remained—necessarily, since ineffable—unwritten (see von Wright 1982, 83). The exploration of the context of Wittgenstein’s early life and work may thus be also viewed as an attempt to shade some more light onto these obscure aspects of the Tractatus.

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2. See for example Janik and Toulmin (1973), Eagleton (1993), Paden (2007), Ware (2015), LeMahieu and Zumhagen-Yekplé (ed.) (2017) and Matar (ed.) (2017) in regard to Wittgenstein and modernism, and von Wright (1982), McGuinness (ed.) (1982), Cavell (1989), Bouveresse (1991), DeAngelis (2007), and Klagge (2011) in regard to Wittgenstein and modernity. 3. For more on the idea of ‘family-resemblance’ concepts, see PI 65–69. 4. See Janik (2001). Cf., Paden (2007), 189–195, where elements of aesthetic modernism too are discerned in Wittgenstein’s early life and thought. 5. For more on Kraus, see Janik and Toulmin (1973), 67–91. 6. For more on Loos, see Janik and Toulmin (1973), 92–101. It should be noted that both Kraus and Loos were not just personal acquaintances of Wittgenstein (see, e.g., McGuinness 1988, 281, and Monk 1991, 108, but also, according to Wittgenstein himself, two of his main influences (see CV 16). 7. For more on Mauthner, see Janik and Toulmin (1973), 120–132. Mauthner is one of the very few philosophers mentioned by name in the Tractatus and although Wittgenstein differentiates his own Sprachkritik from the one of Mauthner (see TLP 4.0031), there is still a number of resemblances to be found between their works (see Weiler 1958). 8. Note that later in his life Wittgenstein would develop an affection for Western movies and pulp detective fiction as well (see Monk 1991, 239, 266, 355, 422–427, 443, 528–529, 577). 9. For more on Wittgenstein’s architecture and its relation to his philosophy see Paden (2007). 10. See Eagleton (1993), 5–6. While Eagleton follows to a large extent Greenberg’s approach to modernism as “the use of characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself ” (see Greenberg 1973, 67), Greenberg takes Kant to be the first “real Modernist”, since Kant was the first to criticize the means itself of criticism. From such a perspective, the Tractatus may be viewed not as “the first great work of philosophical modernism” as Eagleton argues, but as the high point and culmination of (philosophical) modernism as initiated by Kant. 11. It should be noted that the links with formalism and constructivism are not exhausted in the literary style of the Tractatus, but actually extend to its content as well. Consider how formalism characterizes the Tractatus in general—from the formal concepts employed in the work and the

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formal unity between their attributes and their (inter)relations to the theory of (logical) symbolism and the general propositional form (see, e.g., TLP 3.32-3.3442, 4.122-4.1274, 6-6.031)—or the constructivist aspects of both Wittgenstein’s version of logical atomism as developed in the Tractatus and the key role that compositionality plays in the work (see, e.g., TLP 2-2.034, 3.22-3.318, 4.21-4.2211, 4.466-5.1363). See also Galison (1990) for a discussion, also in relation to formalism and constructivism, of the points of convergence between formal logical analysis (a la Vienna Circle) and architectural modernism (a la Bauhaus). 12. According to Wittgenstein, the Tractatus is “the presentation of a system” (see Monk 1991, 176–177). 13. For more on the Tractatus as a manifesto, see Puchner (2005). 14. See, e.g., von Wright (1982), 201–216 and DeAngelis (2007). Wittgenstein indeed mentions Spengler among his influences and actually employs in the ‘Sketch for a Foreword’ the Spenglerian distinction between culture and civilization, declaring that even if he does not take the disappearance of culture, as (purportedly) taking place in the modern world, to be indicative of the disappearance of human value, he still contemplates “the current of European civilization without sympathy, without understanding its aims if any” (see CV 8–9, 16). 15. See, e.g., CV 55–56 where, in a rather tongue-in-cheek manner, he appears ambivalent toward the prospect of nuclear destruction. 16. See Wittgenstein (1969), 18; (1979b), 11. See also Kitching (2003) for a detailed discussion of the scientistic aspects of the Tractarian logical analysis. 17. For more on the approach to the Tractatus as a coherent whole, see Stokhof (2002), 4–6. 18. Consider how Wittgenstein views his approach in the Tractatus as the “only rigorous way” of drawing the limits of the ethical (see von Wright 1982, 83), as the base for the “right method of philosophy” and as ­resulting in the solution of (all) philosophical problems (see TLP Preface, 6.53), as well as the intrinsic relation between logic and ethics in the Tractatus, as they both are transcendental, ineffable, and conditions/limits of the world and they both cannot be spoken of or depictured, but only show themselves (see, e.g., TLP 4.0312, 6.124, 6.13, 6.421, 6.45, 6.522). 19. It should be noted that internal critique is not exhausted in immanent critique. Internal critique is a form of critique that accepts or assumes

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the object of critique (e.g., system, theory) as true or given and which by examining the object of critique identifies certain problematic points. Immanent critique, as a form of internal critique, also accepts or assumes the object of critique (e.g., system, theory) as true or given, but through the examination of the object of critique on the basis of its own standards and commitments usually aims at identifying certain internal logical fallacies, typically contradictions. For examples of non-immanent internal critiques consider those types of internal critique that focus on tracing blind spots, uncovered areas, or lacunae with regard to systems or theories. Likewise, external critique, a form of critique that examines or assesses the very truth, validity, legitimacy, utility, or status of its object without presupposing them, is not exhausted in transcendent critique, which constitutes a type of external critique based on standards and commitments that are somehow external to or incompatible with its object. For examples of non-transcendent external critiques consider genealogical, deconstructivist, and in general post-structuralist types of critique or even the later Wittgenstein’s “sketches of landscapes” through his journeyings over “a wide field of thought criss-cross in every direction” (see PI Preface). 20. See, e.g., Janik (2001) and Ware (2015) for approaches to the Tractatus as an immanent critique of (certain aspects of ) modernity. 21. The concept of immanent critique has a long and rich history, which is paradigmatically traced in the philosophical lineage that starts with Hegel, continues with Marx, and reaches its highpoint with Frankfurt School critical theory, especially Adorno. For more on immanent critique and some of the various forms it may take see Stahl (2013) and Becker (2020). 22. Wittgenstein not only considered the Tractatus a system, as already noted (see Monk 1991, 176–177), but actually a system which he tried to improve up until 1929 as his discussions in ‘Some Remarks on Logical Form’ suggest (see Wittgenstein 1993a). The reformist characteristics of the Tractarian immanent critique are in line with Janik’s categorization of Wittgenstein as a critical modernist as well as with Greenberg’s ­conception of modernism as “the use of characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself, not in order to subvert it but in order to entrench it more firmly in its area of competence” (see Greenberg 1973, 67).

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23. The tension between the reformist and the radical aspects of the Tractarian immanent critique of modernity may be viewed as reflected in the ‘New Wittgenstein’ debate, with the (so-called) traditional readings of the Tractatus favoring the reformist aspects of its critique and the (so-­ called) resolute or therapeutic readings favoring the radical ones—for more on the ‘New Wittgenstein’ debate, see Crary and Read (eds.) (2000), Proops (2001), and Stokhof (2011). 24. An approach toward which Wittgenstein seems to gesture himself as we can see in the preface of the Philosophical Investigations. 25. See also CV 70 for Wittgenstein’s own reservations regarding Wittgenstein scholarship and scholasticism. 26. While paradoxes (e.g., regarding time and space) play a crucial role in many of the films of both Lynch and Nolan, they are mostly understood and employed in different ways by the two filmmakers, since in the works of Lynch (e.g., Twin Peaks, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive) paradoxes usually take the form of dream-like mystical or other-worldly experiences, while in the works of Nolan (e.g., Inception, Interstellar, Tenet) they often may be viewed as (quasi-logical) riddles that need to be (re)solved. 27. I would like to thank Martin Stokhof and Hao Tang for their valuable feedback on an earlier draft of this chapter.

References Becker, Michael. 2020. On Immanent Critique in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Hegel Bulletin 41 (2): 224–246. Bouveresse, Jacques. 1991. “The Darkness of this Time”: Wittgenstein and the Modern World. In Wittgenstein: Centenary Essays, ed. A.  Griffiths, 11–39. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cavell, Stanley. 1989. Declining Decline: Wittgenstein as a Philosopher of Culture. In This New Yet Unapproachable America: Lectures After Emerson and Wittgenstein, 29–75. Albuquerque: Living Batch Press. Conant, James. 2001. Philosophy and Biography. In Wittgenstein: Biography and Philosophy, ed. J.C. Klagge, 16–50. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crary, Alice, and Rupert Read, eds. 2000. The New Wittgenstein. London: Routledge.

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DeAngelis, William James. 2007. Ludwig Wittgenstein  – A Cultural Point of View: Philosophy in the Darkness of this Time. Aldershot: Ashgate. Eagleton, Terry. 1993. Introduction to Wittgenstein. In Wittgenstein: The Terry Eagleton Script/The Derek Jarman Film, 5–13. Worcester: The Trinity Press. Foucault, Michel. 1984. What is Enlightenment? In The Foucault Reader, ed. Rabinow, 32–50. New York: Pantheon. Galison, Peter. 1990. Aufbau/Bauhaus: Logical Positivism and Architectural Modernism. Critical Inquiry 16 (4): 709–752. Greenberg, Clement. 1973. Modernist Painting. In The New Art: A Critical Anthology, ed. G. Battcock, Rev. ed., 66–77. New York: Dutton. Habermas, Jürgen. 1991. Modernity: An Unfinished Project. In Critical Theory: The Essential Readings, ed. D.  Ingram and J.  Simon-Ingram, 158–169. New York: Paragon House. Janik, Allan. 2001. Vienna 1900 Revisited: Paradigms and Problems. In Rethinking Vienna 1900, ed. S. Beller, 27–56. New York: Berghahn. Janik, Allan, and Stephen Toulmin. 1973. Wittgenstein’s Vienna. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Kitching, Gavin. 2003. Resolutely Ethical: Wittgenstein, the Dogmatism of Analysis and Contemporary Wittgensteinian Scholarship. In Wittgenstein and Society: Essays in Conceptual Puzzlement, 179–221. Aldershot: Ashgate. Klagge, James. 2011. Wittgenstein in Exile. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. LeMahieu, Michael, and Karen Zumhagen-Yekplé, eds. 2017. Wittgenstein and Modernism. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Matar, Anat, ed. 2017. Understanding Wittgenstein, Understanding Modernism. New York: Bloomsbury. McGuinness, Brian. 1988. Wittgenstein: A Life. Young Ludwig (1889–1921). London: Penguin. ———, ed. 1982. Wittgenstein and His Times. Oxford: Blackwell. Monk, Ray. 1991. Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. London: Vintage. Negri, Antonio, and Anne Dufourmantelle. 2004. Negri on Negri: Antonio Negri in Conversation with Anne Dufourmantelle. New York: Routledge. Nyiri, Kristof. 1982. Wittgenstein’s Later Work in Relation to Conservatism. In Wittgenstein and His Times, ed. B. McGuinness, 44–68. Oxford: Blackwell. Paden, Roger. 2007. Mysticism and Architecture: Wittgenstein and the Meanings of the Palais Stonborough. Lanham: Lexington. Proops, Ian. 2001. The New Wittgenstein: A Critique. European Journal of Philosophy 9 (3): 375–404.

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Puchner, Martin. 2005. Doing Logic with a Hammer: Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and the Polemics of Logical Positivism. Journal of the History of Ideas 66 (2): 285–300. Rhees, Rush, ed. 1981. Ludwig Wittgenstein: Personal Recollections. Oxford: Blackwell. Stahl, Titus. 2013. ‘What is Immanent Critique?’ SSRN Working Papers. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2357957 Stokhof, Martin. 2011. The Quest for Purity: Another Look at the New Wittgenstein. Croatian Journal of Philosophy 11 (33): 275–294. ———. 2002. World and Life as One: Ethics and Ontology in Wittgenstein’s Early Thought. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Toulmin, Stephen. 1990. Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Ware, Ben. 2015. The Dialectic of the Ladder – Wittgenstein, the Tractatus, and Modernism. London: Bloomsbury. Weiler, Gershon. 1958. On Fritz Mauthner’s Critique of Language. Mind 67 (265): 80–87. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1922. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. ———. 1969. The Blue and Brown Books: Preliminary Studies for the Philosophical Investigations. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell. ———. 1979a. Notebooks 1914–1916. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell. ———. 1979b. Wittgenstein’s Lectures Cambridge 1932–35, From the Notes of Alice Ambrose and Margaret MacDonald. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. ———. 1993a. Some Remarks on Logical Form. In Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, ed. J. Klagge and A. Nordmann, 29–35. Indianapolis: Hackett. ———. 1993b. A Lecture on Ethics. In Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, ed. J.  Klagge and A.  Nordmann, 36–44. Indianapolis: Hackett. ———. 1998. Culture and Value (rev. 2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell. ———. 2001. Philosophical Investigations (rev. 3rd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell. ———. 2008. Wittgenstein in Cambridge: Letters and Documents 1911–1951. Oxford: Blackwell. von Wright, Georg Henrik. 1982. Wittgenstein. Oxford: Blackwell.

10 The Tractatus and Modernism: Dialectics, Apocalypse, and Ethics Ben Ware

1 Wittgenstein and Modernism: A First Impression How are we to conceive of Wittgenstein’s relation to modernism? Is modernism an internal component of Wittgenstein’s philosophical practice, or is it an external tradition to which his philosophy in some way relates? What exactly is it that we mean when we speak of Wittgenstein as a modernist figure? According to Terry Eagleton in a now famous series of remarks: “Frege is a philosopher’s philosopher, Bertrand Russell every shopkeeper’s image of the sage, and Sartre the media’s idea of an intellectual. But Wittgenstein is the philosopher of poets, playwrights, novelists and composers.”1 For Eagleton, the Tractatus belongs to the great wave of early twentieth-­ century European modernism; and therefore the true coordinates of the text are not Frege or Russell, but rather Joyce, Schoenberg and

B. Ware (*) King’s College London, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Stokhof, H. Tang (eds.), Wittgenstein’s Tractatus at 100, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-29863-9_10

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Picasso—what Eagleton calls “all those self-ironizing modernists who sought in their own fashion to represent and point to their representing at a stroke”.2 This view of Wittgenstein’s modernism—one which conceives of the relation in essentially aesthetic terms—is now very much what I want to call the standard view. To the extent that Wittgenstein is thought of as a modernist at all, then it is, as Marjorie Perloff puts it, because his “way of tackling philosophical problems is best called aesthetic”: aesthetic in its creative use of “exempla, apposite images, parataxis, and sudden leaps of faith”.3 To adapt a remark from Stanley Cavell’s The World Viewed, we might thus say that what makes Wittgenstein a modernist is that his “philosophy exists in the condition of art”.4 And of course, all of this, in one respect, is true—absolutely and vitally true. No understanding of either the Tractatus or the Philosophical Investigations can proceed without taking seriously the literary and aesthetic dimensions of the works. As early as his wartime Notebooks, Wittgenstein describes his problem as one of finding the right form of expression for his thoughts. “My difficulty”, he remarks in 1915, is “only an enormous difficulty of expression”. In a later letter to the publisher Ludwig von Ficker, Wittgenstein writes (about his Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung) that “the work is strictly philosophical and at the same time literary: but there’s no gassing in it”.5 The literary dimensions of the Tractatus are also recognised by Gottlob Frege. As he writes in a letter to Wittgenstein: The pleasure of reading your book can […] in no way arise through the […] content, but […] only through the form, in which is revealed something of the individuality of the author. [The book] thereby becomes an artistic rather than a scientific achievement; that which is said […] takes a back seat to how it is said.6

It will be useful here to briefly pause and compare Frege’s insightful, though ultimately unsympathetic, remarks on the literary elements of the Tractatus, with those of a number of more recent European philosophers and theoreticians—figures who one might expect to be much more open and sympathetic to the aesthetic and literary dimensions of Wittgenstein’s work.

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2 Anti-Wittgenstein In a series of interviews conducted in 1989, the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze is asked for his thoughts on Wittgenstein. Initially reluctant to engage the topic, Deleuze finally opens up to his interlocutor Claire Parnet: For me [Wittgenstein] is a philosophical catastrophe […] [His work marks] a regression of all philosophy, a massive regression. The Wittgenstein matter is very, very sad. They [the Wittgensteinians] impose a system of terror […] under the pretext of doing something new. It is poverty instituted as grandeur. […] There isn’t a word to describe this danger. It seems, especially since all Wittgensteinians are mean and destructive, if they win there could be an assassination of philosophy. They are philosophical assassins.7

What is perhaps most striking about Deleuze’s remarks, is not simply their dismissive (even contemptuous) tone, but the fact that they come from a philosopher who is elsewhere utterly committed to the “mobile relations” between philosophy and literature; to what he calls “the smooth space” which allows for philosophy-becoming-literature and literatureand art-becoming-philosophy.8 In their 1991 text What is Philosophy?, Deleuze and his collaborator Félix Guattari, refer to figures such as Kierkegaard and Nietzsche as “hybrid geniuses” who “use all the resources of their ‘athleticism’ to install themselves within [a space of ] difference, like acrobats torn apart in a perpetual show of strength”.9 Wittgenstein, however, surely the great inheritor of Kierkegaardian and Nietzschean philosophical acrobatics in the twentieth century, is completely absent from the Deleuze-Guattari picture. In many respects, Deleuze’s interview comments reprise a view of Wittgenstein’s philosophy put forward, several decades earlier, by members of the Frankfurt School. Theodor Adorno, for example, in his Hegel: Three Studies, cites the final proposition of the Tractatus—“Whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent” (7)—and takes it, reductively, as an example of “extreme positivism” which, in his words, “spills over” into a “gesture of reverent authoritarian authenticity”.10 Herbert Marcuse’s 1964 study One Dimensional Man, moves in a similar direction. According

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to Marcuse, Wittgenstein’s later work “militates against intellectual non-­ conformity”, “reaffirms the prevailing universe of discourse and behaviour”, and in its demand for absolute clarity functions like the philosophical equivalent of a Stalinist politburo: The intellectual is called on the carpet. What do you mean when you say…? Don’t you conceal something? You talk a language which is suspect. You don’t talk like the rest of us, like the man in the street, but rather like a foreigner who does not belong here. We have to cut you down to size, expose your tricks, purge you.11

There is of course no mention here of Wittgenstein’s own émigré (“foreigner”) status and a life spent not “belonging”; no mention of the fact that his philosophy issues no decrees, but, much like Marcuse’s own, is thoroughly committed to a liberatory battle against the bewitchment of the intellect; no mention of the fact that rather than a bureaucratic levelling of language and discourse, what Wittgenstein actually calls for— explicitly at one point, and elsewhere implicitly—is for philosophy to be written only as a kind of poetic or creative composition: “I think I summed up my attitude to philosophy when I said: philosophy ought to be written only as a poetic composition” (CV, 1980, 24). He makes the point again several years later: “If, rather than a more correct way of thinking, I want to teach a new movement of thought, my purpose is a ‘re-­evaluation of values’ and [with this] I come to Nietzsche as well as to the opinion that the philosopher should be a poet.”12 It would thus seem that Wittgenstein is not entirely misguided in his pessimistic prediction that his work would not be understood. Writing in the Preface to the Philosophical Investigations, he remarks that although his work might “bring light” into one brain or another, this is not very likely. “My type of thinking is not wanted in this present age”, he comments to a friend, echoing Nietzsche: “I have to swim so strongly against the tide. Perhaps in a hundred years people will really want what I am writing.”13

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3 Badiou, Wittgenstein and Anti-Philosophy The only recent continental philosopher to pay any real attention to the literary and aesthetic dimensions of Wittgenstein’s writing has been Alain Badiou.14 Taking his cue from the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, Badiou reads Wittgenstein as a prototypical “anti-philosopher”: a figure who, in the tradition of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Lacan himself, exposes the “dishonesty” of conventional modes of philosophizing, acting, in Badiou’s words, as an “awakener” of his audience.15 Badiou highlights the early Wittgenstein’s “art of writing”, his “abstract literary audacity”; and he suggests that the text to which the Tractatus should be compared is Mallarmé’s A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance. According to Badiou: The affirmative and hierarchical unfolding of propositions, the metaphorical tension combined with a mathematising rigour, the latent irony of the figures, the absolute self-sufficiency and yet the reference to an “overcoming” of the Book: all these features bring together the two projects.16

While Badiou is certainly correct to highlight what we might call the “Mallarméan side” of Wittgenstein—the side of him concerned with syntax, precision, and structure—there are nevertheless two key problems with his overall account. First, like Eagleton and Perloff, Badiou conceives of Wittgenstein’s modernism primarily in aesthetic terms: his antiphilosophical act is, Badiou says, “archi-aesthetic” (or “chiefly aesthetic”). In this respect, his approach to Wittgenstein’s modernism is very much in line with what I’m calling the standard approach. Second, there is a problem with Badiou’s notion of anti-philosophy: a concept which does not simply refer to philosophy which is divested of its theoretical pretentions, but one which, in the context of his account of Wittgenstein, crucially entails an ineffabilist dimension: The antiphilosophical act consists in letting what there is show itself, insofar as “what there is” is precisely that which no proposition can say. If Wittgenstein’s antiphilosophical act can legitimately be declared archi-­

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aesthetic, it is because this “letting be” has the non-propositional form of pure showing. […] It is thus a question of firmly establishing the laws of the sayable (of the thinkable), in order for the unsayable (the unthinkable, which is ultimately given only in art) to be situated as the “upper limit” of the sayable itself.17

The problem here, then, is that while Badiou praises Wittgenstein’s break with traditional, theory-producing modes of philosophy, the aspect of his work that he deems most significant is his so-called theory of saying and showing. “Anti-philosophy”, as Badiou puts it, paraphrasing Tractatus 4.14, “must set limits to what can be thought; and in so doing, to what cannot be thought”.18 On its own terms, then, Badiou’s notion of anti-­ philosophy, when applied to the early Wittgenstein, would appear to be at best contradictory: it rehearses the standard, doctrinal reading of the Tractatus, while simultaneously claiming that the book does not advance doctrines and theories and is instead committed solely to the idea of philosophy as an act.

4 Philosophical Modernism Where then might we turn for an understanding of Wittgenstein’s relation to modernism—one which avoids conceiving of the matter in exclusively aesthetic terms (what I’m calling the standard approach), and one which, at the same time, sidesteps the pitfalls of Badiou’s notion of modernist anti-philosophy? Here I’d like to suggest that understanding Wittgenstein as a modernist figure requires us, first of all, to begin with a different understanding of modernism itself: one which treats it not (or not chiefly) as an aesthetic category, nor indeed as a chronological one, but rather—first and foremost—as a philosophical concept. What will it mean then to think of modernism as a philosophical concept? Here I will argue that philosophical modernism comprises three closely connected strands: (i) the temporal, (ii) the methodological, and (iii) the formal. In relation to Wittgenstein’s work, these three strands can be elucidated as follows.

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(i) Temporal Strand Philosophical modernism is characterised by an affirmation of the new and a conscious awareness of one’s own philosophical enterprise as new. It makes its claim on the present through a rejection of the old—understood as past forms, past ideas, past ways of seeing—in the name of a commitment to a philosophically, aesthetically, ethically, or politically transformed future. This emphasis upon the new is, however, far from unproblematic: (i) it preserves a tie to the past, being dependent upon that which it seeks to overturn, and (ii) to the extent that the new is endlessly announced, it cannot avoid succumbing to the logic of the same. Nevertheless, it is still the new upon which philosophical modernism insists. Example i: I myself still find my way of philosophizing new, & it keeps striking me so afresh, & that is why I have to repeat myself so often. It will have become part of the flesh & blood of a new generation. (CV, 1998, 3) (ii) Methodological Strand Philosophical modernism advances by way of negation. While negation can take numerous and diverse forms, we might say, drawing upon the words of Walter Benjamin, that negation is first and foremost an activity of “clearing away. […] Not always by brute force; sometimes by the most refined means. […] What exists is reduced to rubble – not for the sake of the rubble, but for that of the way leading through it.”19 Here, then, negation is not to be equated with unqualified destructiveness; rather, the activity of negation is always invested with a positive force, one which aims at establishing a new foundation. Example ii: Where does this investigation get its importance from, given that it seems only to destroy everything interesting: that is, all that is great and important? (As it were, all the buildings, leaving behind only

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bits of stone and rubble.) But what we are destroying are only houses of cards, and we are clearing up the ground of language on which they stood. (PI, §118) ( iii) Formal Strand Philosophical modernism strives to find new forms for the expression of philosophical thought—an activity which requires opening up a space outside the discursive universe of traditional philosophy. In this respect, philosophical modernism places particular emphasis not just on what is said, but on how it is said and the impact of what is said on the reader. The reader’s emotional and affective engagement with the text is thus, we might say, already anticipated by the text itself. Moreover, if one wishes to locate the ethical point of works of philosophical modernism, then this consists less in looking at what any specific author has to say about ethics, and more in examining the kinds of formal or rhetorical work that individual texts actively perform. Example iii: My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as [nonsense], when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly.20 (TLP, 6.54) In what follows, then, I want to suggest that the Tractatus can be grasped as philosophically modernist in the way just outlined: as affirming the new; as engaged in an activity of radical negation and critique; and as contributing to an ongoing revolution of philosophical form. Understood in this way, I see the early Wittgenstein’s philosophical project not—or not simply—as one which strives towards the goal of linguistic and conceptual clarification, but rather as one which aims fundamentally at a transformation of the reader’s philosophical desires.

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5 Reading the Tractatus Dialectically Without wishing to get too immersed in questions and debates about how to read the Tractatus, I simply want to begin here by stating that the account of the book that I’ve developed is one that I have called “dialectical”;21 and I’ve suggested that the idea of the dialectic needs to be understood in a specific way. Chiefly, the dialectic names a particular process or movement—not, in this case, the old-fashioned progression from thesis through antithesis to synthesis, but rather something like the following: (i) “naïve” first impression or an encounter with the “appearance”; (followed by) (ii) an ‘interpretive’ correction in the name of some underlying “reality” or “truth”; (followed by) (iii) a return to the first impression, whose partial truth can now be grasped in a transformed way. In relation to the Tractatus, this dialectical movement might play out in the following way: (1) First impression: The Tractatus is putting forward a variety of metaphysical theories concerning the nature of language and logic. Central to the book’s theoretical account is the view that there are certain features of reality which cannot be stated or described but which are in some sense shown by features of our language. These include, for example, “the logic of the world”, the logical relationship among propositions, ethical and aesthetic principles, the mystical, and the truth of solipsism. (2) Interpretive correction: After making a difficult and rigorous progression through the book’s propositions, we arrive at the realisation that the Tractatus does not, in fact, advance philosophical doctrines and theories. The metaphysical theories that we thought made sense are, in fact, “simply nonsense”, and therefore must be “climbed up” like a ladder and finally discarded. The goal of the Tractatus is, in this respect, a kind of working through (to put the point in psychoanalytic terms); a traversing of the fantasy that there is a perspective from which we can view the relation between language and thought independently of our own situation in the world.

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(3) Transformed return to the first impression: Despite having thrown away the ladder, we recognize (or I believe that we should come to recognize) that there can’t be any final escape from metaphysics, or indeed from philosophical problems as such. And this because, philosophical problems, including problems of language, aren’t just philosophical: they are, rather, the very form in which certain cultural and political conflicts and tendencies become manifest. Wittgenstein suggests precisely this in the Tractatus when he claims that “the whole modern view of the world” is characterized by an “illusion”; and that this illusion consists in the belief that science (and in particular scientific laws) can provide a complete explanation of how things are in the world (TLP, 6.371). In his later Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, Wittgenstein comes back to this issue when he says that “the sickness of philosophical problems [can get cured] only through a change in the mode of life of human beings, not through a medicine invented by some individual”. Thus, while the Tractatus can’t necessarily “cure” or “therapise” away our philosophical confusions, it can nevertheless educate our imaginative capacity; bring us to a different understanding of our philosophical disquietude; and encourage us to pay much closer attention to instances in which metaphysical language is used. As Wittgenstein himself reminds us in his notebooks of the 1940s: ‘Don’t for heaven’s sake be afraid of talking nonsense! Only don’t fail to pay attention to your nonsense’.22

6 The Tractatus and Apocalypse In describing my approach to the Tractatus as dialectical, I don’t wish to propose a new theoretical reading of the book. What the term captures instead is a certain mood and movement of the text: its power of negation, as well as its radically transformative potential. When, at the end of the book, we are invited to throw the ladder, the point is not simply that we discard the nonsensical sentences, but rather that in the process of discarding we arrive at a new threshold: a new way of seeing, that goes hand in hand with a new style of thinking.23

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Let us remind ourselves of the relevant proposition, the notorious section 6.54: My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as [nonsense], when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly.

What, then, are we to make of this curious and provocative remark? Cutting a long story short (as here we must), we might say that having entered into the readers’ philosophical imagination throughout the course of the book, Wittgenstein’s method is then to round on them, shocking them into a reassessment of the indefiniteness of their own thinking. Thus understood, the literary significance of the Tractatus is clearly brought out: the book does not simply operate intellectually, it also strikes an emotional blow—presenting an elaborate picture of the readers’ own philosophical desires before eventually turning them in on themselves. Wittgenstein’s aim, in this respect, is not to expound but to sting. He does not try to prove to someone that they are speaking nonsense, but, rather, enters into their nonsense in order to use nonsense dialectically against itself. The importance of this strategy is highlighted again by Wittgenstein, ten years after the publication of the Tractatus, in a revealing passage in the so-called ‘Big Typescript’: One of the most important tasks [of philosophy] is to express all false thought processes so characteristically that the reader says, “Yes, that’s exactly the way I meant it”. To make a tracing of the physiognomy of every error. Indeed we can only convict someone else of a mistake if he acknowledges that this really is the expression of his feeling [...] if he (really) acknowledges this expression as the correct expression of his feeling.24

It will be instructive here to say a little more about Wittgenstein’s use of what I’ve just termed the tactic of “shock” at the end of the Tractatus. In his 1939 essay on Baudelaire, Walter Benjamin defines shock as the

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ubiquitous sensation of modern metropolitan life. For Benjamin, shock-­ experience is written into the very fabric of the capitalist everyday: it is what the worker experiences at their machine and what the passer-by endures when advancing through the city crowd: Moving through [the] traffic involves the individual in a series of shocks and collisions. At dangerous intersections, nervous impulses flow through him in rapid succession, like the energy from a battery. Baudelaire speaks of a man who plunges into the crowd as into a reservoir of electric energy. Circumscribing the experience of the shock, he calls this man “a kaleidoscope equipped with consciousness.” Whereas Poe’s passers-by cast glances in all directions which still appeared to be aimless, today’s pedestrians are obliged to do so in order to keep abreast of traffic signals. Thus technology has subjected the human sensorium to a complex kind of training.25

For Benjamin, however, shock is genuinely dialectical. Whilst it is tied to alienation and the impoverishment of experience, it can, at the same time, be used mimetically against itself as part of a “technique of awakening”. So, for example, the sporadic image sequences that one encounters in film or the snapping of the camera’s shutter after the illumination of its flashbulb, can have the effect of jolting the individuals’ consciousness, preventing them from lapsing into habitual modes of thinking and seeing. In his own unfinished late work, the Arcades Project, Benjamin reproduces the shock character of the modern through the method of literary montage. His “constellatory” arrangement of quotations function as a sequence of electrical blasts or mechanical detonations designed to shock the reader into a state of “awakened consciousness”. Here I think we can locate a crucial link between Benjamin and the early Wittgenstein. The Tractatus, for the most part, is written in a dense and almost authorless style. The ideas are presented not as an option to the reader—not, that is, as things which can be argued for or against— but rather as a set of (deceptively) unquestionable statements. For instance, the book opens with the following pronouncements: The world is everything that is the case. The world is the totality of facts, not of things.

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The world is determined by the facts, and by these being all the facts. For the totality of facts determines both what is the case, and also all that is not the case. (TLP, 1–1.12)

The terse and intimidating style of these remarks is, however, opposed by the use of the first-person in the penultimate section: “My propositions are elucidatory […] whoever understands me finally recognizes them as nonsense” (6.54).26 Here the shift in register allows Wittgenstein to break through the barrier of theoretical anonymity and to address the reader directly. The word “nonsense” [unsinnig] arrives at this point in the Tractatus like a Benjaminian lightning flash, startling the reader into a state of full philosophical wakefulness. The immediate effect is akin to a sudden drop in altitude, bringing feelings of groundlessness and anxiety. By opening up a radically new perspective, Wittgenstein defamiliarises the philosophical object that we hold in our hands (the text itself ); jolts us out of our ordinary habits of thinking and perceiving; makes us suddenly conscious of the inherent strangeness of philosophy as such. I want to refer to this as the book’s apocalyptic moment, where the term apocalyptic is used here in a double sense. First, 6.54 is apocalyptic in the general or colloquial sense. It marks the point at which the text philosophically explodes, bringing an end to all talk of “the logical form of reality”, “the picture theory of language”, and the distinction between “saying and showing”. The effect here is potentially catastrophic for the reader, overturning an entire philosophical worldview that has just been delivered up. Second, 6.54 is also apocalyptic in a literal sense. At the same time as carrying out the activity of negation, it reveals or unveils (apo, “away” + kalupto, “cover”) an entirely new approach to philosophy: one which consists not in advancing philosophical doctrines, but, rather, in cultivating a capacity to see things otherwise; an ability to critically reflect upon the nature of one’s own philosophical desires. Put another way, we might say that what is revealed or unveiled at 6.54 is that philosophy is a practice of working on the self—on the motives, urges, and temptations of the self that engage in philosophical enquiry.27 These motives, urges, and temptations are, however, as I previously suggest, expressions of certain conflicts and tendencies within the existing culture. Working on the self, therefore, does not have an exclusively

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philosophical purpose, but might be better understood as something more akin to the activity of cultural and ideological critique. My choice of the term “apocalyptic” here is far from random, and its significance extends beyond the destructive-revelatory character of the Tractatus itself. Notions of apocalypse, catastrophe, and ending haunt Wittgenstein’s thinking, both early and late—not just the explicitly philosophical writings, but also his notebooks and private conversations. In one respect, the reason for this is clear: the bulk of his intellectual work takes place during what the historian Eric Hobsbawm has called “the age of catastrophe”—1914–1945—a period which includes (but is certainly not limited to) the crisis of World War I, the demise of the Russian Revolution, the economic collapse of the 1930s, the rise of Nazi Germany, and World War II. At the beginning of this period, Freud wrote that war had transformed the subject’s understanding of death, such that the possibility of one’s own death could no longer be denied; by the end of the period, however, it had become possible to imagine both human and planetary extinction—a secular end of all things. Extending out from my suggestion that the Tractatus ends with a kind of apocalypse, here I’d like to take a further step. First, I want to reconsider a number of explicitly apocalyptic remarks which Wittgenstein makes in his notebooks of the 1930s and 1940s, and to examine what these remarks might reveal about Wittgenstein’s relation to his times. Second, I want to claim that these remarks, despite appearing in Wittgenstein’s private manuscripts, can also provide us with a crucial link to his later philosophy (namely, the Investigations), and specifically to a way of approaching the later philosophy which is strongly continuous with the modernist reading of the Tractatus just outlined.

7 Thought at the End of the World Throughout his notebooks of the 1930s and 1940s, Wittgenstein makes numerous remarks which, in different ways, evoke the sense of an ending. In 1931, for example, when thinking about his work in philosophy, he says to himself: “I destroy, I destroy, I destroy” (CV, 1980, 21). In the same year, he comments that “[i]f my name lives on then only as the

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Terminus ad quem of great occidental philosophy. Somewhat like the name of the one who burnt down the library of Alexandria” (PPO, 73). In the Big Typescript, he comments that “all that philosophy can do is to destroy idols…[a]nd that means not creating a new one”; and, moreover, that philosophy itself, at least in part, consists in destroying “certain prejudices that are based on our particular way of looking at things” (BT, 413). In 1946, however, Wittgenstein makes an altogether more startling claim; one that is, at least on the surface, less a comment on his own philosophical enterprise and more a piece of social, political, and cultural critique: The hysterical fear of the atom bomb the public now has, or at least expresses, is almost a sign that here for once a really salutary discovery has been made. At least the fear gives the impression of being fear in the face of a really effective bitter medicine. I cannot rid myself of the thought: if there were not something good here, the philistines would not be making an outcry. But perhaps this too is a childish idea. For all I can mean really is that the bomb creates the prospect of the end, the destruction of a ghastly evil, of disgusting soapy water science and certainly that is not an unpleasant thought; but who is to say what would come after such a destruction? The people now making speeches against the production of the bomb are undoubtedly the dregs of the intelligentsia, but even that does not prove beyond question that what they abominate is to be welcomed. (CV, 1998, 55–56)

What, then, should we make of these remarks, written almost exactly one year after the bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—events which left almost a quarter of a million people dead, many of them civilians? We might begin by placing Wittgenstein’s comments alongside other modernist responses to the bomb, notably Gertrude Stein’s fragment “Reflection on the Atomic Bomb”, also written in 1946: They asked me what I thought of the atomic bomb. I said I had not been able to take any interest in it. […] I never could take any interest in the atomic bomb, I just couldn't any more than in everybody’s secret weapon. That it has to be secret makes it

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dull and meaningless. Sure it will destroy a lot and kill a lot, but it’s the living that are interesting not the way of killing them, because if there were not a lot left living how could there be any interest in destruction. Alright, that is the way I feel about it. They think they are interested about the atomic bomb but they really are not any more than I am. Really not. They may be a little scared, I am not so scared, there is so much to be scared of so what is the use of bothering to be scared, and if you are not scared the atomic bomb is not interesting.28

If Stein is radically disinterested in the bomb (a striking example, perhaps, of modernist boredom and subjective withdrawal), then Wittgenstein appears deeply invested in it; and for what would seem to be two connected reasons. First, the bomb offers the prospect of an “end”, the destruction of a “ghastly evil”, and, specifically, the termination of what he calls “soapy water science”. Second, the bomb might be thought of as a welcome invention precisely because those opposing it are, in Wittgenstein’s words, “philistines”, the “dregs of the intelligentsia”. While Wittgenstein is quick to acknowledge that the latter is perhaps a “childish idea” (he is simply welcoming what his intellectual opponents are against), his general remarks about the bomb need to be understood in relation to a number of other statements which he makes during the same period. The following remark from 1947 is here especially important: The truly apocalyptic view of the world is that things do not repeat themselves. It is not e.g. absurd to believe that the scientific & technological age is the beginning of the end for humanity, that the idea of Great Progress is a bedazzlement, along with the idea that the truth will ultimately be known; that there is nothing good or desirable about scientific knowledge & that humanity, in seeking it, is falling into a trap. It is by no means clear that this is not how things are. (CV, 1998, 64)

According to Wittgenstein, then, the truly apocalyptic view is one that sees humanity marching directly towards its end (without the chance to repeat, to learn from past mistakes); but this end emerges as a real possibility only with the arrival of the so-called scientific-technological age. In the epoch of “great progress”, in which science becomes the only accepted form of knowledge, humankind sinks into a world of “infinite misery”,

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into a new “darkness”, in which “peace is the last thing that will find a home”.29 On this point, Wittgenstein comes strikingly close to the view put forward by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno in the opening pages of their Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944): “the fully enlightened earth radiates disaster triumphant”.30 Taken together, Wittgenstein’s two remarks thus present a distinctly apocalyptic outlook: (i) we are faced with the prospect of a final end (“the bomb”); but (ii) this end also unveils (apo, “away” + kalupto, “cover”) an important truth about capitalist modernity: what appears at first blush as human “progress” (technological-scientific advancement), turns out in fact to be the very motor of world annihilation. Consequently, it may be necessary, as Wittgenstein suggests, for the end of a world—the frenzied world of technoscience, in order to prevent an even more catastrophic end—the total destruction of our existing forms of (ecological, human, and nonhuman) life.31

8 The Investigations and Apocalypse While Wittgenstein’s remarks on apocalypse appear in his private notebooks, they nevertheless provide us with a crucial link to his later philosophy. The epigraph of the Investigations, drawn from the playwright Johann Nestroy, warns readers that “progress […] always looks much greater than it really is”; while the book’s Preface speaks of “the darkness of this time”—a reference, no doubt, to the catastrophic period, 1936–1945, during which the book was composed. In the body of the Investigations, we hear of machines “bending, breaking off [and] melting” (193); exploding boilers (466); and people who see “the cross piece of a window as a swastika” (420). But it is not simply the language of the book that we might describe as apocalyptic, but also, and more importantly, the fundamental conception of philosophy that we find therein. This is expressed very clearly in the meta-philosophical remarks at sections 89-133, in part one of the Investigations. Here Wittgenstein carries out a kind of apocalyptic-­anti-apocalyptic move: he strives to bring to an end not philosophy as such, but rather philosophy as a discourse of the end—that is, philosophy which takes as its goal “crystalline purity” (107), “perfect

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order” (98), “complete exactness” (91); philosophy which serves to prescribe and insist that “this is how things must be”. Where then does this striving after the ideal of perfect order and crystalline purity come from? As Wittgenstein suggests in the Blue Book, it has its roots not in philosophy itself, but in certain social and cultural tendencies, and specifically the way that science-as-ideology structures and conditions philosophical thought: “Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes, and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics, and leads the philosopher into complete darkness” (BB, 18). Being held captive by a picture of “the ideal” is, Wittgenstein says, akin to having “a pair of glasses on our nose through which we see whatever we look at. It never occurs to us to take them off” (PI 103). But perhaps the answer is not the removal of the glasses absolutely (there can, after all, be no pure and unmediated act of seeing); rather, what is required is a radical perspectival shift. Here, once again, we encounter the end of one world (or, in this case, the end of one particular regime of seeing) and the opening up of a new one: a world of unknown familiarity. This brings us to the second sense of apocalyptic in the later Wittgenstein: the revelatory and indeed the ethical moment signposted at §129, where we are alerted to the “aspects of things that are most important to us”, which are right in front of our eyes, but which are “hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity”.32 Here philosophy is being presented as an activity which involves relearning how to “look” at the world. Its aim, according to Wittgenstein, is to loosen the grip of fixed ways of seeing; to destabilise routinised habits of thought and perception; and bring us to the point from which it is possible to view the everyday through a dialectical optic. The fact that philosophical problems are always expressions or symptoms of the social and political world in which they are entangled means that the injunction to change how we see can also have a number of far-­ reaching consequences. For instance, by striving to see things otherwise, we also, in the words of the critic Fredric Jameson, initiate a “reawakening of the imagination of possible and alternate futures, a reawakening of that historicity which our current system—offering itself as the end of history – necessarily represses and paralyses.”33 Understood in this way,

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seeing language, self, and the world otherwise becomes inseparable from the imaginative activity of seeing the future otherwise. In our own apocalyptic moment—a period of accelerating climate change, ecological destructiion and inter-imperialist war—nothing, we might argue, could be more urgent.

Notes 1. Eagleton (1993), 5. 2. Eagleton (1998), 33. 3. Perloff (1996), 15. 4. Cavell (1979), 14. 5. Letter: Ludwig Wittgenstein to Ludwig von Ficker (October 1919), cited in Wittgenstein 1971, 14, n. 2. 6. Letter: Gottlob Frege to Ludwig Wittgenstein (16 September 1919), in Rouner 1998, 91. 7. Gilles Deleuze From A to Z, Dir. Pierre-André Boutang, trans Charles J.  Stivale (Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents, 2012). The film comprises a series of interviews with Deleuze, in which each letter of the alphabet evokes a word: From A (“animal”) to Z (“Zigzag”). The letter W, for Deleuze, evokes “Wittgenstein”. 8. Deleuze (1994), xvi; Deleuze and Guattari (1988), 351–423. 9. Deleuze and Guattari (1994), 67. 10. Adorno (1993), 101. 11. Marcuse (1991), 196. 12. Wittgenstein’s Nachlass (23 March, 1938) item 120, p. 145r. This remark is translated by Wolfgang Huemer and quoted by David Schalkwyk (2004, 73, fn 7). 13. Drury (1981), 94. 14. For a reading of Wittgenstein that is also engaged with the literary and cultural dimensions of his writing, see Bouveresse (1990), 11–39. 15. Badiou (2011), 49, 67. 16. Ibid., 156. 17. Ibid., 80. 18. Ibid. 19. Benjamin (2005), 541–542.

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20. The C. K. Ogden translation, from which this is taken, has “senseless”, instead of “nonsense”, for the German word unsinnig. I use the word “nonsense”, both here and throughout my writings on 6.54. For a justification, see Ware (2015), Chap. 2. 21. Ware (2017). 22. Wittgenstein (1984), 64. 23. For more on this new way of seeing, specifically in relation to Wittgenstein’s later work, see Ware (2017), Chap. 2. 24. Wittgenstein (1993), 165. Hereafter ‘BT’. 25. Benjamin (1999), 171. 26. Emphasis added. 27. See the following passage which appears in BT, §86: As is frequently the case with work in architecture, work on philosophy is actually closer to working on oneself. On one’s own understanding. On the way one sees things. (And on what one demands of them.) 28. Stein (1947). 29. Wittgenstein (1984), 63, and Wittgenstein (2001), x. 30. Adorno and Horkheimer (1977), 3. 31. For a critical reading of Wittgenstein’s views of culture and modernity, see Ware (2015), Chap. 3. 32. For more on this issue, see Ware (2017), Chap. 2. 33. See Jameson (2009), 434.

References Adorno, Theodor. 1993. Hegel: Three Studies. Trans. S.W. Nicholsen. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Adorno, Theodor and Max Horkheimer. 1977. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Trans. J. Cumming. London: Verso. Eagleton, Terrence. 1993. Introduction to Wittgenstein. In Wittgenstein: The Terry Eagleton Script/The Derek Jarman Film. London: BFI Publishing. Eagleton, Terence. 1998. My Wittgenstein. In The Eagleton Reader. Oxford: Blackwell. Badiou, Alain. 2011. Wittgenstein’s Antiphilosophy. Trans. B.  Bosteels. London: Verso. Benjamin, Walter. 1999. On Some Motifs in Baudelaire. In Illuminations. London: Pimlico.

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———. 2005. The Destructive Character. In Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings Volume 2, Part 2 1931-1934. Trans. R. Livingstone et al., ed. M.W. Jennings et al. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Bouveresse, Jacques. 1990. “The Darkness of this Time”: Wittgenstein and the Modern World. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements 28: 11. Cavell, Stanley. 1979. The World Viewed: Reflections on the Ontology of Film. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Deleuze, Gilles. 1994. Difference and Repetition. Trans. P.  Patton. New  York: Columbia University Press. ———. 2012. From A to Z, Dir. Pierre-André Boutang (Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents. Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix. 1988. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. B. Massumi. London: The Athlone Press. ———. 1994. What is Philosophy? Trans. G.  Burchell and H.  Tomlinson. London: Verso. Drury, Maurice O’Connor. 1981. Some Notes on Conversations with Wittgenstein. In Ludwig Wittgenstein: Personal Recollections, ed. Rush Rhees. Oxford: Blackwell. Jameson, Fredric. 2009. Valences of the Dialectic. London: Verso. Marcuse, Herbert. 1991. One Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Perloff, Marjorie. 1996. Wittgenstein’s Ladder: Poetic Language and the Strangeness of the Ordinary. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Rouner, Leroy S., ed. 1998. Loneliness. Boston University Studies in the Philosophy of Religion, 19. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Schalkwyk, David. 2004. Wittgenstein’s “Imperfect Garden”: The Ladders and Labyrinths of Philosophy as Dichtung. In The Literary Wittgenstein, ed. John Gibson and Wolfgang Huemer. London: Routledge. Stein, Getrude. 1947. Reflections on the Atomic Bomb. Yale Poetry Review. Ware, Ben. 2015. Dialectic of the Ladder: Wittgenstein, the ‘Tractatus’, and Modernism. London: Bloomsbury. ———. 2017. Living Wrong Life Rightly: Modernism, Ethics and the Political Imagination. London: Palgrave. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1971. Prototractatus, ed. B.F.  McGuinness, T.  Nyberg and G.H. von Wright. Trans. D.F.  Pears and B.F.  McGuinness. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. ———. 1984. Culture and Value. Trans. P.  Winch. Chicago: The Chicago University Press.

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———. 1993. Big Typescript. In Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, ed. James Klagge and Alfred Nordmann. Indianapolis: Hackett. ———. 2000. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Trans. C.K.  Ogden. London: Routledge. ———. 2001. Philosophical Investigations. Trans. G.E.M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell.

Author Index1

A

Adorno, Theodor, 177, 187n21, 193, 207 Appelqvist, Hanne, 65, 74n5, 83, 92, 94n1, 95n14, 96n18 B

Badiou, Alain, 195–196 Bearn, G.C.F., 81 Benjamin, Walter, 197, 201, 202 Black, Max, 8 Brockhaus, R., 81, 87, 95n16, 97n31 C

Carnap, Rudolf, 3, 50–52, 119–128, 130, 131, 134, 136, 137, 138n3, 139n5, 140n19, 155, 156

Carroll, Lewis, 41, 44 Cassirer, Ernst, 121, 134, 135, 140n17 Cavell, Stanley, 117n23, 192 Christensen, Anne-Marie, 62, 65, 66 Conant, James, 8, 18, 29n25, 54n10, 58, 65, 70, 71, 74n3, 77, 94n1, 139n11, 170 D

Davidson, Donald, 144, 154–157, 159, 162, 164n7 Deleuze, Gilles, 193, 209n7 Derrida, Jacques, 136 Descartes, René, 143, 161 Diamond, Cora, 2, 7, 8, 10–12, 18, 23, 24, 26, 27n2, 28n8, 28n9, 29n25, 30n34, 30n35, 30n38,

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

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Author Index

54n10, 71, 74n6, 82, 91, 139n11, 151 Dilthey, Wilhelm, 135 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 135, 174

H

Hacker, Peter, 8, 54n10, 152, 156, 158 Heidegger, Martin, 121, 135, 136 Hilbert, David, 122, 125 J

E

Eagleton, Terry, 185n10, 191, 192, 195

Jacquette, Dale, 88 Jameson, Fredric, 208 K

F

Fairhurst, Jody, 65, 66 Feigl, Herbert, 119, 121 Ficker, Ludwig von, 3, 71, 73n1, 78, 192 Frazer, James, 4, 105–107, 113n3, 113–114n6, 114n7, 115n8, 115n11, 140n17 Frege, Gottlob, 3, 4, 13, 23, 26, 28n14, 36–38, 40–46, 48, 52n3, 53n5, 53–54n8, 120, 121, 124–129, 131–133, 139n5, 139n15, 144, 145, 148, 152, 155, 156, 178, 181, 191, 192 Friedman, Michael, 121–125, 127, 128, 132, 134, 135, 138n2, 138n3, 140n18

Kannisto, H., 85, 94n2, 95n14 Kant, Immanuel, 67, 74n5, 83, 84, 87, 90, 91, 96n25, 114n6, 135, 146, 153, 161, 185n10 Kerry, Benno, 128 Kierkegaard, Søren, 135, 193, 195 Kraus, Karl, 173, 185n5, 185n6 Kremer, Michael, 8, 25, 30n31, 30n42 Kuusela, Oskari, 3, 8, 29n26, 31n47, 49, 53n3, 53n4, 53n7, 54n10, 72, 75n8, 86, 88, 91, 94n3, 95n12, 96n21, 97n34, 98n38 L

Lacan, Jacques, 195 Lazerowitz, Morris, 161 Levinas, Emmanual, 92, 93, 96n18 Loos, Adolf, 172–174, 185n6

G

Gadamer, Hans Georg, 136 Garver, Newton, 84, 93, 95n11, 96n19 Gödel, Kurt, 122 Guattari, Felix, 193

M

Malcolm, Norman, 8 Marcuse, Herbert, 193, 194 Mauthner, Fritz, 174, 185n7

  Author Index 

Mesel, Benjamin de, 3, 4, 72, 74n6, 84, 87, 98n38 Mill, John Stuart, 145 Misak, Cheryl, 119, 138n2

215

40–48, 52n3, 53n6, 53–54n8, 120, 126, 127, 129, 132, 133, 139n11, 139n12, 144, 145, 147–153, 155, 156, 164n4, 178, 181, 191

N

Narboux, Jean-Philippe, 25 Neurath, Otto, 122 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 135, 193–195 P

Pears, David, 8 Perloff, Marjorie, 192, 195 Pöykkö, P.-M., 65, 83, 92, 96n18 Q

Quine, Willard Van Orman, 52n2, 138n4, 155, 156

S

Scheler, Max, 135 Schlick, Moritz, 137 Socrates, 11, 13, 112 Spengler, Oswald, 135, 176, 186n14 Stein, Gertrude, 205, 206 Stokhof, Martin, 73n2, 75n8, 89, 95n11, 96n23, 96n25, 98n38, 116n13, 117n19, 165n9, 188n27 Sundholm, Göran, 14, 54n13 T

Tarski, Alfred, 122, 155, 156 R

Ramsey, Frank, 138n2, 150, 151, 155 Ricketts, Thomas, 2, 29n18, 29n20, 30n31, 37, 53n5, 125, 126, 129 Russell, Bertrand, 3, 4, 13, 19, 20, 26, 27n1, 28n14, 36–38,

W

Weininger, Otto, 73n1, 135 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1, 7, 35–52, 57, 77, 101–112, 119, 122–124, 136–138, 143, 169–184, 191–192

Subject Index1

A

Action, 62–64, 67, 68, 72, 73n2, 79–81, 86, 97n34, 108, 109, 112, 116n16, 184 Aesthetic approach, 196 Aesthetics, 3, 6, 61, 79, 82, 87, 105, 172–177, 192, 195, 196, 199 Agreement, 21, 30n31, 57, 67–69, 112, 130 Analysis, 5, 15–18, 27, 29n20, 36, 50, 91, 115n11, 119, 134, 139n16, 144, 153–155, 157–160, 162, 163n1, 178–180 Apocalypse, 5, 191–209 Arithmetic, 123, 130

Atomic bomb, 205, 206 Attitude, 15, 19, 29n25, 65–68, 70, 74n4, 81–83, 89, 92, 95n12, 95n15, 97n34, 97n36, 140n19, 155, 176, 178, 179, 194 Awakening, 104, 202, 208 B

Begriffsschrift, 2, 3, 10, 12–19, 23, 25–27, 28n13, 28n14, 29n22, 126, 132, 133, 149 Body, 7, 28n10, 39, 54n8, 74n3, 101–103, 109, 113–114n6, 116n17, 117n20, 117n21, 133, 183, 207

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

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218 

Subject Index

C

Ceremony, 107 Character, 17, 18, 20, 41, 90, 94n4, 103–105, 109, 110, 112, 113n3, 114n6, 114–115n7, 116n11, 170, 171, 175, 176, 178–180, 183, 184, 202, 204 Choice, 102–104, 113n5, 114n6, 114n7, 124, 204 Concept horse, 125 Connective analysis, 159, 160, 162 Constructivism, 172, 180, 185–186n11 Context principle, 9–11, 28n7, 53n5, 127–134 Contingent, 9, 27, 62, 79, 81, 87, 120, 151, 164n6, 175, 177, 180 Correct, 14, 26, 31n47, 36, 38, 40, 46, 50, 51, 52n3, 67, 86, 139n5, 143–163, 194, 195, 201 Critique, immanent, 5, 170, 173, 179–182, 184, 186–187n19, 187n21, 187n22, 188n23 D

Davos disputation, 121, 135 Death, 96n17, 106–108, 116n15, 174, 204 Dialectic, 5, 24, 143–163, 191–209 Dialectical reading, 199–200 Dogmatism, 161, 177, 179, 180 E

Elementary sentence, 8, 14–18, 21, 30n31, 30n32 Empiricism, 145 Epistemic assumption, 154

Essentialism, 177, 180 Ethics, 2–4, 57–72, 77–93, 172, 173, 175, 177, 184, 191–209 Events, 64, 80, 94n4, 106, 155, 157, 158, 205 Expression, 2, 4, 11, 13, 14, 21, 26, 28n7, 39, 48, 50, 51, 65, 70, 90, 93, 101, 104, 106, 108–111, 113n3, 114n6, 126, 128, 129, 134, 137, 139n15, 144–146, 150, 155, 156, 176, 192, 198, 201, 203, 208 F

Fact, 8, 19, 21, 22, 27, 39, 42, 43, 45–47, 51, 52n1, 58–60, 62, 66, 68, 78–88, 92, 93, 95n15, 96n26, 103–106, 110, 111, 114n7, 120–123, 126, 127, 132, 135, 145–148, 151, 152, 159, 163n2, 170–175, 177, 178, 180, 193, 194, 199, 202, 203, 207, 208 First-order logic, 165n7 Form, 15–18, 23, 26, 37, 40, 42, 45, 46, 51, 58, 59, 63, 68, 79, 84, 87, 93, 96n19, 103, 104, 106–110, 112, 113–114n6, 122, 124, 125, 129, 132, 133, 135, 147, 148, 172–174, 178, 180–182, 187n19, 187n21, 188n26, 192, 196–198, 200, 206, 207 Formal calculus, 178 Formal concept, 10, 11, 23, 48, 50–52, 105–107, 149, 152, 158, 163n1, 178, 185n11 Formalism, 180, 185–186n11 Foundationalism, 177, 178, 180

  Subject Index  G

General propositional form, 37, 40, 41, 51, 147, 179, 186n11 See also General sentence-form General sentence-form, 14, 15, 17–27, 30n34, 31n48 Gesture, 11, 48, 97n29, 108, 109, 116n16, 152, 188n24, 193 God, 82, 89, 90 Grammar, 11, 13, 14, 28n13, 107, 139n16, 145, 149, 159 Grundgedanke, 21 H

Happiness, 57, 65–70, 74n5, 78, 83–86, 92, 97n34 Harmony, 57, 65–70, 84, 86, 92, 93, 95n11, 97n34 I

Inference, 41–47, 53n8, 126, 127, 129, 157, 158 Instinct, 109, 116n11 Intentionality, see Representation Interpretation ontology-oriented, 8 resolute, 4, 8, 11, 12, 19, 25, 27n4, 28n10, 31n48, 54n10, 78, 94n4 J

Judgement analytic, 121 blind, 19 identical, 11, 84 tautological, 46

219

Justification, 36, 41–47, 49, 51, 52n2, 103, 109, 127 L

Language artificial, 154–156 calculus model of, 164n7 ideal, 2, 120, 144, 149, 150, 155, 156 natural, 52, 140n18, 145, 149, 154–156, 164–165n7 ordinary (everyday), 2, 4, 5, 120, 121, 133–136, 149–150, 155, 156, 159 Life, 6, 12, 57, 63–70, 72, 73n2, 74n7, 78, 81–85, 87–93, 95n12, 95n13, 96n19, 97n33, 97n36, 102–104, 106, 109, 112, 116n15, 133–135, 169–171, 178, 184n1, 185n4, 185n8, 194, 200, 202, 207 Logic application of, 16, 17, 126, 153, 155, 157, 179 axioms of, 36, 41, 44–46, 54n8, 126 metalogic, 5, 121, 122, 124, 125, 127, 129 propositions of, 2, 17, 35–39, 43, 45–49, 51, 53n4, 54n8, 59, 60, 62, 64, 65, 67, 74n3, 74n4, 120, 122–124, 127, 130, 134, 145, 146, 148, 150, 152, 153, 164n3 Logical analysis, 5, 17, 36, 50, 143–163, 178–182, 186n11

220 

Subject Index

Logical atomist, 7, 9 Logical consequence, 35, 36, 45, 46, 126 Logical constant, 17, 21, 39, 42, 110, 128, 148 Logical form, 10, 20, 42, 46, 51, 58, 59, 63, 67, 110, 124, 129, 149, 153–156, 179, 203 Logical necessity, 62, 161 Logical syntax, 36, 50, 121, 122, 124, 128, 146, 147, 149, 153, 155, 158, 164n6 Logical truth, 46, 52n2, 115n8, 123, 145 Logicism, 144, 164n4 Logic of depiction, 148–149 Logocentric predicament, 3, 35–41, 47

Metaphysics, 2, 4, 5, 7–9, 18, 101–112, 140n19, 144, 146, 150–158, 160, 180–182, 200, 208 critique of, 150–154 Modernism, 2, 5, 6, 170–176, 179, 180, 185n2, 185n4, 185n10, 186n11, 187n22, 191–209 philosophical, 175, 185n10, 196–198 Modernity, 2, 5, 169–184, 207, 210n31 Mystical, 72, 78, 79, 81–83, 87, 144, 175, 184, 188n26, 199 Mythology, 101, 102, 107, 110, 111 ‘Myth of mere method,’ 154, 161–163

M

N

Magic, 4, 101–112, 140n17 Mathematics, 123, 130, 135, 138n2, 144 Meaning, 3, 4, 10, 11, 13, 42, 57–72, 81, 89, 92, 94n5, 95n10, 96n23, 97n33, 104, 107–109, 114n7, 115n11, 117n23, 120, 127–130, 133, 137, 144, 147, 150, 154–158, 161, 162, 164n6 theory of, 154–156, 164n7 Medium, 22, 108, 109, 144, 147, 176 Meta-ethics, 71, 72, 74n6 Meta-language, 127, 130 Metaphilosophy, 161–163, 170, 207

Name, 8–11, 15, 16, 30n31, 48, 59, 63, 68, 72, 73n2, 125, 129, 132, 143, 147–150, 152, 178, 179, 185n7, 197, 199, 204 Necessary, 9, 26, 39, 46, 58, 64, 66, 78, 79, 85, 90, 97n30, 145, 150, 157, 162, 183, 207 Nonsense (unsinnig), 2, 7, 9, 11, 12, 17, 24–27, 28n11, 47, 49–51, 65, 74n3, 82, 83, 130, 146, 151–153, 177, 180, 198, 200, 201, 203, 210n20 interpretation of, 11, 151, 152 Notation, 10, 13, 28n13, 28n14, 30n33, 126, 149, 159 ideal, 149, 153, 160, 161, 163n1

  Subject Index  O

Object, 8–17, 20, 23, 35, 36, 41, 46, 51, 53n6, 58–60, 63, 64, 84, 102–104, 106, 107, 111, 115n9, 116n13, 122–125, 127, 128, 133, 136, 137, 139n8, 145, 147–150, 152, 157, 158, 163n2, 174, 178, 179, 181, 187n19, 203 Operation, 30n32, 105–108, 111, 117n21, 124, 145, 148, 149 Origin, 103–104, 119 Overview (Übersicht), 3, 129, 159 P

Paradox, of Tractatus, 47, 184 Pessimism, cultural, 176, 177 Philosophy analytic, 2, 4, 5, 119, 121, 125, 135, 136, 144, 154, 182 continental, 121, 136, 195 ideal language, 150, 155, 156 nature of, 161, 163 ordinary language, 2, 4, 119, 121, 136, 155 as poetry, 182 Picture, 19, 21, 30n34, 45, 58–60, 63, 67, 93, 97n34, 105–108, 111, 112, 113n6, 115n11, 116n13, 132, 133, 144, 147, 150, 164n6, 181, 193, 201, 203, 208 Platonism, 53n5 Postulates of practical reason, 90 Problem of life, 92–93 Proposition analytic, 138n2

221

elementary, 17, 59, 123, 125, 127, 132, 133, 139n16, 147–149, 163n2, 165n8 (see also Elementary sentence) in itself (Satz an sich), 45, 48, 195 See also Sentence Psychology, 35, 41, 44, 66, 91, 134 Q

Quantification, 123, 125, 126, 158 Quasi-syntactical, 51, 52 R

Reality, 7–10, 37, 40, 51, 52n1, 57–61, 67–70, 73n2, 77, 82, 84, 87, 97n34, 97n37, 106, 130, 137, 143–149, 154, 157, 158, 199, 203 Reason, 65, 69, 71, 73n2, 79, 87, 90, 91, 103, 105, 109, 113n5, 114n6, 134, 136, 164n6, 172–174, 176, 204, 206 Representation, 5, 7, 9, 17, 20, 37, 39, 40, 48, 52n1, 78, 85, 97n29, 106, 107, 114n6, 125, 136, 144, 145 essence/preconditions of, 144–149, 151, 152, 162 Resolute, 2, 4, 8, 11, 12, 14, 15, 18, 19, 24–27, 27n3, 27n4, 28n10, 28n11, 29n17, 31n48, 54n10, 78, 82, 83, 93, 94n4, 188n23 Ritual, 102–112, 114–115n7, 116n16, 116n17, 117n22

222 

Subject Index

Rules, 11, 22, 37–40, 43–46, 48, 49, 53n3, 53n4, 53–54n8, 80, 127, 134, 145–147, 149, 153, 159, 160, 162, 164n6, 165n8, 178 S

Scapegoat, 111, 112, 117n22 Science, 12, 21, 41, 43, 45, 46, 50, 52, 52–53n3, 126, 127, 135, 140n19, 145, 146, 148, 150, 153, 157, 164n5, 172, 173, 175–178, 181, 200, 205, 206, 208 Scientism, 135, 173, 177, 180 Self, 77, 80, 83, 85–87, 91, 95n15, 203, 209 Self-evidence, 42–47 Sense (Sinn), 9–14, 21, 24, 27, 28n7, 30n32, 39, 40, 42, 43, 47, 52n1, 57, 60–65, 67, 70, 74n5, 77, 79–84, 86–93, 94n1, 94n4, 94n5, 95n14, 97n29, 97n33, 97n34, 102–106, 109, 112, 114n7, 116n15, 117n20, 121, 123, 124, 126, 127, 129–134, 136, 137, 139n12, 139n13, 146–153, 159, 160, 163n1, 163n2, 164n5, 164n6, 177, 180, 199, 203, 204, 208 Senseless (sinnlos), 21, 60, 64, 74n3, 127, 148, 164n3, 210n20 Sentence elementary, 8, 9, 14–18, 21, 30n31, 30n32

significant, 9–11, 14, 16–18, 20, 21 See also Proposition Shock, 201, 202 Showing – saying distinction, 9, 54n9, 177, 183, 203 Significance, 4, 11, 42, 66, 78, 82, 84, 92, 101, 104–106, 112, 114–115n7, 115n10, 116n11, 121, 132, 135, 201, 204 Sign–symbol distinction, 13, 131, 139n9 Situation, 19–21, 47, 58, 59, 67, 69, 163n2, 170, 199 Skepticism, 108, 121, 131, 139n11 Solipsism, 78, 85–86, 88, 92, 93, 94n4, 95n14, 102, 173, 199 Soul, 80, 90, 102–103, 108, 111, 113–114n6, 117n20 Spirit, 82, 102–105, 107, 111, 112, 117n20, 176, 180, 182 State of affairs, 58, 83, 109, 147, 148, 163n2 Structuralism, 136, 176, 177, 187n19 Structure, 22, 39, 40, 44, 48, 58, 63, 68, 74n4, 77, 87, 120, 122, 132–134, 149, 150, 153, 155–157, 159, 164n7, 165n8, 175, 178, 195, 208 Subject, 28n9, 36, 52n3, 66, 68, 78, 82–89, 91, 93, 95n15, 96n22, 97n32, 101, 102, 107, 145, 154, 175, 176, 204 Suicide, 69, 70 Symbolism, 38, 40, 60, 74n3, 107, 126, 130, 147, 149, 150, 186n11

  Subject Index  T

Tautology, 9, 21, 22, 27, 46, 60, 121, 123–125, 127, 130, 148, 150, 152, 164n3 Thought, 2, 8, 12, 15, 17, 21, 25, 26, 35–39, 43, 44, 48, 51, 52n1, 52–53n3, 53n4, 57–60, 64, 65, 72, 74n7, 78, 79, 82, 85, 91, 92, 95n15, 110, 115n11, 116n15, 117n20, 121, 125, 126, 131, 133, 134, 139n12, 139n15, 143–149, 157, 160, 169, 171, 173, 174, 176, 178, 185n4, 187n19, 192–194, 196, 198, 199, 201, 204–208 Tragedy, 112 Transcendence, 86–91, 96n17 Transcendent, 65, 70, 78, 86–90, 92, 96n18, 97n29, 187n19 Transcendental, 3, 4, 39, 57, 60–63, 65, 67, 69, 70, 77–93, 146, 149, 157, 158, 175, 186n18 Transcendental philosophy, 94n1 Truth, 9, 19–22, 26, 35, 36, 38, 41, 43–46, 48, 52n2, 52n3, 54n8, 57, 67–69, 93, 102, 108, 114n6, 115n8, 120, 123, 124,

223

132, 145, 147, 151, 152, 156, 178, 187n19, 199, 206, 207 Truth-functional combination, 147, 148 U

Uniqueness, 97n32, 102 Universalism, 37 V

Validity, 40, 159, 187n19 variational account of, 157 Value, 8, 10, 23, 61, 70, 78–82, 86–89, 91, 92, 94n3, 97n32, 172, 174, 175, 180, 181, 186n14, 186n18, 194 W

Will, 60, 65–67, 78, 80, 83–86, 89, 91, 92, 94n1, 95n15, 96n24, 97n34, 101, 114n6, 172 Wish, 66, 95n12, 108, 116n15, 139n12, 198, 200 World, 7, 39, 58, 77, 102, 120, 147, 171, 198