Trying to clarify objects in Wittgenstein's Tractatus
Sam26 has an ongoing thread summarizing Wittgensteins Tractatus. During the course of that thread, a lot of discussion regarding Wittgensteinian objects came up, and I thought it might be best to isolate talk on that topic specifically to its own thread, as to not derail the original thread's purpose. I've linked the thread, so that you can all follow along, and contribute there as well.
Before getting to objects, and what they are, I think it would be helpful to do a little groundwork, so that we can all approach from the same standpoint. Id like to mostly stick to the primary text here, so quoting from the Tractatus directly. Any translation should suffice, although there are technical difficulties we can run into between translations, but we can do our best to avoid them.
Id like to start with a basic assumption regarding the text, that I hope isnt too contentious to boot - namely that the Tractatus presents a three part isomorphism between:
[b]1. Thoughts
2. Language
3. Reality[/b]
An isomorphism is held between 1 or more structures if and only if to each of the elements of one, an analogous element is present in the other, and the form of the elements in one shares the form of the elements in another. It is a 1-to-1 correspondence which preserves the relevant form between structures.
Now, I believe that Wittgenstein starts with (1) of the isomorphism when he says:
The world is the totality of facts, not of things (1.1).
We know that (a) the world and (b)facts are in (1) of the isomorphism because Witt tells us that:
The facts in logical space are the world (1.13 ).
And also, of facts he says:
[b]The picture is a fact (2.141).
The picture is a model of reality (2.12).[/b]
So, we know that to facts correspond reality, and facts alongside the world exist in logical space. Facts are just pictures we form in thought, to which can correspond a reality.
I say can correspond, because Witt says:
[b]The world divides into facts(1.2).
Any one can either be the case or not be the case, and everything else remain the same (1.21). [/b]
When it is the case, to a fact corresponds an atomic fact and is called a positive fact:
What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts (2).
When it is not the case, to a fact corresponds the nonexistence of atomic facts, and is called a negative fact:
[b](The existence of atomic facts we also call a positive fact, their non-existence a negative fact) (2.06).
The picture depicts reality by representing a possibility of the existence and non-existence of atomic facts (2.201). [/b]
Everything else remains the same when one is the case or not the case because:
[b]Atomic facts are independent of one another (2.061).
From the existence or non-existence of an atomic fact we cannot infer the existence or non-existence of another (2.062). [/b]
1. Thoughts
Facts>Atomic Facts
[b]2. Language
3. Reality[/b]
Next, Wittgenstein moves to (2) of the isomorphism, telling us that
[b]In the proposition the thought is expressed perceptibly through the senses(3.1).
The simplest proposition, the elementary proposition, asserts the existence of an atomic fact (4.21). [/b]
So, we can fill in:
1. Thoughts
Facts>Atomic facts
2. Language
Propositions>Elementary propositions
3. Reality
Now, before we fill anything else in, lets talk more about one of these. We know what a proposition is. A proposition is the content of a declarative sentence which can either be true or false. So, in the sentences:
The balls is red
La pelota es roja
"La belle est rouge
While the sentence is different, the proposition contained is the same. A proposition can be analyzed into an elementary proposition, and to this corresponds an atomic fact.
What is an atomic fact? Well, Witt tell us:
An atomic fact is a combination of objects (entities, things) (2.01).
and
In the atomic fact objects hang one in another, like the members of a chain (2.03).
This structure is carried over to elementary propositions when Witt says:
[b]The elementary proposition consists of names. It is a connexion, a concatenation, of names (4.22).
It is obvious that in the analysis of propositions we must come to elementary propositions, which consist of names in immediate combination (4.221). [/b]
So, an atomic fact is a combination of objects just as an elementary proposition is a combination of names.
So, we can now fill in:
1. Thought
Facts>Atomic Facts> Objects
2. Language
Propositions>Elementary propositions>Names
3. Reality
Before going any further, and saying anything substantial about what objects or names are, or what role they play, Id like to stop and just open up for discussion regarding whats been said.
Does this seem a reasonable outline so far, or did I miss something, or does anyone disagree? I'd also like to say that I am working through this as well, so don't take me to be saying I've definitively laid out how this works thus far. Please feel free to offer input and work through this together constructively.
Before getting to objects, and what they are, I think it would be helpful to do a little groundwork, so that we can all approach from the same standpoint. Id like to mostly stick to the primary text here, so quoting from the Tractatus directly. Any translation should suffice, although there are technical difficulties we can run into between translations, but we can do our best to avoid them.
Id like to start with a basic assumption regarding the text, that I hope isnt too contentious to boot - namely that the Tractatus presents a three part isomorphism between:
[b]1. Thoughts
2. Language
3. Reality[/b]
An isomorphism is held between 1 or more structures if and only if to each of the elements of one, an analogous element is present in the other, and the form of the elements in one shares the form of the elements in another. It is a 1-to-1 correspondence which preserves the relevant form between structures.
Now, I believe that Wittgenstein starts with (1) of the isomorphism when he says:
The world is the totality of facts, not of things (1.1).
We know that (a) the world and (b)facts are in (1) of the isomorphism because Witt tells us that:
The facts in logical space are the world (1.13 ).
And also, of facts he says:
[b]The picture is a fact (2.141).
The picture is a model of reality (2.12).[/b]
So, we know that to facts correspond reality, and facts alongside the world exist in logical space. Facts are just pictures we form in thought, to which can correspond a reality.
I say can correspond, because Witt says:
[b]The world divides into facts(1.2).
Any one can either be the case or not be the case, and everything else remain the same (1.21). [/b]
When it is the case, to a fact corresponds an atomic fact and is called a positive fact:
What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts (2).
When it is not the case, to a fact corresponds the nonexistence of atomic facts, and is called a negative fact:
[b](The existence of atomic facts we also call a positive fact, their non-existence a negative fact) (2.06).
The picture depicts reality by representing a possibility of the existence and non-existence of atomic facts (2.201). [/b]
Everything else remains the same when one is the case or not the case because:
[b]Atomic facts are independent of one another (2.061).
From the existence or non-existence of an atomic fact we cannot infer the existence or non-existence of another (2.062). [/b]
1. Thoughts
Facts>Atomic Facts
[b]2. Language
3. Reality[/b]
Next, Wittgenstein moves to (2) of the isomorphism, telling us that
[b]In the proposition the thought is expressed perceptibly through the senses(3.1).
The simplest proposition, the elementary proposition, asserts the existence of an atomic fact (4.21). [/b]
So, we can fill in:
1. Thoughts
Facts>Atomic facts
2. Language
Propositions>Elementary propositions
3. Reality
Now, before we fill anything else in, lets talk more about one of these. We know what a proposition is. A proposition is the content of a declarative sentence which can either be true or false. So, in the sentences:
The balls is red
La pelota es roja
"La belle est rouge
While the sentence is different, the proposition contained is the same. A proposition can be analyzed into an elementary proposition, and to this corresponds an atomic fact.
What is an atomic fact? Well, Witt tell us:
An atomic fact is a combination of objects (entities, things) (2.01).
and
In the atomic fact objects hang one in another, like the members of a chain (2.03).
This structure is carried over to elementary propositions when Witt says:
[b]The elementary proposition consists of names. It is a connexion, a concatenation, of names (4.22).
It is obvious that in the analysis of propositions we must come to elementary propositions, which consist of names in immediate combination (4.221). [/b]
So, an atomic fact is a combination of objects just as an elementary proposition is a combination of names.
So, we can now fill in:
1. Thought
Facts>Atomic Facts> Objects
2. Language
Propositions>Elementary propositions>Names
3. Reality
Before going any further, and saying anything substantial about what objects or names are, or what role they play, Id like to stop and just open up for discussion regarding whats been said.
Does this seem a reasonable outline so far, or did I miss something, or does anyone disagree? I'd also like to say that I am working through this as well, so don't take me to be saying I've definitively laid out how this works thus far. Please feel free to offer input and work through this together constructively.
Comments (256)
I would not put facts and objects under the heading of Thought. They are independent of thought. I would put them under Reality.
The following statements might lead someone to think that facts are part of thought:
Quoting 013zen
but:
(2.01)
A painting of a tree is a fact. It hangs on the wall, but what is pictured in that picture (painting) is not another picture.
Quoting 013zen
I think the Pears/McGuinness translation is clearer here:
(2)
(2.06)
It is not "when it is the case, to a fact corresponds an atomic fact and is called a positive fact". It is that when a state of affairs exists we call it a positive fact, or, in ordinary terms simply 'a fact'. And when the state of affairs does not exist it is a negative fact, or, in ordinary terms 'not a fact'. If the state of affairs exists a proposition stating it a fact is true, and if the state of affairs does not exist then a statement stating it is a fact is false.
Nice. Thanks.
Awesome! Thank you!
Fooloso, you say:
Quoting Fooloso4
Because:
Quoting Fooloso4
Truthfully, this is something I was uncertain of when I was typing it up, originally....yet I think that perhaps this is due to language. As you can see here:
"A propositional sign is a fact" (3.14).
Witt uses the word Fact, at that level of the isomorphism interchangeably. It seems like, to a "fact" in reality corresponds a "fact" (thought) in our mind, corresponds a "fact" contained in the proposition.
I settled on using the expression "Facts and atomic facts" at the level of thought, because at the point in the Tractatus that I was quoting, I believe that Witt was laying out the logic behind his conclusion that objects must exist. He seems to refer to "reality" at a minimum here.
I was going to reserve: "States of affairs" for reality, because alongside:
Quoting 013zen
in 2.201, Witt says:
"A picture depicts reality by representing a possibility of existence and non-existence of states of affairs"
I do take your point, however, and that difficulty, is why I wanted to take the time to try and settle on a common manner of referring to points in the isomorphism, since Witt doesn't always seem consistent. But, I admit this inconsistency may be due to my misunderstanding something. Does what I said make sense?
I wonder how the "isomorphism" relates to ideas about representation. The following statements establish a connection but also a distance:
It seems there are a number of places in the text where we do not have a way to confirm or deny that. The passages move from thinking to language in a sequence. Do you think of the "isomorphism' as a freedom to move forward or backwards in that regard?
I'm not sure that isomorphism is the right word, as it suggests that they are independent of each other.
Thought and language are two aspects of the same thing. A proposition is a thought and a thought is a proposition. As Wittgenstein says, the limits of my language is the limits of my world. The world is the content of my thoughts (ie, of my propositions)
Wittgenstein is careful to avoid giving his opinion as to where this world exists, inside the mind or outside the mind.
It is more the case that thought IS language rather than thought maps to language, and the world IS the content of thought (and language) rather than maps to thought (and language).
===============================================================================
Quoting 013zen
You need to introduce "state of affairs" earlier on.
IE, the elementary proposition (aka atomic proposition) "grass is red" corresponds (not in the sense of represents but more in the sense of displays) with the state of affairs grass is red, but doesn't correspond with the atomic fact grass is red, as the state of affairs grass is red doesn't obtain in the world.
The Tractatus only deals with concrete objects, such as grass and apples, and concrete properties, such as yellow and red. The Tractatus doesn't deal with abstract things, such as beauty and love, and abstract properties, such as yellowness or redness. This is why the Tractatus is so limited, in the sense that Philosophical Investigations isn't.
Within the Tractatus, objects are treated as logical objects, unalterable and indivisible, not physical objects.
Not all objects can exist in the world. The world consists of a logical space. This logical space is the set of all possible states of affairs. Only those objects having a suitable logical form can exist in this logical space. If a possible state of affairs obtains then this is a fact.
I'm no Tractatus expert, but I don't think this is right -- wouldn't it be more Witt's position in the Phil. Investigations, rather than here? Leaving aside the perhaps trivial point that we can have thoughts that are non-propositional, we should take more seriously Witt's use of "picture" at so many critical points in the Tractatus. I don't read him as suggesting that language is the only picture-making tool at our disposal.
With that said, though, I agree that it's hard to fit in the "limits of language" quote. But I'm not the first to suggest that the Tractatus, for all its careful organization, is often self-contradictory.
Simple objects are not like the objects we encounter in the world. Objects in the world are a configuration of simple objects. These complex objects are facts. A state of affairs. Simple objects are not the objects of empirical science. They are not physical entities. They are not what we would find if we divided physical objects to the point where further division is no longer possible. They are not something like subatomic particles.
They exist in logical rather than physical space. Simple objects are merely formal or logical. They are the constituents of the transcendental logical structure of the world.
More to follow.
Wittgenstein wrote before the Tractatus that he thought that thinking and language were the same.
Notebooks 1914-16 12/6/2016 page 82.
1.1 The World is the totality of facts, not of things
3 A logical picture of facts is a thought
Therefore, a thought is a picture of facts in the world
4 A thought is a proposition with a sense
4.022 A proposition shows its sense.
Therefore, a proposition is a thought
5.6 The limits of my language mean the limits of my world
Therefore, my thoughts about the world are limited by the propositions I use in language.
It seems that Wittgenstein doesn't distinguish between propositional thoughts, "snakes are reptiles" and non-propositional thoughts, "Indiana Jones fears snakes"
As Bertrand Russell writes in the Introduction to the Tractatus:
If thinking is a kind of language, then thinking IS language rather than thinking being isomorphic to language, because for Wittgenstein, thinking and language are not two separate isomorphic objects but rather two aspects of the same object (Wikipedia - Isomorphism).
I think it can be seen in how the text uses the terms that it employs. I can see many places which seem to confirm this.
Quoting Paine
I'm sorry, I don't completely understand. Would you be able to phrase it differently? :)
Quoting AmadeusD
I think that Wittgenstein, like any philosopher - or human for that matter - is simply thinking through these problems, and gets some things right and other things wrong. We read other philosophers to try and see how these problems have been handled, and what we can learn from them.
Quoting Wayfarer
Agreed. I don't believe that this was merely accidental. The Vienna Circle grew out of the Mach's positivism - it was in fact originally called the Ernst Mach Society. I believe that Wittgenstein was in a sense directly responding to positivism, which Witt got from Russell who finally adopted the neutral monism of Mach in the early 1900s. At this time positivism was in direct combat with another theory being put forth by Boltzmann, Hertz, and Helmholtz called the "picture" theory of theories. I believe that Witt was very aware of this debate at the time due to Russell, and a lot of those ideas lay the groundwork for the Tractatus. But, this is my own personal take that I am still formulating.
Quoting RussellA
I don't believe that an isomorphism necessarily suggests a certain independence between each structure, but in practice I admit it is used to talk about independent structures. I take your point, but I believe that isomorphism is the best word, since it gets across the salient points without being a mouthful. You're point is taken, though.
Quoting RussellA
I would be careful here. A proposition in some sense contains a thought, but a thought is not identical with a proposition. A proposition is a string of words with a definite syntax and semantic content; a thought of a red ball is not a series of words in my mind. But, I understand your point - a proposition contains a thought; the form of the proposition mirrors the form of the thought.
You quote:
Which is both a really interesting quote, so thanks for that, but also note a couple of things in it. Wittgenstein says it is becoming clear to him why he thought that thinking and language were the same. He didn't say that its become clear that they are the same, but rather why he used to think that they were the same thing. Thinking IS a kind of language but it is not identical with our natural language that we use everyday. It is its own kind of language, which is translatable into many many different natural languages.
Quoting RussellA
First of all...why did you say grass is red and not green? xD Secondly, I don't take "Grass is red" or "Grass is green" or anything of the sort to be representative of an elementary proposition for Witt. These are examples of propositions.
Quoting RussellA
Whether or not "Indiana Jones fears snakes" is a non-propositional or propositional is first of all a modern debate characterized by either being a propositionalist or objectualist. I would argue that while I'm certain this topic has come up in one form or another throughout history, that where Wittgenstein falls on either side of this debate is not directly articulated in the Tractatus. Witt could have very easily fancied himself a propositionalist and considered internal states to be captured by propositions.
We can't appeal to Russell's interpretation of the text either, because we know that historically Wittgenstein thought that Russell didn't understand a word of it.
I agree with everything up until the last point, and not for a technical reason, but perhaps due to phrasing. I believe that you are right, Wittgenstein is not concerned with those simple entities out in the world to which correspond his objects. But, by setting up the isomorphism, we know that there must be simple physical entities to which correspond our simple objects, right?
But, based on everything else you said, I'm definitely interested in hearing more! Looking forward to it. Good luck.
I don't think so. As I understand it, or perhaps misunderstand it, there are no simple physical entities or objects. Every physical object is complex. The problem is to explain how a configuration of simple non-physical objects results in a physical object. It may be that this indicates that I have got something wrong, but it may simply be that Wittgenstein would have said that such problems are a matter of science not logic.
He says only:
(2.0231)
I will hold off saying more for the moment. This should not be taken to mean that an explanation will be forthcoming. To the extent I can address it it will be in terms of what an object is.
I agree. Wittgenstein, though, is not treated this way by the majority of his adherents.
Plus, I was being a little bit more negative - I think he makes less sense than 'some right, some wrong'. He's mostly senseless, making htings up.
I would say this is generally true of adherents :P
I've never met a Kantian that thinks Kant is wrong, or a Humean that thinks Hume is wrong. lol
Quoting AmadeusD
I'd be interested to hear more. I wouldn't say that he's making things up, but he does take himself to be doing something creative.
I was thinking the following was an obstacle to 'equality of shape' or 'isomorphism':
Quoting Ibid.
The difference between what is said versus what is shown becomes a limit to what can be regarded as equal or the same. In that way, Wittgenstein is challenging what most have taken for granted.
Quoting 013zen
The order of the statements in the text begins with conceptions before introducing propositions. Is that order important to understanding what is presented?
.
As you point out, every physical object is a complex. If I'm understanding you correctly, I take this to mean that what we might call "classical objects" are all complex. These are not Wittgenstein's objects, nor are they what correspond to his objects. You're right about this, I'd say.
Quoting Fooloso4
I don't think it is Wittgenstein's problem in the Tractatus to try and explain how a configuration of simple non-physical objects results in a physical object. I think he dips his toe into the problem, but its a tangential problem to his overall objective. I actually believe that the history surrounding the Tractatus is much more focused on this problem, and if you're interested in that then you have a solid foundation for the problem that you're seeing. I definitely think its a problem that greatly influenced the Tractatus, and I am very interested in talking about that.
I don't believe so. I think that, perhaps, Wittgenstein started with what was most accessible to him during the war, namely his thoughts. So he begins by deconstruction thoughts in logical space before moving to propositions.
Quoting Paine
I am still having trouble completely seeing how this precludes the possibility of an isomorphism. A proposition's literal form is not identical with its logical form. As Witt says:
"Russell's merit is to have shown that the apparent logical form of the proposition need not be its real form" (4.0031).
This form is what's mirrored in thought. All the accidental features of the proposition fade away, so to speak, but this losing of accidental features does not suppose a loss of fundamental features which are mirrored in the picture in thought.
I will leave them to stick together.
By own approach is to assume that when an important philosopher says something that seems wrong to begin with the assumption that the fault is my own. That is not to say they are not wrong. It is a matter of interpretive humility.
Having said that, in the case of the Tractatus, there are things that he himself admits he got wrong. One might then wonder why anyone bothers trying to make sense of it. My response is that even if it is in some ways wrong it is still a powerful demonstration of logical thinking and an interpretive challenge that serves as an fine exercise for our own thinking that keeps scholars working on it to this day.
What do you make of:
Quoting Ibid.
Citing this is not an argument for 'precluding a possibility', as you put it. On the other hand, maybe this would be a good time for you to provide what supports your view of the text.
He complicates this by using the term 'object' in both cases without always making the distinction clear.
That there is a distinction between the form of a proposition and the logical form of a proposition. The form of a proposition, which re-presents reality, and its logical form, which can only be shown I believe. Propositions don't represent the logical form that they share with reality, but it is mirrored by the proposition.
Quoting Paine
Which aspect of my view specifically? The belief that there even is an isomorphism displayed between thoughts, propositions, and reality? Or something else?
How does the equality of form relate to the reluctance on Wittgentein's part to assemble a world on that basis.
Quoting Paine?
I thought you were doing that by means of asserting Wittgenstein's project to be an alignment of some kind.
I don't think that this is necessarily a bug, as much as a feature. Part of the work seems to be dealing with the idea that the meaning of a word or proposition is dependent upon how its being used.
"The sign determines a logical form only together with its logical syntactic application" (3.327).
It's an idea that stems from Frege's elucidations, and I don't think its any accident that Wittgenstein uses the idea of elucidations in the Tractatus.
"The meanings of primitive signs can be explained by elucidations" (3.263).
What about Kantof Hume? Hehehe.
Quoting 013zen
He seems to have basically invented his own use of things like "language" "reality", "thought" and "object" and then run with it, in the same manner he apparently taught his student - everyone else is wrong.
Quoting Fooloso4
I feeel this might be the most apt statement in this thread :P
I don't actually take this to be entirely true. Wittgenstein is clearly writing within a tradition, and what I mean is I don't believe it was written in a vacuum.
For example, Frege wrote a paper called, "On Concept and Object", wherein he both explained that a commentator of his had misunderstood how we was using the word "concept" in a previous text, and also defended his using the expression that way. He says:
"It seems to me that Kerry's misunderstanding results from his unintentionally confusing his own usage of the word 'concept' with mine. This readily gives rise to contradictions, for which my usage is not to blame. Kerry contests what he calls my definition of 'concept'" (1).
He goes on to say:
"On the introduction of a name for something logically simple, a definition is not possible. There is nothing for it but to lead the reader or hearer, by means of hints, to understand the words as is intended" (2).
Frege thought that if logical analysis lead a logician, or mathematician, to conclude that there is a meaningful distinction for a particular category that has yet to be identified, that instead of inventing a new word, the person should use a familiar word in particular ways that showed its meaning; the word chosen pointed the reader in the right direction. He called these elucidations.
"When we begin science, we cannot avoid using words from ordinary language. But these words are for the most part not really appropriate for scientific purposes, because they are not sufficiently determinate and are fluctuating in their use. Science needs technical expressions that have entirely determinate and fixed references, and in order to make these references understood and to exclude possible misunderstandings, one gives elucidations".
Besides 'Concept', Frege uses the word 'object' in a stipulative way as well. And in a manner not unlike Witt.
https://philosophy-science-humanities-controversies.com/listview-details.php?id=224693&a=t&first_name=Gottlob&author=Frege&concept=Object#:~:text=Object%2FFrege%3A%20locations%2C%20times,the%20meaning%20of%20a%20subject.
The Tractatus makes references to many other concepts and manners of thinking that were present during his time.
His breaking down reality into nonphysical elements was what Ernst Mach was doing in the 1900s in direct opposition to the atomic theory of reality.
There is a reason that positivism became logical positivism and logical positivists and the vienna circle, all prominent mathematicians and scientists including Einstein (He was at least initially a positivist, although not directly a Wittgensteinian. He agreed with some of the public literature the positivists released) largely adopted the Tractatus initially. There's a reason Russell developed his atomism in response to the tractatus.
Something more like 'an object of thought', or 'an intentional object'?
Quoting 013zen
It all depends on whether, in the Tractatus, for Wittgenstein, language and thought are the same thing.
If not, then isomorphism may be the suitable world. If they are, then as an object such as an apple cannot be isomorphic with itself, isomorphism may not be the suitable word.
A starting position to determine whether in the Tractatus language and thought are the same thing could be the article The Thought (Gedanke): the Early Wittgenstein, written by Sushobhona Pal
His conclusion is " Apart from this, apparently, the Tractatus implies that the realms of thought and language coincide", or as he says elsewhere " are "coextensive".
As he writes:
For Wittgenstein, if a thought is a picture of the world and a proposition is a picture of the world, then how can a thought not be a proposition?
===============================================================================
Quoting 013zen
In Wittgenstein's terms (as I understand it), grass is red, grass is green, not grass is red and not grass is green are States of Affairs.
The elementary propositions "grass is red" "grass is green" "not grass is red" and "not grass is green" may be true or false
If the elementary proposition "grass is green" is true, then grass is green is a fact. Alternatively, if grass is green is a fact, then the elementary proposition "grass is green" is true.
The word 'object' refer to the object, but an object is not a word. One of Wittgenstein's main concern was clarity.
(4.112)
Perhaps he assumed that the reader who followed his argument would make the distinction.
It is obvious that an imagined world, however different it may be from the real one, must have somethinga formin common with it. (2.022)
Objects are just what constitute this unalterable form. (2.023)
The substance is what subsists independently of what is the case. (2.024)
It is form and content. (2.025)
There must be objects, if the world is to have unalterable form. (2.026)
Objects, the unalterable, and the subsistent are one and the same. (2.027)
Objects are what is unalterable and subsistent; their configuration is what is changing
and unstable. (2.0271)
This is as close as we get to a sustained discussion of objects. The term substance has a long and varied history. For this reason, none of them will serve as a reliable starting point for determining what Wittgenstein means by the term.
Every world, real or imagined, must have a logical form in common. However different and changeable they are, their shared logical form subsists. This form consists of unchangeable objects. Their configuration is what is changeable. That substance is form and content means that it is logical and consists of unchangeable objects.
Added: Before moving forward I would like to clarify a potential source of confusion.Logic as the term is used in the Tractatus, is not primarily a human activity. Logic is not propositional. Propositions are logical. Logic deals with what is necessary rather than contingent.
Tractatus 2.02 Objects are simple.
From Wikipedia - Simple (Philosophy)
From Jeff Speaks Wittgenstein on facts and objects: the metaphysics of the Tractatus
I can't make a huge amount from those passages. I realise Frege is who he is in the history of Phil and particularly language use. So, may i despair a little...
That is a pivotal matter in the question of how much this work presents an epistemology or not.
I don't know if anyone has mentioned this, but the idea bears resemblance to the classical conception of substance (ouisia).
Which classical conception? Certainly not Aristotle,
Quoting Fooloso4
Good point. Objects are not treated as things to be known. To the extent there is knowledge of the world it comes from science not logic.
I don't believe that they are the same in the Tractatus. Wittgenstein says:
"Language disguises the thought; so that from the external form of the clothes one cannot infer the form of the thought they clothe, because the external form of the clothes is constructed with quite another object than to let the form of the body be recognized" (4.002).
Here Wittgenstein draws an analogy between "clothes" and "a body" with "language" being the clothing and "thought" being the body that is clothed. So, there is a distinction that is made between the two.
Quoting RussellA
These are examples of propositions, not elementary propositions, though.
Frege was originally a mathematician, so his approach stems from that. When he began analyzing language, the tradition had always been to follow Aristotle. So, any proposition, say:
"Socrates is mortal"
is analyzed into two logical categories: "subject" and "predicate". I doesn't matter the proposition.
"The ball is red", "Pink penguins are dancing furiously", etc.
Frege thought this was imprecise, and limited. He thought language should be thought of as being more like a mathematical functions which are satisfied by certain inputs. Just as different mathematical functions can have different forms, and inputs, so can propositions in language. By thinking of it in this way, Frege was able to analyze a wider range of sentences and we now have second-order logic after centuries of only having Aristotle's first order logic.
My point, is that when Aristotle said that a proposition is a "subject-predicate" relation, he was saying that there was a meaningful difference between the role a subject plays logically in a sentence, and the role a predicate plays in the sentence; there's a difference. And he coined the terms "subject" and "predicate" to differentiate them. Frege, is doing the same thing, and coining his own words for logically distinct categories that he believes haven't yet been properly delineated in language. But, instead of inventing a new word, he chose to use stipulative definitions for words that we are already familiar with, because he wants to appeal to some familiar aspects associated with the word to help guide the reader or listener in the right direction. Frege called these "elucidations".
I see Wittgenstein as following this tradition, since he directly references elucidations in the Tractatus.
I agree with this; its a good point.
Well put. How we are to understand "form" and "content" exactly, however, is still somewhat unclear, but I think you're on the right track by tying it to logic. And, as you point out, we can't appeal to classical conceptions of the word 'substance', it definitely doesn't seem synonymous with Aristotle's being since, logic deals with all possibilities, not simply what is the case. This was helpful.
Substance is logical form. The form of reality. (2.18) Objects are its content. (2.023)
This might make more sense in my next post.
4.002 may be correct that language disguises thought, but is not inconsistent with the idea that language is thought.
I see a one-storey brick building, think one-storey brick building and say "house". I see a two-storey stone building, think a two-storey stone building and say "house".
It is true that the word "house" has disguised the thoughts, but this does not detract from the fact that the word "house" is the thought of a one-storey brick building and the word "house" is also the thought of a two-storey stone building.
===============================================================================
Quoting 013zen
As I understand it, for the Tractatus:
The world is a logical space in which can only exist logical objects in logical configurations.
A state of affairs is a logical configuration of logical objects. A state of affairs may or may not obtain. If it obtains then it is a fact. For example, grass is green and grass is red are possible states of affairs. Grass is green obtains and grass is red doesn't obtain.
All states of affairs are independent of each other, in that either grass is green or grass is red. It cannot be the case that grass is both green and red at the same time.
An elementary proposition stands for a state of affairs
A name stands for an object.
Therefore an elementary proposition will be an arrangement of names.
An elementary proposition will be true if the state of affairs obtains.
For example, the elementary proposition "grass is green" is true if the state of affairs grass is green obtains.
All elementary propositions are independent of each other, in that either "grass is green" or "grass is red". It cannot be the case that "grass is both red and green at the same time".
That an elementary proposition is conceivable does not mean that it is true, for example "grass is red". In the same way, because a state of affairs is possible it doesn't mean that it obtains, for example grass is red.
For Wittgenstein, propositions are truth-functions of elementary propositions, for example,
"grass is green and the sky is blue"
(The Theory of elementary propositions, Jeff Speaks, Phil 43904, 8 Nov 2007)
As he says in the preface, language is the expression of thought. At 4.002 he says:
(Emphasis added.)
From the outward form, how the thought is expressed, we do not see the logical form that underlies it.
Quoting RussellA
See, for example:
(2.0121)
Perhaps you have in mind:
(1.13)
I will be saying more about logic space and the possibility of objects combining with others.
It is clearly the case that from the outward form of clothing we can infer the form of the body beneath it.
It is also clearly the case that from the outward form of language we can infer the form of the thought beneath it, otherwise language would be meaningless.
What use would language be if when someone said "please pass the sugar", no-one knew the thought behind these words.
From the outward form of language we clearly do know the form of thought beneath it.
Wittgenstein in the Tractatus does away with universals in favour of particulars, where the form of language maps directly not only with the form of thought but also with the form of states of affairs in the world.
===============================================================================
Quoting Fooloso4
The world is a logical space.
In this logical space are possible states of affairs.
A state of affairs consists of logical objects in logical configurations
If a state of affairs obtains, then it is a fact
If we must infer what the form is then it is hidden by the clothing. Some people wear baggy clothing to hide what is underneath. What they think there might be too much of or too little of.
Quoting RussellA
And yet, the meaning is often not understood. Your reading of Wittgenstein is a case in point. If we must infer what is meant then it is not evident from the outward form.
Quoting RussellA
It does not follow from one example where the meaning is evident that it is in all cases. You have been reading philosophy long enough to know that not all sentences are transparent. But even in this case there is room for misunderstanding (and I don't mean there is a room somewhere where misunderstanding can be found). If in response to the request to pass the sugar someone says "Go long" (a term from American football) they did not get the meaning.
Quoting RussellA
The form of thought is not beneath the form of language. Are poetry and prose the same form of language?
Quoting RussellA
Objects are particulars. A universal property of objects is to combine with other objects.
Objects are necessarily linked to atomic facts, as atomic facts are about the objects in the world and their possibilities.
One can perhaps understand Wittgenstein as a coherentist and not a correspondent theorist (although this view is contrary to popular opinion). That is to say, if Wittgenstein forfeits defining what objects are beyond vague notions, then the tower of babel is simply axiomatic and self-referential and points to nothing. That is to say, objects are a gesture to science, but really a pseudo-version of atomic facts. It's "atomic facts in drag". There is no "there" there. It's atomic facts all the way down. No object to be found.
Simple or elementary objects, which are what this thread is about, are not objects in the world.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I included a link to this thread thinking you might read it before posting.
Yes, that's the nature of language, where the meaning of a word often depends on context.
Where Wittgenstein writes in 4.002 "Language disguises thought", according to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, "disguise" can mean "to change the appearance of", "gives a false appearance to" and "obscures".
But as Wittgenstein points out, knowing what is the case also means knowing what is not the case.
So we know that "disguises" doesn't mean "jumps", "thinks", "stands", etc, etc.
Therefore we have some good idea as to the possible meanings of "Language disguises thought".
But as the Tractatus must be read as a whole, we can further narrow down its meaning by reading it in the context of the whole.
===============================================================================
Quoting Fooloso4
However, one feature of the Tractatus is Wittgenstein's removal of relations and properties from his ontology. Another feature is his removal of universals in favour of particulars.
For the Tractatus, objects combine as particulars not as universals.
He doesn't.
Quoting RussellA
Do objects count as particulars? If a particular is something that can only exist in one place at one time then objects are not particulars. Every object in the world is composed of simple objects. These simple objects are in this sense universal. They exist independently of whether or not they are instantiated.
There are, however, problems with classifying them as universals too. I think it best to not try and shoehorn them into on or the other of these problematic categories.
Logic is transcendental in the Kantian sense of a condition for the possibility of a world. A world is made possible by the formal properties and relations of its objects and the structural properties and relations of facts. (4.122) Objects have within them the possibility of combining into states of affairs. ( 2.0121) Logic is a mirror image of the world in that their structure is the same, but it is the reverse in that logic determines only what is possible, and the world determines which of those possibilities is actually the case.
(1.13)
Logical space is the space of what is possible and impossible. The facts of the world are a subset of what is possible.
(2.0121)
The formal or internal property of an object is the possibility of combining with other objects.
(2.012)
With regard to their possibilities both a thing and an object have them as part of their logical properties. What this means for things in the world is that what is possible and impossible is fixed and determined. States of affairs are independent of each other (2.061). They do not determine what is necessary or possible. What is possible is determined by things themselves, whether they be simple objects or complex. To say what is possible and impossible, however, cannot be determined unless objects are known, and to know them requires being able to identify them.
And that ambiguity of definition to me, is where all these problems stem from and will go around in circles. His definition is like one in computer programming it seems:
"From Gemini: General purpose: More broadly, an object can simply refer to a variable, a data structure, or even a function. In this sense, it's a way to organize data in memory and refer to it using an identifier (like a name)."
That is to say, it is a logical marker, a name. But then what's the use of distinguishing objects and atomic facts if you leave objects so undefined? You mine as well just start with atomic facts..
Quoting Fooloso4
Wait, you're being dismissive on a philosophy forum? How so out of place :roll:.
Also Witt's assertion here:
Quoting 013zen
The world is about some logical space consisting of "the facts" (whence facts? What are facts?.. All of this kind of thing Kant tried to tackle... The operative word is he tried, whether or not he succeeded.. It's called epistemology and metaphysics, not mere assertion of claims of reality without basis).
is muddled with what he says here:
Quoting 013zen
Clearly he is differentiating between facts and objects, but how, why- what is the mechanism by which this distinction can be made? All of this not explained but asserted.
It is not. An object is not a logical marker or a name.
As I mentioned in a prior post:
Quoting Fooloso4
Quoting schopenhauer1
Facts are contingent. It is not necessary that these elementary facts and not others exist. Objects are the answer to your question "whence facts"
As per usual with this subject, all muddle, and no sense. What do you mean "Objects are the answer to your question 'whence facts'"? Objects are [you tell me what Wittgenstein is saying without being self-referential and double-dipping into his own neologisms of family resemblances (facts, objects, oh my)].
That is to say, objects are given short-shrift. He doesn't define them other than they exist and facts are about them. Yet they aren't necessarily "physical", yet, according to you, they aren't like the computer programming definition of them either. So, it is simply an assertion of a metaphysics that exists in some ideal space but is NOT like the computer programming definition of an object (which is basically an idealized entity)? To me it's just a place holder for "go pound sand and don't look behind the curtain cause I just want to move forward with my argument and not go further into those pesky philosophical metaphysical things".
Yep. Folk hereabouts have missed Tractatus 1.1. They are trying to understand of the Tractatus as founded on objects, when it is founded on facts.
This is the worst thread so far on Wittgenstein. Quite an accomplishment.
That is why I said here:
Quoting schopenhauer1
And especially:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Objects make up the substance of the world.
Do you agree? If so what do you think this means?
Objects are necessary. Facts are contingent.
Do you agree? If so what do you think this means?
I don't think there is much point in taking up the discussion. It's too far gone.
But I insist on giving more weight to 1.1 over the first half of 2.021, misconstrued.
Consider also
Facts set out the configuration of objects. Nothing can be said about objects apart from how they are configured - the facts; Attempting to say something about objects apart from their configuration is attempting to say what instead must be shown. There is nothing much that can be said about objects per se; they are instead shown in their configuration and presumed by the facts.
It has also to be understood that the Argument for Substance is rejected in PI. See especially §60-64.
In the place of some ultimate analysis of substance, or of logical atoms, or of ultimate simples, is left the various games we might play, and what we are doing in each case. What is foundational depends on the task at hand - forget about meaning, and look to use.
To understand Wittgenstein with any depth one must read the Tractatus and the PI side by side.
I'll leave you to it. But the answer to the OP is that from the perspective of the Tractatus, nothing can be said about substance or atomic objects; one can speak only of their configuration. And yes, this doesn't work, hence the Investigations.
I read the order to be important regarding what is intended.
It is interesting how much the meaning of text turns upon such readings.
They do not. You have got it backwards. The objects are self-determining. The facts are the result of their combining as they do.
Quoting Banno
He says quite a few things about them:
Quoting Fooloso4 (2.023)
(2.024)
(2.025)
(2.026)
(2.027)
(2.0271)
Quoting Banno
You might think it gives you reason to dismiss it without understanding it, that is on you. There is to this day plenty of attention being paid to the Tractatus and the problem of objects.
4.122 is saying that propositions cannot describe properties and relations, but can only show them. This is the difference between what is said and what is shown.
4.022 A proposition shows its sense.
FH Bradley treats relations as objects, and if relations were objects, this would lead into an infinite regress problem. This is why Bradley concludes that relations don't ontologically exist.
Anscombe believes that relations are not objects, and therefore cannot be nameable. 3.1432 should be read that in aRb, it is not the case that a stands in relation to b, where R is an object, but rather that a stands in a certain relation to b.
However in a picture of a and b, as a relation is not an object, the relation between a and b cannot be shown.
For the Tracatus, relations are just objects coming together. This relation cannot be described in a proposition but can only be shown by the proposition itself. However, remembering to avoid any infinite regress by thinking that the proposition shows a relation by showing a relation by showing a relation, etc.
The Tractatus is not about universal concepts describing a world, but about particular propositions (which are particular thoughts) showing particular states of affairs.
===============================================================================
Quoting Fooloso4
In the Tractatus, in the world are logical objects in logical configurations. These logical objects are simples, indivisible. There are many of them.
A Platonic Form is a universal of which each particular object is an instantiation.
The Tractatus is not a proponent of Platonic Forms, but treats each object as a particular, even if there are many of them.
In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein was trying to avoid a pure Coherentism, where one proposition gets its meaning from another proposition etc, by ultimately founding propositions on states of affairs that exist in a world outside these propositions.
Your claim was that about his removal of relations and properties from his ontology. If ontology is about what exists, and properties and relations are shown, then even if they cannot be described they exist.
Quoting RussellA
The first part is true. The second part is false.
(2.12)
He is not interested in the particular state of affairs that are modeled, but the possibility that is can be modeled.
(2.15)
(2.151)
It is the substance of the world not the facts in the world that prevents this:
(2.0211)
Just because a picture can show a relation doesn't mean that the relation ontologically exists. A picture can show that the Empire States Building is 113m taller than the Eiffel Tower, but this does not mean that a difference in height of 113m ontologically exists in the world.
===============================================================================
Quoting Fooloso4
He is interested in possible elementary propositions, such as "grass is red", "grass is green", "grass is purple" and "grass is orange", showing possible states of affairs, such as grass is red, grass is green, grass is purple and grass is orange.
But this of necessity means that he is also interested in particular elementary propositions, such as "grass is purple", showing a particular state of affairs, such as grass is purple.
===============================================================================
Quoting Fooloso4
Yes, the world wouldn't exist without substance (ie, unalterable objects, simples) and there would be no propositions.
But on the other hand, as a proposition is not a single world, such as "grass", but words in combination, such as "grass is red", a proposition can only show in the world objects in combination (ie, states of affairs) such as grass is red.
The problem here is Wittgenstein's muddling of epistemological and metaphysical concepts without clear distinction or marking what is what. That is because he wants to do epistemology and metaphysics and yet castigate the pursuit at the same time (""Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent"). You cannot have your cake and eat it too.
So there are metaphysical claims- objects, substance, states of affairs (arrangements of objects)
There are epistemological claims- facts, atomic facts, true and false propositions.
None of this is really elaborated on and so we get what we get. I suppose if he did, he would think he would be engaging in "nonsense" (or rather, the peculiar positivist use of this word). Unlike a Kant or Aa Schopenhauer where theory is communicated through paragraphs and paragraphs of explication (i.e. explanation), it just looks like axiomatic assertions without much explanation that one must either accept or not.
But because of the poor explanatory communication-style of the terse text of Tractatus, the ideas become anemic on their own (without the reader doing the heavy-lifting). So, we get this weirdness of constant debates on "What the Prophet from Austria really meant".
Either way, because he is muddling epistemology and metaphysics, objects seem half-baked in his philosophy. Are objects actual entities or are they simply functional as a role? In some instances he seems to be defining them a role, a functional thing, and not an actual entity in the world.
as @Banno pointed out, his major point is right at the top:
That is to say, Wittgenstein is using circular reasoning, and "double-dipping" his idea of logical structure (picture) in covertly hiding his idea of atomic facts in the idea of objects. If objects are simply possibilities of arrangements (2.0272 The configuration of the objects forms the atomic fact), then
You get this more definitively "real" version of objects here, yet at the same time "functional" version of objects:
But then you have this more "functional" and less "concrete" role of objects as entities..
That is to say, objects seem to be the functional role of we can say something about them. That's it. "Objects being arranged" allows for ----> States of Affairs.
State of affairs now becomes some intermediary. Is it "States of Affairs" of the World, or is it Atomic Facts of the World? One is a "realism" whereby the world exists independently of facts, and the other is an idealism of sorts whereby the world is simply the logical coherence of the world.
Now, we do call Wittgenstein's theory a "picture theory", which indicates that it is indeed "real" and we are just re-presenting it in facts and furthermore, into propositions. However, my main overall point here, is because objects are so vague, and so little is said about them, they simply become a functional role for the possibility of forming atomic facts (an epistemological endeavor), with little to no reality outside this use. Objects become denuded of any of its usual attributions, other than its function to support atomic facts. It's not a robust or a compelling picture of objects. It is unconvincing that objects even exist other than it needs to be there to support atomic facts. Atomic facts have to be "about" something, or so he claims.
To the contrary:
(2.014)
Quoting schopenhauer1
Metaphysics deals with the arche, the source or origin of things and what is first or primary. His view, like all others, is speculative. It takes as its principles the existence of simples as primary. These objects have within themselves the ability to combine to form more complex objects and states of affairs. The order of the universe is thus bottom up.
Quoting schopenhauer1
He says:
(2.021)
(2.023)
A definition occurs within a proposition. Elementary propositions consist of names. (4.22) A name means an object. (3.203) We cannot use a proposition to define a name because the proposition is a nexus, a concatenation, of names. (4.22) We cannot then define an object beyond defining its role as the substance of facts. As the substance of the world.
Right, so where is this assertion coming from that objects must exist as a "substance of facts"? Why must this be the case? "Otherwise, the world is about nothing or anything", is pretty trivially true. The problem is that it would take some delving into topics he doesn't want to talk about, but even the claim itself "objects exist" is a metaphysical commitment. However, it needs explanation, even if that means use of propositions to do so, because that's all that we have to communicate. Simply saying "objects exist because my philosophy about atomic facts won't hold up unless it's "about" something" is not a convincing (nor even really actually an) argument.
He doesn't explain anything. He just zooms on forward without doing the heavy lifting of explaining his metaphysics. He asserts a few lines about it being the substance of facts or whatnot, but anyone can do that, and I don't find it compelling. Quite the opposite, I find it obnoxiously self-referential.
In the attempt to not be like the 19th century writers whereby many volumes of metaphysical and epistemological explanatory systems are worked out, it seems he went too far in the other direction of thrift. Some people like it though, because it's endlessly interpretable.
I take 2.0211 and 2.061 to speak against this:
[b]If the world had no substance, then whether a proposition had sense would depend on whether another proposition was true (2.0211).
Atomic facts are independent of one another (2.061)[/b]
Quoting schopenhauer1
As Russell and Whitehead point out in the Principia Mathematica (An idea they adopted from the Italian mathematician Peano):
Since all definitions of terms are effected by means of other terms, every system of definitions which is not circular must start from a certain apparatus of undefined terms (PM, 95)
Frege, a mathematician working on similar problems, around the same time expressed a similar idea as Peano, Russell, and Whitehead:
"On the introduction of a name for something logically simple, a definition is not possible." (CO, 1).
Russell re-articulates the point later in his work The Principles of Mathematics when he says:
...the indefinables are obtained primarily as the necessary residue in a process of analysis, it is often easier to know that there must be such entities than actually to perceive them (The Principles of Mathematics).
Wittgenstein is a logician, and a mathematician, and his analysis of propositions into eventual simple, indefinable, objects comes from a tradition of doing so. As he stated to Malcolm:
Quoting 013zen
I think Robinson puts it well here:
To a non-mathematician it often comes as a surprise that it is impossible to define explicitly all the terms which are used. This is not a superficial problem but lies at the root of all knowledge. (Foundations of Geometry, 8)
Quoting schopenhauer1
I think that, perhaps, you are on the right track thinking of it in this manner. An object seems to be a kind of logical place holder for a distinct logical category which can be taken as input within a function.
-----
Quoting Banno
Im very sorry that seeing others attempting to work through a text is so distressing to you; I can only wonder what a wearing process it has been for you to be present within a philosophy community for all these years.
Quoting Banno
I can only imagine what a Socratic dialogue would have been like with you as the interlocutor.
You've only explained how these particular people thought of it, not if it's correct or not. Whitehead, by proof of his later writings in metaphysics, seemed to disagree with this idea of "undefined terms". He seems to go full-force in the other direction of speculation, full-throated and enthusiastically, even. A breath of fresh air, perhaps? I don't mean that one can "actually show" the metaphysics of the world in some explanatory volume, but one can speculate using the communication known as "language", regarding some metaphysical speculations and such. This whole, "I'm a logician, and don't dabble in such speculations or inquiries", means that he is simply writing a system without a foundation to speak of. And since he is all for "not speaking whereof. et al", he puts himself in a gordian knot of his own devices.
Quoting 013zen
:up:
Quoting 013zen
:snicker:
There are many philosophical questions:
How does language and thought relate to the world?
How does language relate to thought?
Does the world we experience only exist in the mind, or does it also exist outside the mind, and if it does exist outside the mind, how does the world we experience in our mind relate to the world outside the mind?
Is Neutral Monism correct, that apples only exist as concepts in the mind and outside the mind are only elementary particles and elementary forces in space and time?
Do tables exist outside the mind?
Perhaps it doesn't matter, as you say:
Perhaps all that matters, as you say:
Perhaps the Tractatus is like a paper weight. As long as it does the job of keeping the papers from flying away it has done its job, in that as long as it has got people to think it has done its job.
Well, I guess so, but by way of criticism of what is missing- or lacking.
Correct. I merely wanted to try and remind you that Wittgenstein wrote the work during a time when it was, actually, quite normal to consider logically simple entities as indefinable, and those he respected most at the time - Frege and Russell - were guilty of the same thing.
Whether or not they are right about there being logically simple entities is another question entirely, but you can't circumvent the discussion by saying:
"Well, he didn't define 'x' so its all moot." He didn't define 'x' for a reason, and he gives his reasoning.
We can still attempt to approach an understanding of why and how Wittgenstein is using these terms.
No I get it. I think it's valuable what you're doing- putting this into context of what was the spirit of the time (logical positivistic thinking and the logical atomism of Frege and Russell), but I am criticizing this approach en totale, as exemplified in the Tractatus' view.
There seems to be a subtle subtext that Wittgenstein, Russell, et al. want you, the audience to accept beyond just their reasoning, their view of "What philosophy should be about (only logical propositions)".
Well, if you don't accept that subtext, then this represents a greater rift than simply the reasoning. Rather, it is straight away dismissing philosophy as writing on metaphysics and epistemology in more than vague notions of some "there-but-not-there" that is simply a logical marker for facts.
And this subtextual disagreement is more than trivial. Because the other view might see these logical atomists/positivists as totally devoid of what is important in philosophy- that is an explanation of what is epistemologically and metaphysically the foundations of the world, truth, and so on. If you can't even discuss them, then the philosophy is incomplete, and thus suspect in terms of whether it should even matter if it lacks this crucial foundation.
In other words, @RussellA quotes matter above:
Quoting RussellA
Here, I think we should be careful.
The logical positivism of someone like Carnap or Neurath, and the logical atomism of someone like Russell was developed in response to Positivism, and in part the writing of the Tractatus.
The anti-metaphysical agenda of these movements, I dont take to be exemplified by the Tractatus necessarily. I take the Tractatus to be influenced by these movements, and responding to them, not ascribing to them. There is a reason that after the Tractatus was written, and positivism became logical positivism, that Wittgenstein was dismissive of the anti-metaphyscial interpretation the latter ascribed to the work, and why despite Russell developing his logical atomism in response to Witt, that Witt still considered Russell to misunderstand his point.
Quoting schopenhauer1
These are all excellent questions, and ones that I look forward to being able to work out together as we work out the basics.
I mean, Wittgenstein didn't explain any more about metaphysics and epistemology per se in response to the responses. Rather, he doubled down on anti-metaphysics with his later writings, as shown in the PI (in a completely different way though, not in the same way as his earlier approach). So, I don't think this really disputes my point that the logical atomists (and broader positivists) were in the main anti-metaphysical in tenor. Because of this, the focus was heavy on logic and language, but all the interesting questions that are the prelude to this, are missing. And thus:
Quoting 013zen
Yes, these questions (which are missing in these early analytics attempt to keep it at the level of propositions, and symbolic logic) are given short-shrift, if any. And yes, that is basically what the Tractutus is doing with "objects". Compare this approach to someone from the Kantian, Platonic, or Aristotlean traditions. I don't mean simply the content, but rather, What they allow themselves to explicate on (Hint: a lot more than the analytics of the early 20th century).
The problem is not that Wittgenstein muddles things, you do.
A state of affairs is a fact.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Given that the stated goal of the text is to draw the limits of thought or its expression in language, the need to think in order to understand the text is in service of that goal.
Quoting schopenhauer1
The facts are contingent. Objects are necessary. Facts are changeable. Objects are unchangeable. Wittgenstein's concern is not with the facts of the world but with what underlies both the possibility of facts and the possibility of propositions. With what underlies and connects them.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Logical structure underlies both the facts of the world and propositions. Atomic facts are objects in configuration. And this is what you go on to say.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Objects are not being arranged. They arrange themselves.
Quoting schopenhauer1
(2)
Quoting schopenhauer1
Both are wrong. No facts no world. Logic deals with possibilities and necessities.
I was going to say the same thing.
1. The object is simple (2.02)
Wittgensteins claim that objects must be simple stems from 2.021 when he says:
2. Objects form the substance of the world. Therefore they cannot be compound (2.021).
So, Wittgensteins belief that (1) objects are simple is because (2) [they] form the substance of the world.
Understanding (1) requires understanding (2) then.
Regarding substance, Wittgenstein says:
The substance of the world can only determine a form and not any material properties (2.0231).
This is echoed in 2.024-2.025, when Witt says:
Substance is what exists independently of what is the case. It is form and content (2.024-2.025).
So, we know of substance:
1. Substance is a form and content that subsists between possible worlds.
2. Since material properties are accidental, they are not what subsists between possible worlds.
Since, from 2.021, we know that:
Objects form the substance of the world (2.021)
We can infer:
1. Objects are what subsist between possible worlds
2. Objects are devoid of material properties
We see (1) in:
Objects contain the possibility of all states of affairs (2.014).
and we see (2) in:
Roughly speaking: objects are colourless (2.0232).
Unlike you, just because I have a philosopher in my name, doesn't mean I'm a blind adherent. Not everything these people say is accurate, correct, etc. That is because
a) Philosophy itself is always an ellipses, and not a period anyways... and
b) These are just humans grappling with stuff like you and me.
c) Being that the kind of content philosophy covers are things that are inherently debatable, it is a question of how it can be that someone doesn't muddle things.
Thus it could be only said that the ways Wittgenstein is "wrong" and muddling, is the way I am using it, which is to say, that he seems to be incomplete and the validity can be questioned, since the foundations of his argument are not well grounded, to my estimation. You can disagree with that, but that is a disagreement which can't be resolved to pointing to some piece of definitive information.
Quoting Fooloso4
That's any text, so I don't buy him as exempt from explaining his own ideas more thoroughly than what is written on the page. If it needs supplemental materials, he should provide them to clarify, not acolytes and fan-boys and girls.
Quoting Fooloso4
I mean, great start! I agree with this mission, if that so be it his mission. However, he has several asserted axiomatic messages about it with little explanation and then zooms forward, as I states previously.
Quoting Fooloso4
Who definitively knows this? How? In what epistemological and metaphysical sense? It's all taken for granted. Incomplete information.
Quoting Fooloso4
Objects need to exist for the logic to be about something, and not an empty set or imaginary things. Objects stand for the contents of the world. This is just very abbreviated speculative philosophy. It's so abbreviated, you might miss it. But it is speculative, and so open to be questioned as to what and how this is true. Why isn't it all process (process philosophy)? What kind of things count as objects? Why must it be an object and not a unified whole?
What he is saying is that in order for atomic facts be about something, there must be a logical marker for which facts are about. And then he gives descriptions of simples and enduring, and has basic properties that they all share. But this needs to be explicated. He needs to thoroughly weigh this against the literature, what others might say, with some counter-theories, etc. etc. Otherwise, it is unjustified belief. It's simply following what one asserts and not considering all the possibilities of other theories, counter-theories, rebuttals to the counter-theories, etc. etc. It's incomplete in it's defense and assertion.
I am not a blind adherent of Wittgenstein's or anyone else. I disagree with much of what he says about philosophy in both his earlier and later works. I don't buy into his concept of objects, but I don't have to accept it as true in order to attempt to understand it. I like the interpretive challenge.
Quoting schopenhauer1
No one.
Quoting schopenhauer1
An object is a unified whole.
Quoting schopenhauer1
A fact is what is the case, a state of affairs. "The book is on the shelf" is a fact. It is not about anything other than the book being on the shelf.
Where does he say that an atomic fact is about something?
Elementary propositions
By elementary proposition, we naturally think of expressions such as "the apple is on the table ", "grass is red". "the Eiffel Tower is in London", "the house is next to the school". I would argue that words expressing concepts are indivisible and simples. I know that "house" may be described as "a roof over a wall over a foundation", but nevertheless, in a sense, all these words expressing concepts are simples, whether "house", "roof", "wall" or "foundation".
Kant's Unity of Apperception
2.0232 - Roughly speaking: objects are colourless
A name names a set of properties. A name is no more than a particular set of properties, in that if all the properties were removed from an object then there would be no object. An object doesn't "have" properties, an object "is" its properties.
Even though an object is no more than its set of properties, an object, when thought about as a concept, because of Kant's Unity of Apperception, has no properties. The unity of apperception transcends the parts in favour of the whole.
For example, as an analogy, when eating a New York Cheesecake, the enjoyment doesn't come from knowing anything about its individual ingredients, such as thinking that this flour tastes good, that I like the vanilla extract and the eggs are fresh. The enjoyment comes from the taste of the cheesecake as a unified whole, something that has transcended any particular combination of ingredients.
(Wittgenstein - Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: Necessity and Contingency (Part 1/3) Kyle Banick)
States of affairs
A state of affairs is objects in combinations, where objects make up the substance of the world and are indivisible and simple.
As a Neutral Monist, I think that the substance that makes up the world are elementary particles, such as fermions and bosons, indivisible and simple. But Wittgenstein cannot be referring to fermions as objects, as a proposition such as "grass is green" is certainly not picturing fermions in combination.
However, Wittgenstein is talking about the world as a logical space containing logical objects. So how can grass be thought of as a logical object indivisible and simple?
Understanding Objects within Idealism and Realism
Suppose the Tractatus had been written from the viewpoint of Idealism. Then grass in the world in fact exists in the mind, and if exists in the mind, then must exist in the mind as a concept. As a concept, can be argued to be indivisible and simple, meaning that elementary propositions picturing a state of affairs becomes understandable from the perspective of Idealism.
Suppose the Tractatus had been written from the viewpoint of Realism, then how can grass be understood to be an object indivisible and simple?
On the one hand, the Direct Realist does believe that objects such as apples, tables, grass do exist in the world as objects indivisible and simple. They believe that when we perceive an apple in the world, there is truly an apple existing in the world, and would continue to exist even if there was no mind to observe it. This means that elementary propositions picturing a state of affairs becomes understandable from the perspective of Direct Realism.
On the other hand, the Indirect Realist does not believe that objects such as apples, tables, grass exist in the world as objects indivisible and simple, but only exist in the mind as concepts indivisible and simple. When we perceive an apple in the world, there is no apple existing in the world, but only in the mind of the observer. This means that elementary propositions picturing a state of affairs is not understandable from the perspective of Indirect Realism.
But the Tractatus avoids Idealism and Realism
2.02 - The object is simple
However, Wittgenstein in the Tractatus deliberately avoids any reference to Idealism or Realism. This leaves us with the problem of what exactly is the proposition "grass is red" picturing in the world, and how exactly can grass be thought of as an object in the world indivisible and simple?
In order to be indivisible and simple, grass cannot be a physical object in a physical world, but only can be a logical object in a logical world, and logical objects can be indivisible and simple.
If this is the case, and an elementary proposition in language is true if the state of affairs in the world that it pictures obtains, and the state of affairs in the world is not a physical world but a logical world, then language is not picturing a physical world but a logical world.
This supports either Idealism or Indirect Realism but not Direct Realism. Unfortunately, this line of enquiry cannot be developed within the Tractatus, as the Tractatus doesn't engage with ether Idealism or Realism.
He does engage with the issue:
Quoting ibid
The correlation you seek between the 'logical object' and natural phenomena does not approach the 'limit of the world' that Wittgenstein proposes.
Edit to add:
The viewpoint of the Philosophical Investigation does not lay this out as sharply but does say the following about the distinctions:
5.634 and 5.641 could refer to either Idealism or Realism.
In 5.64, Wittgenstein says that solipsism coincides with pure realism. However, the term "pure realism" is only used once in the Tractatus.
How does Wittgenstein explain that solipsism coincides with pure realism?
I don't see how saying: "no part of our experience is at the same time a priori" could be an expression of idealism.
The single mention of "pure realism' probably comes from it being a thought experiment appended to saying:
Quoting ibid
This difference between images built up through thoughts and words and what they show is evident throughout the book. There is a tension between what is sayable and a possibility of experience that messes with how we talk about representation. Wittgenstein places his enterprise in the center of that problem:
Quoting ibid emphasis mine
These limits of what is said versus what is shown are a question for me in how this work is presented as solving particular issues for the future. But I think it puts 'idealism versus realism' into the diagram rejected in 5.6331.
I wrote "Unfortunately, this line of enquiry cannot be developed within the Tractatus, as the Tractatus doesn't engage with ether Idealism or Realism."
Fundamentally, I am sure that the general opinion about the Tractatus is that Wittgenstein does not engage with Theories of Knowledge, such as Idealism and Realism. For Wittgenstein, the importance of philosophy was not about developing Theories of Knowledge but helping clarify one's own thought process.
7 - "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent"
IEP Ludwig Wittgenstein (18891951)
There is probably no Theory of Knowledge that hasn't been ascribed to Wittgenstein, and I am sure parts of the Tractatus can be read in support of one theory or another.
===============================================================================
Quoting Paine
My basis understanding of the difference between Idealism and Realism is:
Idealism = the world exists in a mind. Berkeley said in the mind of God, the Solipsist says in the mind of the observer.
Realism = one world exists in the mind and another world exists outside the mind. The Indirect Realist says that these worlds are different. The Direct Realist says that these worlds are the same.
5.633 and 5.634 makes the point that we see a shape in the world, we don't see a representation of a shape in the world. But where is this world. Does this world only exist in a mind as Idealism proposes or does this world also exist outside the mind as Realism proposes. 5.633 and 5.634 says nothing about this .
===============================================================================
Quoting Paine
5.62 "The world is my world: this is manifest in the fact that the limits of language (of that language of which I alone understand) mean the limits of my world
As before, he is not saying anything about where this world exists.
===============================================================================Quoting Paine
I thought the idea of the Tractatus Picture Theory is that there is no logical difference between an elementary proposition in language and a state of affairs in the world
A thought is what it shows.
I mean by this that why are things beyond the "atomic facts" discrete objects and not some monistic thing, like Schopenhauer's Will, or perhaps Plato's Forms, or Whitehead's "actual occasions"? It's ill defined and only a shill for having something for which the atomic facts can be "attached to", for lack of better words.
And thus...
Quoting Fooloso4
To me, his stuff about objects are to imply that without objects hanging onto each other and arranged in, it would be a picture representing an empty set. A no-thing.
These are examples of propositions, not elementary propositions; we can go through the difference between the two, a bit more, if you'd like, but for the sake of brevity, I'll just reference:
[b]"The names are the simple symbols, I indicate them by single letters (x, y, z).
The elementary proposition I write as function of the names, in the form 'fx'', '?(x, y)', etc." (4.24).[/b]
This gives us a lot of information, but we can immediately see a couple things:
1. Examples of names (the simple symbols for objects) are: "x,y,z,etc.
2. Examples of elementary propositions are functions such as: "'fx'', '?(x, y)', etc.
Propositions, such as: "grass is red" analyze into the form: "Fx". "x" here is the domain of the function, or all things which can be accepted as inputs for the function. For example, I can say: "The ball is blue", "The elephant is big", or "The sandwich is soggy". Each of these have the same logical form, or analyze into the elementary propositions: "Gy", "Hz", "Ta", etc. So, the domain of a function is what is meant by: "object".
Presumably, we can infer that to the codomain of the function we can say being either true or false; to which corresponds an actual or possible state of affairs.
From this, we can immediately see that despite each proposition being totally different, the form of both the elementary proposition and the objects remain between each as the elementary proposition that the proposition analyzes into.
But, I think that understanding the analysis of proposition into elementary proposition can inform us a bit, what Witt might have in mind for atomic propositions. Consider, the proposition:
"The car is traveling at 60mph."
We might be able to infer that an atomic fact, for something like this, might be something like:
"v=d/t"
I wonder. This could also explain why Witt lists: "time" as a "form of an object".
4.24 - "Names are the simple symbols: I indicate them by single letters (x, y, z). I write elementary proposition as function of names, so that they have the form"'fx'', "?(x, y)', etc."
I believe that he is not saying that the single letters x, y, z are objects, but is saying that these single letters indicate possible objects, such that the variable x indicates the objects ball, elephant or sandwich.
In order for an elementary propositions to picture the world, it needs two parts, representatives such as grass, green, tall, mountain, velocity and logical constants such as and, not, if, then, or.
Logical constants are not objects, they are rules that determine how the objects relate.
Consider the logical function F(x), where F(x) is true if the value x satisfies the function F. But as F and x are not only unknown, don't refer to anything and have no sense, F(x) cannot picture the world, and if cannot picture the world cannot be an elementary proposition.
Consider F(x) is true if x is green, The value x = grass satisfies the function, whilst the value x = strawberry doesn't satisfy the function. As F and x are now known, F being the object green and x being the objects grass and strawberry, the world can now be pictured, meaning that we now have an elementary proposition.
4.0312 - "My fundamental idea is that the logical constants are not representatives that there can be no representatives of the logical facts"
Logic by itself, functions such as F(x), cannot fulfil the role of representatives, and as representatives are needed in addition to logic to picture the world, functions such as F(x) cannot be elementary propositions.
===============================================================================
Quoting 013zen
A fact is a state of affairs in the world that obtains. A state of affairs is objects in possible combinations
Which is the state of affairs, d/t or distance divided by time? Which is the object, t or time?
From Russell's Introduction "In Wittgensteins theoretical logical language, names are only given to simples. We do not give two names to one thing, or one name to two things."
Therefore, the variable t cannot be the object, as being a variable it names more than one thing, and as Russell says, t cannot be a simple as it names more than one thing, and if not a simple cannot be an object.
2.0251 Space, time, colour (being coloured) are forms of objects.
From 2.051, time is the object, not the variable t.
Therefore, a state of affairs being objects in possible combinations cannot be d/t but must be time divided by distance. If this state of affairs obtains, then the fact is distance divided by time, not d/t.
(Kyle Banick 1/3 Necessity and contingency)
To invoke a bit of Zizek here, Wittgenstein is simply elaborating on his own ideology whereby language can only make "sense" if it is about discrete objects and how they are arranged in certain ways. These would be "state of affairs" that obtain (facts). Propositions of true and false are about this. But the problem is, all of these assertions require a robust epistemology and metaphysics. He knew this when he said it of his own work, which is, however thinly laid out, an epistemology of language and its uses in explaining facts. It's an ideology as much as anything. Why must we buy into Wittgenstein's idea of "sense" and "nonsense"? Why can't more speculative epistemology and metaphysics be discussed intelligently in a language community? Why must we follow or agree with his ideology on the bounds of language use? And ironically, to buy into his ideology, I am saying he should have delved deeper into the epistemology and metaphysics (ala Kant). But he doesn't because he needs to follow his own rules as not to be a hypocrite. But even the little crumbs he provides is hypocritical because it's an epistemology, however bare-boned. And thus he impoverishes his own program by being a series of assertions that cannot be elaborated on, lest he "break his own ideological commitment he is thus laying out". Besides the fact that he is already breaking it anyways, he cannot commit any further into "whys and hows", because "nonsense".
And furthermore, because this may be said to be Wittgenstein's ideology (one ideology amongst a range of possible ones he presumably could have committed to), we must understand that the author has a commitment and thus a value in even propounding on his ideas. Thus, there is value "smuggled" into the whole work, being the author chose to explain his ideas to the reader and had his reasons to do so.
I agree with this, I believe. "x" is the domain, which are all the possible objects which can be taken as inputs to satisfy the function.
Quoting RussellA
No, exactly as you said. If we take as a value of x some input which satisfies the function Fx, (with Fx being some value which can be said of x), then it is true, and would correspond with an atomic fact, which could be said of the world. I think Witt is drawing attention to the logical form of elementary propositions, but naturally in practice when we are analyzing specific sentences, as you point out, we do know the values for "x" and we know the form of the function, whether it be Fx, or some other function.
Quoting RussellA
I agree, however it is only when supplied with content that elementary props say anything at all, and can form a picture of the world. To this, would correspond atomic propositions, which can do the work that elementary props, cannot.
They are elementary propositions.Quoting RussellA
I admit, that I was only armchair philosophizing about the atomic facts being something like mechanical laws represented in differential equations.
But, I'd like to point out that Frege took "time" to be an object, and while Witt. never comes down definitively (aside from referencing "time" as a "form of an object", I just wanted to point out, that its not unheard of within the tradition.
At any rate, I agree with, like 90% of your post. Its just specifics we differ on, right now.
I'd like to take a moment to step outside the bounds of this topic, and express some personal thoughts regarding the work, in general.
I, actually, take Wittgenstein to be attempting to break away from this tradition; what I mean is... I take him to be an ally to your cause. This, I know, is a somewhat contentious view, but it's one that I believe might hold. I get a sense that the mode of presentation, for the Tractatus, is an attempt to show this from within the very framework he ultimately challenges. Why would he do this? Well, consider for a moment, the setting in which the work was written. It was mostly written while he was actively engaged in world war 1, on the front lines, in the trenches. He finished the work while he was a war prisoner, and only managed to get 3 copies out, leaving himself without a copy of his own. He sent 1 to Russell, 1 to Frege, and 1 to Englemann, and I think its no accident that the first two's frameworks are largely adopted and assumed in the beginning of the text. But he often calls attention to the flaws in this thinking, and attempts to enrich the ideas present. Russell was his teacher, and Russell was taken by the tradition you're referring to - positivism. But, Wittgenstein was no positivist. The work, I think, is written for a positivist reader though - for Russell, perhaps in case he didn't survive the war.
Like any philosophical work, its written within a tradition, and just like any philosopher, it assumes certain manners of conceptualizing, but I take the work to ultimately be arguing against a staunch opposition to metaphysics, in general. I see him to be trying to re-furnish the metaphysics that positivists had stripped to all but "positive facts" or experience.
How is this the case when he clearly is trying to show that anything that is not about objects and how they "hang together" [ atomic facts/propositions.. yadayada, I'm not arguing his particularities so don't picayunish this point.. ] is "non-sense"? Perhaps he finds the non-sense "useful" in some spiritual way, but then again, he doubles down on its inarticulate nature as it (defies language) in his view when he states ""Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."
One can say that he is castigating all the metaphysicians and epistemologists that came before. Think of The architectonics of Plato, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Leibniz, Spinoza, and the rest. I see this as saying basically, "These guys should have not wasted ink as what they were discussing cannot be stated in any 'meaningful' way". It's inflammatory, not conciliatory towards these philosophies. To me, that is squarely in the milieu of the early analytics, whether or not he disagreed on the value utility of poetry, religion, or whatnot.
Because he is not arguing that anything (i.e. a proposition) is nonsense if its not about how things hang together, etc.
Technical mumbo-jumbo aside, his goal is the logical clarification of thought, and while occasionally he does point out examples of propositions which are logically unclear, he never says that all propositions which dont relate to objects, etc are nonsense. This is not the work associated with objects and facts, and all that stuff - they play a different role.
You point out the final statement of the work, but Id like to say that its more succinct in the preface where Witt says:
What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak [clearly] thereof one must be silent
Positivism developed slowly, but from some basic assumptions, one of which was that metaphysics needed to be put on proper footing. This is what Bacon, Hume, Kant, etc. were concerned with...they thought metaphysics lacked clarity and rigor.
Wittgenstein, is attempting to say with the final statement that any metaphysical statement will have to first and foremost be made logically clear. Until this is done, we should be cautious of wasting too much time talking about it, since language will lead us in circles. Clarity must be established first.
Throughout the work, he tries to offer suggestions on how to do this, and also gives examples of other thinkers formulations and how they are logically unclear, offering methods to reformulate the idea in a more clear manner.
I think this is recasting Wittgenstein as just trying to be a simple corrector of grammar rather than trying to make (anti-)metaphysical commitments. I think that it is the latter that is exactly what he is doing. He clearly thinks that what is "sense" are objects and their arrangements. If they obtain as a state of affairs in the world, they are facts, "true propositions". This to me excludes a lot of other types of metaphysics, and is itself a type of metaphysics- one that is poorly explained but yet he asserts is the only way in which "sensical" language is thus communicated.
Basically, I think you are playing apologetics and putting early Wittgenstein as more heterodox than he was. He was indeed basically a logical positivist. He might protest such a label, and find value in various forms of "non-sense", but he still labeled it "non-sense". He was not laying out simply the correct "syntax" to put language in, but making commitments (by way of objects) to the contents of what sensical language could be about. Everything else is non-sense, and "thereof one must be silent". You first, Witt.
This is a recasting of my position :P I take him to be concerned with the logical clarification of thought, which might occasionally involve critiquing how one uses a term, and whether or not it makes sense. This isn't new to philosophy, in any sense, with Socrates objecting to how folks use the word "good", Aristotle to how others use the word "cause", etc. How else are we meant to clarify the thoughts in our heads, except, by occasionally engaging in correction of language. This is not to say that correcting grammar is the goal in and of itself.
Quoting schopenhauer1
This is one possibility, and you're certainly welcome to it. As I've said, my personal opinion differs. I can understand, and see reasons to believe your position, I can however also see other evidence which steers my thoughts in another direction.
Quoting schopenhauer1
One might wonder why then, upon returning from the war, and having his work acclaimed by the positivists, that Wittgenstein so vehemently rejected them. Why, Witt considered Russell's atomist interpretation so foreign to his own in spirit that he spent three years of his life trying to get the work published, despite being poor from having given his fortune away - in the hopes that he'd find someone that understood the work. That's a pretty strong response to a bunch of people basically understanding what you were trying to do.
Quoting schopenhauer1
The two groups are using the expression in two different manners. Again, without getting too in the weeds, the Tract uses three expressions:
1. nonsense
2. senseless
3. meaningless
these are not interchangeable. The positivists saw no distinction between these at the end of the day, they were all what you'd call meaningless. Wittgenstein, however, distinguishes these, and there's good reason to believe that Witt is using the expression nonsense similar to Frege in that its tied to elucidations which accomplish definite pre-scientific work in terms of settling terminology.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Rather, I am doing what we do in philosophy, which is try and furnish a reading of another's work with as much context as possible, whether it be historically or contextually. This is why there exist "readings" of philosopher x, and certain topics are discussed and debated. Why there are conferences, people researching and writing papers, etc.
You know, historically, positivism was actually very pervasive in society. What I mean, is that it had real "pull" in the scientific community. Einstein's theory of special and general relativity was influenced by positivism, believe it or not. Einstein says that concepts like "space" and "time" were not clear at all, and he prepossess redefining them in a relativistic fashion ala Ernst Mach. He argued that absolute space and absolute time were meaningless concepts, in that they were in no manner tied to reality. That's how we arrived at space-time today. But, Einstein was a student of not only positivism but also its main competitor, exemplified by people like Boltzmann and Hertz which was typically referred to as "bild theories" or "picture theories".
Boltzmann argued that positivism left science bankrupt, unable to furnish true understanding. He posited the existence of 'atoms' claiming that science could move past experience by developing "pictures" to represent reality based on logic. Ernst Mach was against the atomic theory, saying there was no evidence for the existence of such things, and for most of the early 1900s the atomic theory was ridiculed, and Boltzmann actually committed suicide from depression.
Einstein, younger than the old Mach and Boltzmann, took Boltzmann's picture theory as permissible and developed his own conception of the atom which was later proven to be the case. I don't think it's any accident that Wittgenstein also develops what he calls a "picture theory" and furnishes it with Frege's logic in a manner that echoes Hertz's development of pictures as logical pictures in his Principles of Mechanics. Witt also says that he was influenced by Boltzmann and Hertz, and he studied to be a mechanical engineer prior to studying philosophy, so he was no doubt familiar with the contemporaneous argument between positivism of Ernst Mach and the up and coming "picture theory" of Boltzman and Hertz that challenged it in an attempt to provide science with metaphysical speculation once again.
Would you say what Socrates was doing and what Wittgenstein were doing were equivalent? This is itself some clever word-play.
Quoting 013zen
This is hipster fandom talk. I don't care that Wittgenstein felt misunderstood. Poor Witty. I'm just saying how it looks to me, and it looks pretty stereotypically logical positivist. It doesn't have Russell's exact approach, but why do all logical positivists have to be the same? A lot of people don't like being grouped with others of a similar ilk. It's called "narcissism of small differences".
Quoting 013zen
Of course not, neologisms have their place in philosophy! Analytics are not exempt! Schopenhauer's Will, and Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, Kant's thing-in-itself and transcendental and empirical apperception.. Let's add Wittgenstein's clever distinction between nonsense, senseless, and meaningless! Why the hell not! We can have a dictionary for schopenhauer1 terminology too and splice it between Nietzsche and Wittgenstein. I got plenty of neologisms to add, but unfortunately, I won't have the acolytes to endlessly determine what I meant by them. :sad:.
Quoting 013zen
Yes, I remember reading this in an Einstein biography. To a lesser degree, he was also influenced by Schopenhauer, who, oddly enough would have been much more in line with Einstein's theories than the positivism of the time. He had a bust of Schop I believe on his mantle.
Quoting 013zen
This comes out in spades. This is an engineer or programmer doing philosophy like an engineer and programmer. I think if this book instead of being about "reality" was a primer for object-oriented programming, it would be different. No doubt, different philosophies will speak to different mindsets and methodologies.
Anyways, I actually admire the project of the positivists/analytics/Vienna circle. It's quite nice and tidy to think that what is captured through defining best how philosophy of science and parsing the world via analytic statements and logic are all the philosophy that can discussed, but even Wittgenstein himself saw the flaw in this straightjacket. However, I don't think his Investigations necessarily corrected himself.
I get why Wittgenstein is appealing. I just don't find it as much.
Quoting 013zen
Perhaps the following is relevant.
It may not be the case that Wittgenstein was trying to break away from the tradition of epistemology and metaphysics, but rather that he didn't know much about the tradition in the first place. From IEP Ludwig Wittgenstein (18891951)
He was influenced by Leibniz's logical form. From The Problem of Logical form: Wittgenstein and Leibniz by Studia Philosophiae Christianae
He was influenced by Schopenhaur's division of reality into the phenomenal and the noumenal. From Schopenhauer's Influence on Wittgenstein by Bryan Magee.
IE, it is difficult to consciously break away from a tradition if one doesn't know much about the tradition in the first place.
Conversational research. As the architect Louis Kahn said "The street is a room by agreement".
Now you're not even trying to be charitable to what I'm saying, if you take that bit to be me simply saying, "Witt and Socrates were doing exactly the same thing in every regard" :P
Quoting schopenhauer1
Idk what that means. Providing historical context is this "hipster fandom talk"?
Quoting schopenhauer1
Then it sounds like you don't care to try and understand him, or the difference between his view and the other. If, when a philosopher says: "I don't mean x", the response is: "whatever, idc, sounds like you're saying x" then where else can one go? Seems the discussion is over.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I'm sure you wouldn't want to say the analytic tradition is nonsense, despite being the result of logicians and scientists "doing philosophy " like logicians and scientists.
These folks were interested in what science could say about reality and how we can ensure that our theories map to reality. So, naturally they start from the assumption that our words should somehow tie back to reality in some guaranteed fashion.
Thank goodness we had physicists like Helmholtz, Hertz, and Boltzmann engaging in philosophy otherwise the atomic theory would have continued to be ridiculed by positivists and younger thinkers like Einstein would have never engaged with the concept of atoms, particles, fields, etc. In the first place since they lacked empirical evidence.
:up:
Quoting RussellA
Yes, there was a conversation a while back where I believe @Banno asked what Wittgenstein got from Schopenhauer, and I believe it was as you quoted. If anything, Tractatus can be a sort of linguistic-based version of Schop's Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, but taking only the two of the four roots as able to be conveyed linguistically. The rest (intention/inner states/psychology/will) he seemed to relegate to "Thereof one must not speak". If it's noumenal or transcendent, it cannot be stated, as there is no sense to it, as it has not objective form.
The problem here is where Schopenhauer (and previously Leibniz) actually laid out their reasoning for their premise and built a foundation, Wittgenstein simply asserts it to build his linguistic project of atomic facts and propositions that can be stated clearly.
What I meant by this is that Socrates was not clarifying language itself but the notions and ideas of people, or its content. Wittgenstein is trying to determine what is in the bounds of language. It might be said, Socrates would not even be deemed worthy of his discussions on Forms, The Good, and a whole range of other things, because they are not corresponding to a "State of Affairs" that can be determined as true (presumably through empirical means, but then again, since Witt offers us such a bereft explanation of objects and states of affairs, we can interpret it to mean any entity, ones that are not material etc, and go around in circles trying to fit it together instead of it being clearly stated from the beginning.). The only thing Witt can take from Socrates is the questioning, which he uses to death in the PI in order to showcase how fluid and ambiguous language is, countering his former self and other analytics of the early 20th century.
Quoting 013zen
No that is fine, I like historical context. I was commenting on the idea that he was such an outlier that he was wholly different from the projects of other analytics of the time. As I stated before, I disagree. Rather it is the "narcissism of small differences". But if he is misunderstood so thoroughly, this whole project of trying to interpret the "right" Wittgenstein itself is insipid to me because it just speaks to the lack of good communication of the author; it's a lack of quality explanation of ideas. A defense of any ambiguously phrased sentence can always be said, "No, THIS is what the author TRULEY meant", and so on infinitum. And to make him a rebel and outsider, is to weirdly make him a sort of mythologized hero and Prophet.
Quoting 013zen
You are extrapolating that, but I did not say that. Logicians and scientists "doing philosophy" like logicians and scientists is fine and dandy, but it's more than that. They are committing to a form of philosophy whereby any metaphysical or epistemological claims cannot be stated without being non-sense. It is limiting the field of play to their own preferences for being the explainer and referee of the sciences. The problem is, once you make statements about the world (objects, states of affairs), you ARE doing metaphysics, and all you are doing is being abbreviated in your explanations so as to try not to violate your own premises about non-sense. But objects are and states of affairs need explanation besides being simply posited as to their nature, their necessity, etc. The only necessity it has in Tractatus, is because without it, the theory cannot be true. That is circular reasoning.
Quoting 013zen
Naturally. If philosophy started with "Naturally this that and the other..." that begs the question and is simply taking one's assumptions as given by fiat.
Quoting 013zen
I didn't say otherwise. But if philosophy is simply the handmaiden for the sciences and thus should be nothing else, it isn't complete. Some things are not useful for scientific theory, they are just explanatory, investigative, speculative, etc..
I hear you...What I am saying is that just as it isn't uncommon to flip through a Socratic dialogue, and see Socrates challenging what others say about certain things (such as the good), and through dialogue shows how the thought leads to problems, we see Witt doing the same. In the preface to the Tractatus, Witt says his concern is first and foremost thoughts, not language...he just happens to concede that it is through language that the analysis has to be conducted since that's how we communicate our ideas with one another.
Quoting schopenhauer1
It's commonly accepted that we engage in metaphysics in order to arrive at an understanding of reality.
From the pre-socratics to today we have engaged in metaphysics, and our ideas have evolved with us. I wouldn't argue that studying Plato's forms isn't useful academically, but I wonder if its in any way equipped to be a supplement to the science of today.
My point is, let's assume that you're right and Witt is saying that metaphysics such as Plato's theory of forms, really doesn't belong in a modern day metaphysics. Wouldn't you agree? (I, personally, wouldn't necessarily take Witt to be committing to this view)
Quoting schopenhauer1
I am not saying that his project was different, but rather his approach, and some of his conclusions.
Is it so strange that someone that:
1. Graduated from a mechanical engineering program
2. Enrolled in an aeronautics doctorate program with the intent to design his own plane
3. Designed and patented his own propeller (tbh it was kinda a stupid design though lol)
And only after 5-6 years of this, when trying to manufacture his propeller, did Witt become interested in extremely complicated mathematics and learned about Frege and Russell.
After another 6~ years he wrote the Tractatus.
So, to the original point, I don't find it even remotely odd that someone that worked in mechanical engineering for 5-6 years and then worked on philosophy for another 6 years wrote something that was somewhat of an outlier when compared to a lot of the other analytics at the time. He explicitly references Heinrich Hertz in the Tractatus, and is quoted elsewhere saying that his line of thinking was influenced heavily by Ludwig Boltzmann alongside Frege and Russell.
Just as I would be surprised if someone were to tell me that some analytic philosopher from the 1920s developed some of his philosophy from physicists who were, for example, proving the existence of electromagnetic waves, and postulating theories of atoms in an attempt to explain thermodynamics, I am equally unsurprised that just such a philosopher came to some different conclusions than your standard philosopher. (This is not a value judgement, btw).
Quoting schopenhauer1
You've just summarized, like, 75% of the philosophy papers that I have read. xD
But, while I agree that its particularly bad in Witt's case, there is I think a reason that Witt considered philosophy, in some sense, a personal activity.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Here I'd like to point out that, again, in the preface to the Tractatus, Witt literally says:
"Here I am conscious that I have fallen far short of the possible. Simply because my powers are insufficient to cope with the task. May others come and do it better."
He was well aware that he wasn't the most articulate, but he thought there was something of value in his thoughts. I'd like to say that just as each of us is articulate to differing degrees, that being less articulate than another neither preclude one from engaging in philosophy, nor does it inherently suggest that the ideas are wrong, or not useful at their core.
I've read plenty of philosophers that I couldn't make heads nor tales of (I'm looking at you Hegel), but others are able to discover some merit within. There is a reason that Witt says:
"This book will perhaps only be understood by those who have themselves already thought the thoughts which are expressed in it - or similar thoughts."
Quoting schopenhauer1
Truthfully, I was being a bit tongue in cheek :P
Quoting schopenhauer1
Positivists are. Not all analytic philosophers are positivists... it just so happens that historically, a lot of them have been.
Quoting schopenhauer1
This is hardly the case. All philosophy, from Aristotle to Putnam has always started with some set of basic assumptions before moving forward. Its a perennial belief that can be endlessly quoted, and pointed out, whether it be a scientist assuming materialism or Aristotle assuming first principles.
What you added by parenthesis is not in the text.
Edit to add:
It is in the text. My bad.
I'm sure you probably already know, but the edit facility is quite useful.
At the bottom of one's own post - left clock on three dots - left click on edit - make changes to text - save comment.
Wittgenstein uses an apodictic style
On the one hand, considered by some to be the greatest philosopher of the 20th century, and on the other hand, the Tractatus is notorious for its interpretative difficulties.
(SEP Ludwig Wittgenstein)
On the one hand, the Tractatus employs an austere and succinct literary style. The work contains almost no arguments as such, but rather consists of declarative statements, or passages, that are meant to be self-evident, and on the other hand, the Tractatus is recognized by philosophers as one of the most significant philosophical works of the twentieth century.
(Wikipedia Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
A proposition may have value even if the words are ambiguous
It makes sense to say that what is important in the world are facts (objects in combinations) rather than objects, even if no-one can agree what an object is, and no-one can agree how objects combine.
IE, the statement "what is important in the world are facts (objects in combinations) rather than objects" has a value that everyone may agree with, even though there is no agreements as to what "object" and "combination" actually mean.
Similarly, everyone may agree with the statement "in the world postboxes are red", even if the Indirect Realist and Direct Realist don't agree where exactly does this world exist.
Even though the Tractatus uses a didactic style, everyone may agree that the remarks are of value, even if everyone disagrees with what the remarks actually mean.
Where is the value in the Tractatus
The question is what substantive philosophical lessons can we extract from the Tractatus. According to Facts, Possibilities, and the World. Three Lessons from the Tractatus, Hans Sluga:
One is the concept of fact, on which Russell and the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus relied so much, is philosophically brittle and that we must turn our attention, instead, to the broader notion of the factuality of the world.
Two is that we can and must think about the world in both factual and modal terms but that in doing so we must treat the idea of possibility, not that of necessity, as primary and we must conceive of possibilities as merely virtual, not as factual.
Three is that we must consider the world as a whole, if we are to make sense of logic, science, and ethics.
However, I need to research this further.
Well, of course it's done through language. But that is not his major point. That is just a truism. His major point is that it is invalid to attempt to talk about the world outside certain bounds, that he sets out to limit.
Quoting 013zen
Then what view is Witt taking? What's the point of Tractatus if not to criticize theories just like Plato of things like "The Good" and "Forms" above the "divided line", and levels of knowledge like "gnosis", etc. This is all written words about things that are not necessarily "objects" that can be put in propositions of true or false. Of course you can say, "No, he meant any object, not just material ones", then he needed to explain that point more rather than it be deduced from various cobbling of his claims. So this difference here may be how we are reading Tractatus, which I had alluded to earlier. That is, you seem to be giving Witt a more open view of previous metaphysics, when I think that he thinks himself demolishing previous metaphysics. It's not just a matter of how they are grammatically phrasing their words. It's not just that Plato could have kept his theory coherent if he had just worded his ideas of Forms more syntactically correct, but rather, that the content of his thoughts are non-sense, and thus are beyond the bounds of language.
Quoting 013zen
Right so we are debating here really is subjective to how we group this, but to my view of Tractatus, it is just his peculiar spin on the ideas Russell and Frege and others were working on. He is allowed to have his own take on it without it being wholly different in kind. The same then can be said to Russell's response to Frege, and others response to Russell, etc. I think Wittgenstein has just particularly been mythologized. A similar phenomenon has happened to the character of Nietzsche, great mustache that he had.
Quoting 013zen
Yes, as I admitted earlier, his philosophy indeed resembles that of an engineer or programmer. I'm not sure why you are reiterating what I already characterized as thus (he wrote in a manner perhaps appealing to engineers).
However, what I don't really agree with is just because he was an engineer, this confers greater approaches to philosophy. As @RussellA quoted:
Quoting RussellA
Perhaps that gave him more freedom to do his own thing without being encumbered by tradition, but it also seemed to lack epistemological considerations, as if by replacing epistemology with the structures of language, you can bypass epistemology altogether. But doing this is a sort of epistemology. You cannot just bypass it, and thus, this approach must be explained (not ignored or worse, assumed). Russell, for example, wrote a whole history of philosophy, so he was well-aware of traditions that came before and what he was trying to do (away with).
Quoting 013zen
It is exhausting to have philosophers not explain themselves well. There are many reasons for this. Obviously, ancient philosophers didn't necessarily have the amount of refutations written down in the form of essays that developed later. It was oral more than anything. There are commentaries on previous philosophers, for sure, but then we just get certain ones. There obviously weren't as many academics and so on either and the writings that are there are scant or lost to history if they existed at all. For modern day philosophers, it is about academic credibility. It is slow chess versus speed chess. We can answer quickly to our interlocutor in an philosophy forum with little repercussion other than hurt feelings or pride. For professional philosophers in the ivory towers of academia, they must worry about every word they published and so are much more careful to provide responses to commentary. The less you respond to interlocutors, the more the original work has to stand on its own. Then acolytes and mythos form around certain works and philosophers, and it becomes its own thing, with commentators and commentators of the commenters of the original.
Quoting 013zen
:up:
Perhaps it's the acolytes that are more to blame.
Quoting 013zen
:up:
Quoting 013zen
Where do you think Witt stands? I present as evidence the "Whereof.." quote.
Quoting 013zen
But they are doing metaphysics by expositing what they think of reality. Wittgenstein is trying to quickly move past that to facts. Objects are there behind the facts, but they are only useful for his idea of facts and propositions. Why doesn't he delve deeper into these initial beliefs? He certainly could have. And if you answer in a way that I already addressed (his demolishing of metaphysics as proper content of language), then I will simply point back to that.
I wholly agree with this. This line of discussion came up in order to clarify my original statement that Witt is concerned with is the logical clarification of thoughts, because I cited him as doing so through language, to which you cast me as calling him a simple grammatician. Later on you say:
Quoting schopenhauer1
and I also agree with this. I, personally, do think that Platos theory of forms is nonsense and I suspect that the framework presented by the Tractatus would label it as such. But, its important to note, that while it might be nonsense, it is not meaningless according to Witt. We can still talk about Platos theory of forms in meaningful language, but its wholly unclear.
Quoting schopenhauer1
While I can understand why you draw this conclusion, I think its slightly off in a few important ways.
1. Its not so much that its invalid to attempt to talk about the world outside of certain bounds, rather, it is unclear; that is, it lacks logical clarity.
2. He is not setting out to limit language. He thinks language is already limited, and those limits impose themselves on our understanding. Rather, he is attempting to investigate those limits, and show what needs to be the case in order for language to be clear. With this, one can draw an internal limit within the wider bounds of possible, meaningful, language. This is what science does, manufacturing more precise terminology than the wider sphere of language.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I agree with this, which is why I originally qualified my statement with:
Quoting 013zen
I dont think it makes him any better or worse, it just makes him different in how he presents and thinks about certain issues.
Quoting schopenhauer1
This is a tale as old as time, my friend. Lol Thats why its best to focus on as much primary literature as possible, I feel.
Quoting schopenhauer1
To circle back to my pointing out the version of the quote in the preface, wherein Witt ties the statement directly to the main project of logical clarification:
What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent. The book will, therefore, draw a limit to thinking, or rather not to thinking, but to the expression of thoughts; for, in order to draw a limit to thinking we should have to be able to think both sides of this limit (we should therefore have to be able to think what cannot be thought). The limit can, therefore, only be drawn in language and what lies on the other side of the limit will be simply nonsense.
The spark notes on my take is this:
1. Around the time of Bacon, metaphysics began getting criticized for allowing things like religion into proper discussion meant to explain reality.
2. Little by little, philosophers stripped metaphysics of this, that, or the other thing.
3. By the second wave of positivism (Mach, etc), metaphysics was considered totally irreparable, and not fit to aid in meaningful scientific inquiry and explanation. This left us in a position where we could only talk about facts ie experiences in science.
4. Some scientists formed an opposing view, saying that we could, in fact, speak meaningfully in science about things that we have no directly experienced of. They developed picture theories which supposedly were justified insofar as they followed logically from experience. Hertzs only complaint about these pictures was that they contained useless aspects due to language.
5. Wittgenstein, familiar with this opposition via Boltzmann and Hertz, developed his own picture theory of language, which elucidated why one can be justified in using pictures in science (and what it even means for something to logically follow from experience), as well as tried to suggest ways to circumvent those useless aspects due to language that Hertz had commented on.
6. Picture theories were justified, Witt argued insofar as the pictures it was presenting were a possible arrangement of elements of experience, not simply whole experiences. What do I mean, what's the difference?
Consider the question:
Does the sun orbit the earth or visa versa?
Positivists, if placed in 600 BCE with no prior knowledge of the answer, could only report what is seen, and would have to concede that its a topic we cant speculate regarding until we have more evidence. They would call the speculation of their contemporaries useless metaphysics.
A picture theory, however, would allow speculation, as long as youre positing possibilities that logically follow from experience, and dont introduce new elements without justification.
This difference is exemplified in the discussion between atomists and positivists, with the former saying they were justified in imagining atoms because atoms:
1. explained their experiences
2. were constructed using elements of experience, ie they had a shape, size, constitution (they were solid), they were movable, and they had properties like mass, all things science would expect something to have.
And by assuming some of these properties, we could explain what we experienced at the macroscopic level regarding gas expansion.
Positivist recoiled at this suggestion, with Mach calling them useful fictions useful on paper, but in no manner suitable within serious scientific discourse.
7. Witt disagreed with this. Some metaphysics was admissible if it tied itself to reality by only using elements which we can make sense of, which as it turns out, means they are only constructed out of things we know are necessary from past experiences. Things like mass, weight, size, shape, etc.
This is, however, my personal line of thinking.
And his ideas regarding facts and propositions is only useful insofar as it facilitates his goal of logically clear thoughts. I can't think of an object in space without a shape, for example so if I want to argue that some objects exists beneath my facts to explain it, I better construct them out of elements that have explanatory power, and tie back to reality. When I talk to others, explaining my ideas regarding what I think could account for the experience, if I can explain it by appealing to simple, necessary, elements of experience such as shape if it exists spatially and that shape must help to explain how it brings about the phenomenon in question.
Perhaps Wittgenstein didn't think of himself as a philosopher, and was working out his ideas more for himself than others. A kind of conversational research with himself.
There are philosophers that I respect such as Kyle Banick who do say that Wittgenstein had "big ideas", so perhaps Wittgenstein deserves to have been mythologized, even if that wasn't what he wanted himself.
Quoting 013zen
If I see a shadow I picture a shadow, and have learnt nothing, because I am picturing a picture. This leads to the problem of infinite regress, what pictures the picture.
However, as you say, if I picture a shadow, from past experience I can picture possible causes of the shadow, such as a cat, or a horse, or a cloud. Though none of these pictures of possible causes by themselves can tell me the true cause, for that I need further observations. If from further observation I do see a picture of a cat and not a picture of a horse or a cloud, then I can infer that the cause of the shadow was in fact a cat.
IE, it is not possible to learn from a picture of reality, but it is possible to learn from pictures of possible realities.
===============================================================================
Quoting 013zen
Within the Tractatus an object is indivisible, a simple.
This is not what the Neutral Monist thinks of an object, a simple. They think of an elementary particle such as a fermion or boson. This is not what the Indirect or Direct Realist thinks of an object, as for them an object such as an apple can be divided into the top of the apple and the bottom of the apple.
However, if the apple is thought of as a logical object, then it can be indivisible, simple, and as a logical object it can exist in a logical space. But where does this logical space exist?
The outside world is inherently logical, in that one thing is always one thing and if thing A is to the left of thing B then thing B is to the right of thing A. If the mind pictures a logical outside world then it follows that the picture in the mind will also be logical.
Noting, however, that the logical relation in the outside world between thing A and thing B is not the same as any ontological relation between thing A and thing B.
Logical objects in logical space puts a limit on what is possible, in that because one thing being two things is not logical it is not possible. Only logical objects are possible. Logic puts a limit on what is possible.
Objects such as apples and tables as logical objects are possible and therefore simples. Relations such as to the left of, taller than, heavier than or on top of as logical relations are possible and therefore simples.
A logical object can only exist in a logical space. Within this logical space exist other logical objects. This means that a logical object cannot exist in the absence of other logical objects. The consequence is that each logical object exists in some combination with other logical objects. A logical object in combination with another logical object is called a "state of affairs".
Between each logical object and all other logical objects are possible states of affairs
If within this logical world are logical possible states of affairs, and the mind can picture this world, then the mind in picturing logical possible states of affairs of necessity also becomes logical.
4.112 Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts.
:clap: :halo: :razz:
There are no logical objects (4.441)
Quoting RussellA
As part of a propositional analysis apples and tables can function as simples. Whether they do does not depend on their being possible, but on whether further analysis is needed in order for the proposition to make sense, that is, to know what is the case if it is true. If the proposition is about seeds or legs then apples and tables are not simples, but if the proposition is "The apple is on the table" no further analysis might be necessary.
The expression "logical objects" may be read in two ways. It can be referring to either 1) objects that are logical or 2) logic can be an object.
As regards sense 1), in logical space are objects in combination. In order for this to be the case, these objects must be logical and their combinations must be logical. For example, a blue apple is a logical object, whilst an unhappy apple is not a logical object. An apple on top of a table is a logical combination, whilst an apple inside the sun is not a logical combination.
As regards sense 2), Frege treated relations and universals as objects. FH Bradley in treating a relation as an object concluded that relations don't ontologically exist in the world. Wittgenstein disagrees with Frege, and concludes in 4.441 that "There are no logical objects". This means in particular that relations, such as "to the left of " or "on top of" logical cannot be treated as objects, and in general that logical form, such as i) all H are M ii) S is H iii) therefore, S is M is not an object, in the sense that "grass" is an object.
===============================================================================
Quoting Fooloso4
Apples and tables as names in a proposition are concepts. Some think that concepts are simples, including myself, and fall within the theory of Conceptual Atomism.
From the SEP article on Concepts
If concepts weren't simple, when we thought of a concept such as grass as a set of other concepts, such as a low green plant, we would have to think of each of these concepts, such as a plant, as a set of other concepts, such as a living organism. But sooner a later a concept must be a simple otherwise our thought would be never-ending.
Therefore, thought requires that some concepts must be simples.
In the Tractatus picture theory, a proposition such as "grass is green" pictures the state of affairs grass is green.
The state of affairs grass is green exists in a logical space.
As concepts can be simples, the concept "grass" could be a simple, and as words such as "grass" logically picture an object such as grass existing in a logical space, this suggests that objects such as grass are also simples.
It is true that actual grass is divisible, for example into the top of the blade of grass and the bottom of the blade of grass, but objects aren't actual objects but rather logical objects, and logical objects such as grass can be simples.
Ir objects such as grass are not actual objects but logical objects, then logical objects such as grass can be simples.
===============================================================================
Quoting Fooloso4
In the function T (x), where T is on a table, the function T (x) is true if the variable x satisfies the function T (x). For example, T (x) is true if the variable x is a book.
As I understand it, the variable x is what Wittgenstein is defining as a formal concept.
4.126 (I introduce this expression in order to exhibit the source of confusion between formal concepts and concepts proper, which pervades the whole of traditional logic)...................so the expression for a formal concept is a propositional variable in which this distinctive feature alone is constant.
4.127 The propositional variable signifies the formal concept, and its values signify the objects that fall under the concept.
4.1271 Every variable is the sign for a formal concept
4.1272 Thus the variable name "s" is the proper sign for the pseudo-concept object.
An unhappy apple is an illogical proposition not an illogical object. An apple on the table or inside the sun is not a combination of objects it is a relation of the objects apple and table (on) or apple and sun (in).
Quoting RussellA
I don't know if you are attempting to interpret the Tractatus or argue against it. He makes a distinction between proper concepts such as grass and formal concepts such as 'simple object'.
Quoting RussellA
Book is not a formal concept. In a proposition it does not have both the name 'book' and the variable name for a formal concept 'x'.
An object in logical space must be a logical object, meaning that its necessary properties must be logical. For example, if an apple was a logical object in logical space, it would have the necessary properties such as weight, colour and taste. An apple having the necessary property of happiness would not be a logical object.
In a state of affairs, objects are combined, necessitating a relation between them.
3.1432 Instead of "The complex sign "aRb" says that a stands to b in the relation R", we ought to put "That "a" stands to "b" in a certain relation says that aRb"
===============================================================================
Quoting Fooloso4
There are proper concepts such as "grass" and formal concepts such as the variable "x".
Wittgenstein in the Tractatus never explains what a simple object is, other than there must be simple objects, and that they must exist necessarily not contingently.
As states of affairs exists in logical space, and a state of affairs is a combination of objects, this means that these objects exist in logical space. An object existing in logical space infers that it it is a logical object.
I'm suggesting that in the expression "grass is green" is true iff grass is green, objects such as grass are not referring to actual objects, which are divisible, but must be referring to logical objects, which can be indivisible, and are simples.
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Quoting Fooloso4
I agree. The variable x is the formal concept, not the book.
The properties of objects in logical space are formal, internal, necessary properties. Weight, color and
taste are not necessary properties. 'Fact' is a formal concept. The facts in logical space are about the formal, logical structure of of the world. Facts in physical space are accidental, contingent. They are made possible by the necessary, logical structure of the world.
Quoting RussellA
'x' is not a formal concept. It is the name used to refer to the formal concept.
Quoting RussellA
The name "grass" as it occurs in a proposition refers to an actual complex object. I think what you are getting at is along the lines of what I said above:
Quoting Fooloso4
Quoting RussellA
It is because a book is not a formal concept that Wittgenstein does not refer to it by a variable name. The variable is a name not a concept.
You're close, but this isn't quite right, I don't believe.
In the function: "T(x)", both "T()" and "x" show that to each corresponds a different formal concept.
[b]"That anything falls under a formal concept [such] as an object belonging to it, cannot be expressed by a proposition. But it shows itself in the sign of this object itself. (The name shows that it signifies an object, the numerical sign that it signifies a number, etc.)
Formal concepts cannot, like proper concepts, be presented by a function. For their characteristics, the formal properties, are not expressed by the functions. The expression of a formal property is a feature of certain symbols. The sign that signifies the characteristics of a formal concept is, therefore, a characteristic feature of all symbols, whose meanings fall under the concept. The expression of the formal concept is therefore a propositional variable in which only this characteristic feature is constant" (4.126).[/b]
So, we cannot, for example, say:
"Red is a color" or "C(r)"
or
"1 is a number" or "N(1)"
for this is senseless.
Nor can we say:
"Color is a formal concept" or "F(c)".
The formal concepts are presupposed by the objects that already contain the characteristic features of the formal concept under which they fall.
This is why:
Quoting RussellA
In: "F(x)"
"x" is a simple object in that it presupposes the general form, or general characteristics necessary of any input which can satisfy the function. This is to say, that there is a formal concept associated with it, but "x" is not itself a formal concept, nor does it name a formal concept.
If, as Russell stipulates, x is a book, then there are no formal concepts in "T(x)". I don't know what () on the table means.
Wittgenstein is doing propositional analysis not coding.
Quoting 013zen
The first part is correct. The second part needs clarification. Formal concepts are represented in conceptual notion by variables. (4.1272)
Ah, yes, I think I've misread that bit, now that I've looked at it again.
I'll look it over again later :)
Quoting Fooloso4
A formal concept defines how the variables "T" and "x" are to "behave" or perhaps a better way to say it, is how they are to be understood.
These aren't like "proper concepts", such as "red", "hard", etc. which settles the external properties of complex objects.
In the proposition:
"The grass is green"
We have the presentation of a complex object with the material property of being red.
If we analyze the proposition into the elementary proposition we can the presentation of a "proper concept", which takes as input a simple object:
Fx
Now, we can in some sense talk about the structure of the elementary proposition, and we can note that whatever can be taken as input for "x" must be of a certain type, or kind. To this type corresponds a formal concept. We cannot, for example, input a proper number to which corresponds the formal concept of number for say, a simple object.
So, while we can say:
"There are two red fruits"
this analyzes into:
?x(P(x)) ? ?y(P(y) ? (x?y))
There is no sign corresponding to the formal concept "number" despite what appears to be a number presented in the proposition.
I now no longer believe that the x in F (x) is a formal concept, but in fact represents a concept proper.
Quoting 013zen
Consider the proposition "grass is green".
If x = grass satisfies the function Green (x) then Green (x) is true.
Where grass and green are "concepts proper" (4.126)
From 4.12, a proposition can represent concepts proper, such as grass and green, but cannot represent logical form, ie "formal concepts" (4.126). A proposition can only "show" (4.121) logical form.
So, within the proposition "grass is green", where is the logical form? The logical form of the proposition must be shown by the word "is", which is a relation between concepts proper. For Wittgenstein, unlike Frege, relations are not object. Relations have no existence other than relating concepts proper, in that if the concepts proper were removed, no relation would remain as some kind of Platonic Form.
As the concept "is" can only be shown and not represented, it is a formal concept rather than a concept proper.
Similarly within the function Green (x), where is the logical form? The term "Green" infers the expression "is green", where "is" is the formal concept and green is the concept proper.
For both the proposition "grass is green" and the function Green (grass), in the first the formal concept "is" is explicit and in the second the formal concept "is" is inferred. The concepts proper remain grass and green.
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Quoting 013zen
A concept proper cannot be a number.
From 4.0312, "logical constants" such as and, or, if, and then are not representatives. This makes sense, in that logical constants are not Platonic Forms.
Suppose there is a horse in a field and another horse enters the same field. We can say "horse AND horse". But if one horse left the field, the AND would not remain in the field as some kind of Platonic Form. AND only exists in the relationship between two concepts proper.
3.1432: We must not say, The complex sign aRb says a stands in relation R to b; but we must say, That a stands in a certain relation to b says that aRb.
Similarly, we could "horse 2 horse". But if one horse left the field, the 2 would not remain in the field as some kind of Platonic Form. Numbers only exist in the relationship between two concepts proper.
As numbers only exist in the relationship between concepts proper, and relations in the Tractatus are not objects, they are formal concepts.
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Quoting 013zen
However, isn't it the case that the logical symbol ? (which means AND), is where number is introduced into the expression. For example, "horse AND horse" by its very nature has introduced the concept of number, in that if I wanted to explain the concept of the number 2 to someone, I could say either "horse ? horse" or "horse AND horse" and then show them the field with 2 horses in it.
4.1272 "The same applies to the words "complex", "fact", "function", "number", etc - They all signify formal concepts............."1 is a number", "There is only one zero" and all similar expressions are nonsensical
Why do you think that particular numbers, such as the number 1, are not formal concepts?
I think Wittgenstein is saying that an "object" like the number 1 has a sense if it is an object or a description. So, "There is one horse". Or "Look, 1 plus 1 is 2." Or "Here is one". But once you juxtapose 1 with a class of objects that it belongs, (a number), that cannot be "shown" in the state of affairs, so fails to make "sense" (literally, because obviously the phrase resounds as true to us in grammatical form).
I just don't buy this distinction which he was trying to make, which seemed to be following Russell's own paradox about the logic of the logical structures themselves, and the incompleteness theorem, etc.
Ideas exist in the world, and therefore, ideas can be objects. All this seems to stem from a need to lock things into "states of affairs of the world" that can be true or false. Since "One is a number" cannot be true or false as a state of affairs in the world, it fails to be a sensical sentence, at least for what he thinks is proper as to what can be said clearly.
See the statement I put in bold:
(4.12721)
If I say: "There are a number of horses" that is expressed by the variable x. This does not tell us how many horses. If, however, I say: "There are three horses" then the number of horses is not expressed as the variable 'x', which could mean any number of horses, but as '3'.The logical structure of the proposition is the same, but in this case I am not talking about the formal concept 'number'.
From Bertrand Russell's Introduction:
3.1431 The essence of a propositional sign is very clearly seen if we imagine one composed of spatial objects (such as tables, chairs and books) instead of written signs. Then the spatial arrangement of these things will express the sense of the proposition.
It seems that an object like the number1 is a formal concept, and being a formal concept, can never be the sense of a proposition and can never be described by a proposition, but only shown.
Thus, it seems to be the case for Witts theory, 1 + 1 = 2 is formal as it is not a state of affairs per se, but a description of a category of sets that may occur as a state of affairs. Its a description of a class not of a particular state of affairs that could be true or false.
I might argue that more Kantian discussion is needed here which is completely ignored it looks like.
As I understand it, a proposition cannot express a formal concept, ie the logical structure of the proposition, but it can only be shown by the proposition.
From Bertrand Russell on Something by Landon D.C. Elkind
Whereas the early Bertrand Russell thought that a pure logical structure wasn't possible, Wittgenstein believed that a pure logical structure, one of formal concepts, was possible.
IE, 4.12721 is saying that the concept of a number and particular numbers cannot be primitive but are both formal concepts.
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Quoting Fooloso4
I could say "there are 3 horses".
As the number 3 cannot be described but only shown, this makes it a formal concept.
For Wittgenstein, numbers are not objects having Platonic Form that can be described in the absence of the horses that they are quantifying.
As the elementary proposition "1 + 1 = 2" asserts the existence of a state of affairs, the logical structure of the elementary proposition "1 + 1 = 2" must be mirrored in the state of affairs.
As numbers are formal concepts, I think I am right in saying that Wittgenstein would call this proposition meaningless.
Yes, but Kant would simply classify it as analytic a priori. It is a truth that can be grasped through purely reasoning and not experience (equivalent to Wittgenstein's "state of affairs in the world"). But I am perplexed why with all this epistemological history he could have drawn from, he ignores it.
What falls under a formal concept is not another formal concept.
(4.126)
The sign '3' signifies a number, not the concept 'number'. '3' falls under the formal concept number. If '3' was a formal concept then every number would be a formal concept. In that case we would have the formal concept 'number' and the formal concepts '1', '2', '3' .... and so on.
(4.1271)
'Number' is the constant form. 1, 100, and 1,000 are variables that have as a formal property this formal concept.
I am unsure what you are saying here. I don't see how a mathematical statement like "1 + 1 = 2" is NOT a formal concept, UNLESS it was about a "state of affairs of the world". It isn't. It is Platonic non-sensing according to this view. If it IS something that is a state of affairs, tell me "where" it is found, other than the concept itself (the set of 1 and the set of 1 combining). It is a purely logical statement, not a state of affairs in the world. It's not saying THIS 1 plus THAT 1 = 2. Just 1 + 1 = 2, a generalized statement. As I said to @RussellA:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Mathematical equations are pseudo-proposiitons , but this does not mean the equation is a concept, either proper or formal. 1+1=2 is not concept, it is a calculation.
(6.2)
It has been said that Wittgenstein never studied philosophy as such, although he may have learnt from certain other philosophers he was in direct contact with, such as Bertrand Russell. So he did ignore epistemological history as he was not interested in the history of philosophy as a field of knowledge.
There may be a difference between Kant's analytic a priori and Wittgenstein's formal concept, in that Kant's analytic a priori is knowledge prior to any knowledge about the world, whereas Wittgenstein's formal concept straddles on one side language and thought and on the other side the world.
In the Tractatus, the formal concepts existing in language, which cannot be described but only shown, are mirrored by formal concepts that also exist in the world
IE, for Kant, the analytic a priori exists prior to any knowledge of the world, whereas for Wittgenstein the formal concepts in language are mirrored by formal concepts in the world.
Quoting Fooloso4
Quoting Fooloso4
The Tractatus mentions three kinds of concepts: formal concept, concept proper and pseudo-concept.
Formal concepts
The logic that ties elementary propositions together and states of affairs together cannot be described but can only be shown.
Pseudo-concepts
Nowhere in the Tractatus does Wittgenstein describe what an object is, other than they are necessary for the substance of the world. Objects are pseudo-concepts.
Concepts proper
Concepts proper are things in ordinary language such as apples, tables and books
Two types of elementary propositions can be considered, Tractarian and ordinary language. Problems arise when ordinary language elementary propositions are used to illustrate Tractarian elementary propositions.
Ordinary language elementary propositions
Ordinary language elementary propositions must include both formal concepts and concepts proper, such as "grass is green", where "grass" and "green" are objects and "is" provides the logical structure.
Tractarian elementary propositions
Tractarian elementary propositions must include both formal concepts and pseudo-concepts.
Elementary propositions mirror states of affairs in the world
For example, in the elementary proposition "F (x)", x is the sign for the pseudo-concept object. F is the sign for the internal property of x, and as an internal property is a necessary part of the object x. As objects are pseudo-concepts, then F is also a sign for a pseudo-concept. The logic is shown in the function F (x) itself, signifying a formal concept.
Properties are internal if necessary to the object
As Bertrand Russell writes in the Introduction, objects can only be mentioned in connexion with some definite property
The number 3
There is the universal concept of number and there are particular numbers, such as 3.
Number is described as a formal concept.
Objects are pseudo concepts because they exist in the world and make up the substance of the world. Mathematical equations, which show the logic of language and the world, are, as you say "a logical method", and as part of the logical method are formal concepts.
As the Tractatus uses the term pseudo-proposition in a negative way, mathematical equations cannot be pseudo-propositions
What is the number 3 in the Tractatus? It cannot be a pseudo-concept as it doesn't exist as part of the substance of the world. It should be treated as any other logical function, such as "and", "or", "if" or "then", which make up the fabric of logical structure, and are formal concepts.
Logical constants don't represent, but show.
The number 3 is a sign that signifies a number. Numbers are formal concepts. Therefore, the number 3 is a sign that signifies a formal concept, in the same way that the logical constant "and" also signifies a formal concept.
IE, within the Tractatus, the number 3 cannot be a pseudo-object as it doesn't make up the substance of the world, but because it is part of the logical structure of both elementary propositions and state of affairs, it must be, as with all particular numbers, and as with all logical constants, a formal concept.
@RussellA
Right, and that makes no sense to me to break that apart from the notion of "formal concepts". Being this is his own system, he can do whatever, I guess.
Why is "One is a number" a formal concept and "1 + 1 = 2" not a "formal concept"? I can break the world up in any number of ways, and make exceptions for everything that doesn't fit quite right.
And sure, why should a philosopher NOT consult past philosophers who were discussing similar themes :roll:. Let's reinvent the wheel!
Quoting RussellA
He cared about thoughts? He sure seems to give it short shrift....Just read some Kant, and bring some thought back (and stop pretending everything is "language") :wink:.
Quoting RussellA
Why can't they be described but 1 + 1 = 2 can be so?
Quoting RussellA
So, are you agreeing with me? That was what I said, that numbers (or rather equations) are formal concepts because they are not abouts states of affairs of the world. Again, Kant is informative here, it is an analytic a priori statement. You don't need to know a state of affairs of the world, for this to be true (i.e. one doesn't need experiential evidence, and it is not contingently true on a state of affairs in the world).
Formal concepts are pseudo-concepts.
Quoting RussellA
'Object' is a pseudo-concept because it says nothing about what is the case, not because it makes up the substance of the world.
Quoting RussellA
'3' signifies the value of the concept number. A particular number falls under the concept number in a way analogous to 'table' falling under the concept 'object'. That does not mean that 'table' is a pseudo-concept.
In the Tractatus, there seem to be formal concepts and pseudo-concepts. Pseudo-concepts are the objects which are necessary for the substance of the world. The rest is logic, which cannot be described but must be shown.
I think that the propositions "one is a number" and "1 + 1 = 2" should be treated in much the same way, as being part of the logical structure. Numbers are not objects.
As Bertrand Russell writes in the Introduction
Numbers are not Platonic Forms that remain after the objects have been removed. Numbers play their part in the logical structure, not in providing any substance to the world.
Kant knows "1 + 1 = 2" prior to observing the world.
For Wittgenstein's Picture Theory, elementary propositions mirror states of affairs in the world
The Tractatus is saying that the logical part of the proposition "1 + 1 = 2" in language mirrors the logical part of the state of affairs 1 + 1 = 2 in the world.
One difference between Kant and Wittgenstein is that Wittgenstein's Picture Theory in the Tractatus does not engage with the possibility of knowing that 1 + 1 = 2 prior to observing the world (as I understand it).
I think he might say something like, "1 + 1 =2" might be non-sense if it doesn't have a state of affairs in the world that it is discussing that can be true or false. But you used an interesting word here- knowing. Knowing is something the mind does. Wittgenstein seems to not care to discuss mind, but language limits. If signs are not signifying a possible states of affairs, they are not picturing anything, and thus cannot be communicated with any sense.
However, clearly, analytic and a prioricity statements exist. "All bachelors are male" is not a state of affairs. 1 +1 =2 is not derived from empirical evidence, but as a functioning of how numbers work. What does he think of such things that are not "states of affairs" in the world, but are nevertheless statements that can be communicated.
Let's say that his idea is, "These analytic a priori statements cannot provide information about the world itself", what does this add to the philosophical school of ideas? Kant already elucidated that it is only empirical and synthetic statements that the "world" can inform us, but that a priori and analytic statements are truths that our reasoning can inform us. Both can be communicated using symbols. One tells us about the state of affairs of the world, whether the case is true or false (synthetic-contingent, and experiential-empirical), and the other is necessary for language itself to function. Certainly, this could lead to a regress (definitions of definitions of definitions), and surely, at some point, it is simply just a matter of "knowing" the object is the object without any further explanation, but then we are getting into psychology, and NOT the "limits" of language. Surely I can point to these processes that account for object formation in the mind, and how we attach meaning to objects. And then, I have a "state of affairs" about how the mind KNOWS objects, and is not an infinite regress of definitions of the concept, but a theory of meaning that accounts for the concept-formation, and thus where language ends definitionally, I can continue on explanatorily with the psychology of concept-formation.
For Wittgenstein, thought was language and language was thought. I may disagree, but that seems to be his position. As he said, the limits of my language is the limits of my world.
Notebooks 1914-16 12/6/2016 page 82.
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Quoting schopenhauer1
Within the Tractatus, an elementary proposition pictures a state of affairs. The state of affairs pictured may or may not obtain. If there were no states of affairs to picture, then there would be no elementary proposition. It seems that one important feature of the Tractatus is in developing the modal idea of possible worlds, allowing us to talk about non-existent things, such as Sherlock Holmes and unicorns. This was something Bertrand Russell had trouble with, how to think of something that doesn't exist. For Wittgenstein, the problem goes away, as objects always exist, and only their combinations change. This allows the mind to move between actual and possible worlds .
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Quoting schopenhauer1
For Wittgenstein in the Tractatus, there is no synthetic a priori. We cannot know "grass is green " or "1 + 1 = 2" prior to observing the world. Our only knowledge comes from observation. We have no analytic a priori knowledge. The Tractatus is an Empiricist Theory.
I disagree, but that is the Tractatus.
The Picture Theory is limited to elementary propositions mirroring states of affairs in the world. However, "1 + 1 = 2" is only the logical part of an elementary proposition, not a representative part of an elementary proposition. The logic of "1 + 1 = 2" in language is mirrored by the logic of 1 + 1 = 2 in the world as a state of affairs.
There is no temporal consideration, in that knowing "1 + 1 = 2" in language is contemporaneous with 1 + 1 = 2 being the state of affairs in the world.
Personally, as I believe that the world is fundamentally logical - in that one thing is always one thing, if thing A is to the left of thing B then thing B is to the right of thing A and if event C happens after event D then event D happened before event C - then if language mirrors the world, then language also will be fundamentally logical.
I think that the Picture Theory is fundamentally flawed, in that it leads to as you say "an infinite regress", but that is another matter.
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Quoting schopenhauer1
From Wittgensteins Picture Theory of Meaning by Christopher Hurtado
Yes a red toy car can picture a real red car, but the flaw in the Picture Theory is the statement "had to be stipulated", which has to happen outside the Picture Theory.
Suppose in the world is a red car, a blue bicycle and a green truck. Suppose in the model is a red piece of wood, a blue piece of metal and a green piece of marble.
The Picture Theory assumes that the red piece of wood pictures the red car, the blue piece of metal pictures the blue bicycle and the green piece of marble pictures the green truck. But why should this be so?
Why cannot it be the case that wood pictures a truck, metal pictures a bicycle and marble pictures a car?
Or perhaps red in the model pictures a distance of 3 metres, blue in the model pictures a distance of 5 metres and green in the model pictures a distance of 10 metres.
There is no necessity that a red piece of wood pictures a red car, and yet the Picture Theory depends on this unspoken necessity, which seems to me to be a fundamental flaw in the Picture Theory.
IE, I agree that Kant's Critique of Pure Reason makes more sense than Wittgenstein's Tracatus, although the Tractarian idea of modal worlds is very important in philosophy.
(Kyle Banick - Necessity and Contingency - YouTube)
There are two kinds of objects, concepts proper and pseudo-concepts. There are
concepts proper in our ordinary world, such as "furniture", and there are pseudo-concepts in the Tractarian world, of which the variable x is the proper sign.
In our ordinary world, a "table" is a particular instantiation of the concept proper "furniture". However it is also the case that "a table" is another concept proper, which mat be instantiated in its turn.
In our ordinary world, something that falls under a concept proper can also be a concept proper.
'Object' is a pseudo-concept. A particular object is not.
(4.1272)
Quoting RussellA
Right, but the issue is whether something that falls under a pseudo-concept is a pseudo-concept.
Curious your thoughts on this part:
Quoting schopenhauer1
I am basically challenging Wittgenstein's project in Tractatus as the limits of language being actually "limits" the way he defines them (at some point you cannot say but show only).
As I see it, some words we learn by description and some by acquaintance.
As regards learning by description, we can go to the dictionary and discover that a "tree" is defined as "a woody perennial plant having a single usually elongate main stem generally with few or no branches on its lower part". But then we have to look up the definition of "woody" and end up in an infinite regress.
Sooner or later, we have to learn words by acquaintance, as illustrated in the picture below. As the Tractatus notes, I cannot describe the meaning of "ngoe", I can only show it. Though I agree that this is not the same approach as laid out in the Tractatus.
What do you think "ngoe" means, now you have been "shown" the picture?
I don't see the problem. A proposition is a picture. A picture that makes use of both a visual and a propositional representation is still a picture.
Quoting RussellA
It can. If the picture is intended to show the relative positions of a truck, a bicycle, and a car involved in an accident then a piece of wood. a piece of metal, and a marble can represent the situation. We make use of such pictures all the time.
Quoting RussellA
Just as the car does not become the bicycle, it is necessary that whatever it is the represents the car in the picture does not become something else.
In the model is a red piece of wood, and in the world is a red car.
From the Picture Theory, the red piece of wood in the model pictures the red car in the world.
But how do we know, just from the picture itself, whether i) the red in the model is picturing the red in the world or ii) the wood in the model is picturing red in the world?
From the picture itself, we cannot know. We need someone to come along and tell us which is the case i) or ii), and if that happens, this destroys the Picture Theory, which is meant to stand alone.
That depends on the medium of representation, whether what is being pictured is intended to communicate something to someone else, and what it is that is being represented.
(2.1)
(2.11)
(2.15)
If we were only picturing facts to ourselves, then we are using a Private Language, which Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations said was not possible.
Even if we were picturing facts to ourselves, we would have to make the conscious choice whether i) the red in the model is picturing the red in the world or ii) the wood in the model is picturing red in the world.
If that were the case, a picture wouldn't be a model of reality, a picture would be a model of an individual's conscious decisions.
So is this illustration supposed to be showing a potential "theory" of cognition for words associated with objects? If so this itself would be an illustration of a "psychological theory" that goes beyond simply "acquaintance" (showing) the object, thus refuting that "acquaintance" or "showing" is where it must stop. Actually, it can go further into explanatory theory- whether that be Hume's constant conjunctions, Kant's Transcendental Idealism, or modern cognitive neuroscientific theories!
Quoting Fooloso4
Quoting Fooloso4
Tractarian objects are pseudo-concepts
Why is a Tractarian object a pseudo-concept? Things can be said about concepts proper, such as book and tables, but things cannot be said about Tractarian objects because they are simples. They are pseudo-concepts because they are simples.
Why are Tractarian objects simples? If they weren't simples, propositions could not picture the world.
Therefore as Tractarian objects (ie, pseudo-concepts) are simples (ie, indivisible), there cannot be anything that falls under them.
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Quoting Fooloso4
Tractarian objects are pseudo-concepts
The proposition "x is a horse" is a concept proper and the proposition "x is a number" is a formal concept.
(Spark notes Propositions 4.12 4.128)
Examples of propositional variables could be: "the sky is blue", "the sky is purple", "grass is green", "grass is orange".
Being propositional variables, each has the value either true or false.
In the truth table, "the sky is blue" is true, "the sky is purple" is false, "grass is green" is true, "grass is orange" is false.
Therefore the propositional variable "x is a number" signifies a formal concept.
What does Wittgenstein mean by formal? He refers to formal relations, which are logical relations between objects. He refers to formal properties, which are internal and logical. Formal means logical.
The variable name x signifies a pseudo-concept object
On the one hand the propositional variable "x is a number" signifies a formal concept and on the other hand the variable x signifies a pseudo-concept object. Therefore, a formal concept cannot be a pseudo-concept.
Even this on the face of it seems odd to call a "pseudo-concept". Why can't it just be a concept that represents possibilities of states of affairs? And what about "Blue unicorns where hats on Tuesdays"? That is a pseudo-concept / proposition?
And even if it is, so what? This is similar to the problem of Russell, "The present King of France is Bald".
By empirical means, this sentence is about an imaginary or made-up class of characters. That is still a class of things, a kind of concept. Does Wittgenstein allow for that, if he is "object-agnostic" (he doesn't elaborate on what an object is in any significant metaphysical description)?
And what about "concepts" like "processes"? It's arguable that "processes" like "evolution" don't really "exist" but are groupings of how we identify the world as to what happens to objects. "Evolution" itself may not be a "thing" in the world per se, but a descriptor of a series of phenomena that is grouped together by humans for explanatory power.
I agree that explaining how the mind can learn the meaning of the world "ngoe" from just five pictures is beyond my pay grade. All I know is that it works, and is in principle very simple.
The Tractatus only begins after I have learnt the word "ngoe", and only then, does the word "ngoe" in language mirror the "ngoe" in the world.
Sure, but then, why make a theory that limits language thus in such a way with how he treats language, objects, concepts, propositions, etc.? Don't these types of explanatory things that go "beyond" mere showing refute his claims on the limits of language?
First, we do not only picture facts to ourselves. Second, even if we did that would not be a private language unless no one else could understand it and what is pictured is something no one else could be aware of.
Quoting RussellA
The picture that comes to mind need not be the result of conscious choice. With regard to the model of the accident the color of the car has no bearing on what is being depicted. What a picture represents is a logical relation:
Quoting Fooloso4
Quoting RussellA
'Object' is a pseudo-concept but not all objects are simple objects. Spatial objects such as a chairs tables, and books ( 3.1431) are not simple objects.
Quoting RussellA
'x' is the variable name for the pseudo concept 'number'. (4.1272) Substituting "a number" for 'x' gives us: "Number is a number" which is nonsense. The variable name 'x' cannot be used for both the pseudo-concept 'number' and 'a number'.
There are two distinct worlds. There is our ordinary world with concepts proper and objects like books, tables and mountains. There is the Tractarian world with pseudo-concepts and objects that are simples and indivisible.
Objects such as blue, unicorn and hat and concepts such as processes and evolution are not referred to in the Tractatus as they are concepts proper in ordinary language and the Tractatus is not dealing with ordinary language.
Another reason that concepts such as process and evolution are not referred to in the Tractatus is that they are abstract concepts, such as angst and beauty, which can neither be described nor shown. Only concrete concepts such as blue, unicorn and hat that can be either described or shown.
A proposition such as "unicorns wear hats" is an ordinary language proposition. In the Tractatus, the propositions Wittgenstein is referring to have the form fx
It may be convenient to try to understand the Tractatus using ordinary language propositions such as "grass is green", but only as an analogy, as one tries to understand gravity by picturing a ball on a sheet of rubber.
However the Tractatus is philosophically important in beginning to develop the idea of modal worlds, possible worlds, where we can sensibly talk about non-existent things like unicorns and Sherlock Holmes, something that Bertrand Russell had problems with.
Anyway, I am off on holiday, but want to say that I have learnt a lot from this thread.
I look and see a fact in the world such as "the apple is on the table". As no-one else can see into my mind, in that telepathy is not a thing. I can only picture facts to myself.
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Quoting Fooloso4
In the model is a red piece of wood and in the world is a red car.
I agree that when I see the colour red, I have no conscious choice as to what colour I see, in that I cannot choose to see another colour, such as blue or green.
I agree that there is a logical relation between the red piece of wood in the model and the red car in the world.
But who knows what these logical relations are. These logical relations cannot be determined by the picture alone.
For example, is the logical relation between the red in the model and the red in the world (in that the red in the model pictures the red in the world) or is the logical relation between the red in the model and the car in the world (in that the red in model pictures the car in the world).
Within the same picture can be innumerable logical relations.
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Quoting Fooloso4
Objects such as chairs, tables and books are not Tractarian objects. These are objects in ordinary language. and the Tractatus is not dealing with ordinary language.
The key word is "imagine". Wittgenstein is using an analogy. He is not saying that tables, chairs and books are Tractarian objects.
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Quoting Fooloso4
Exactly. As Bertrand Russell writes in the introduction, to say "x is an object" is to say nothing. As he says, meaningless.
The proposition "x is a number" is a Formal Concept. Formal means logical. It is the whole proposition that is the Formal Concept, because the Formal Concept establishes the relations between its parts, "x" and "number".
"Number" is a pseudo-concept
The variable name "x" is a sign that signifies a number, such that "x is a number".
In the proposition "x is a number", we could substitute "x" by "x is a number" giving the proposition "x is a number is a number". Continuing "x is a number is a number is a number". But this becomes meaningless. Therefore, in the proposition "x is a number", there must be an identity between "x" and "number", meaning that if "number" is a pseudo-concept then "x" must also be a pseudo concept.
Therefore both "x" and "number" are pseudo concepts. The proposition "x is a number" is a Formal Concept.
I am off on holiday, but have appreciated the conversational research about the Tractatus.
The proposition "the apple is on the table" is a picture of the apple on the table.
Quoting RussellA
The logical relation of the model to the car? It is a representation, a picture, of it. If I don't know what it it represents I may not know it from seeing the red piece of wood, but I might not know that even a life-sized model with an actual red car of the same make and model represents the accident.
Quoting RussellA
Yes, and it is possible that some picture can represent all of them.
Quoting RussellA
They are not the objects that make up the substance of the world. They are, however, objects talked about in the Tractatus. The pseudo-concept 'object' covers both.
Quoting RussellA
The key words are "propositional sign", that is, the variable 'x'.
Quoting RussellA
'x' is the "name" of the formal concept 'number'.
Quoting RussellA
The variable name 'x' is not a concept.
'x' or some other variable is how formal or pseudo-concepts such as 'object' and 'number' are represented in a proposition.
Again, these distinctions between "concept", "formal concept", and "pseudo-concept", I know come from the broader analytic hay-making of only looking at language, and not the psychology behind the language. This is why I think Kant is much more interesting, as he actually not only covers these various issues with great rigor (especially his analytic-synthetic distinction), he goes on to explain how it is that both of these understandings of reality come about. He is widening the field of explanation, not limiting it. And thus I find this early 20th century positivist-analytic anti-metaphysics/epistemology distasteful and cloyingly more arrogant than the usual philosopher's arrogant schtick (they killed you Socrates for asking too many questions...and possibly siding with Sparta...!!).
We have psychology, neuroscience, anthropology, biology, and a whole host of other scientific and humanistic disciples that can explain how language might possibly work, the psychology behind concept formation, etc. Many "theories" (like evolution), are groupings of phenomenon for explanatory power, yet they are real. I don't see Wittgenstein's "state of affairs" as even encompassing these kind of meta-understandings of the world. "Evolution is the mechanism of biological change in species". That statement according to Witt, would probably be some kind of "pseudo-concept". Ridiculous.
I think Fooloso4 does a good job of raising some of the issues I have, as well as more I hadn't considered. I'll have to work through the discussion a bit.
While I firmly believe that youre right that in order to fully appreciate what's going on with a lot of the ideas in the Tractatus, that a familiarity with Kant is particularly helpful I dont agree that the analytic tradition was, in some sense, a watered down version of many of the ideas we see developed in Kant, though.
These thinkers were responding to Kant; this is why the neo-kantian movement finds its roots at this time in thinkers like Helmholtz, despite him being primarily a physicist.
Again, I really think its best to consider the discussion as part of, well, a discussion; not some philosopher or scientist screaming into a vacuum.
The question that scientists had been asking, at least, as far back as Francis Bacon was: Can metaphysics supply us with genuine knowledge?
That is:
Can we know why something occurs, and not simply how it occurs?
Hume answered: No.
Genuine knowledge only comes to us via the senses. We can only ever say how things happen, and never why. Therefore, we can never be certain of any of our knowledge, because despite seeing something a hundred times, it could always be the case that I am ignorant of the true inner workings of the phenomena, and in fact, it only repeats a certain pattern 100 times before evolving into some other pattern.
Kant didnt like this. He thought we could have genuine metaphysical knowledge.
Kant answered the question: Yes. We can know why things occur, and therefore be certain about them.
Yes, we do gain knowledge through the senses, but this knowledge is a synthesis of empirical data that is categorized by the mind via independently existing mental structures. An internal logic, if you will, that orders and categorizes information we gain from experience. This is how we can be certain of things like Cause and effect and 1+1=2.
This was awesome, but left us in a position where we could never untangle reality from what we supply. Sure, we could have certainty regarding why things occurred, but we could never know to what extent we are right regarding our picture of the world.
Hegel (I think) had a clever idea...basically, borrowing from Humes copy principle, he said we copy direct aspects of reality, but categorize and manipulate them with an inherent logic which we can study, isolate, and thereby know what exactly the mind supplies of experience. What remains will be reality, or the supposedly unknowable reality Kant left us with.
This was cut short, however, when studies during the tail end of the 1800s showed that we do not, in fact, copy reality in any sense. We translate the experience via sensory organs into electrical signals that are then reinterpreted by the brain. We could show, for example, that by stimulating specific nerves via controlled electric shocks, we could cause patients to see light where there wasnt any.
This caused the back to Kant movement during the early 1900s.
This is why Mach starts trying to consider how we might break up ideas into elements which constitute them without appealing to atoms.
Which sets the stage for the neo-positivism / neo-kantian debate during the 1900s.
Witts Tract is certainly responding to this since he no doubt was familiar with the debate via Russell. Insofar as I dont consider him to be sympathetic to the neo-positivism angle, I do wonder if the work can be read in a neo-kantian light? My tertiary knowledge leads me to think that Witt is trying to bridge the gap, somehow, but I cannot be certain of this.
Really interesting ideas....i'll have to catch up more when I have time.
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He continues:
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And:
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Can we know that all objects are given? Can we know all possible states of affairs? At best we can know what states of affairs have occurred. But actual states of affairs are not the only states of affairs that are possible. If that were the case nothing new could occur.
Without making it explicit Wittgenstein has drawn a limit to human knowledge. This limit is distinct from that of what can be said and what is shown.
And what about scientific ideas like "evolution" that require clues from nature, and are not "states of affairs" of the world, but a combining of phenomena into a concept of how not "what" is happening? To me, Early Witt would just say that this kind of explanatory evidence is not suitable for logical analysis so has to be considered a pseudo-concept. But that seems at odds with how science works, which is by not just observing "states of affairs", but creating explanations from the "states of affairs" of various experiments.
At the end of the day, it seems like Tractatus gives us an interesting computer coding framework. What you can do with his ideas is create a neat coding language from it. I can probably map out Tractatus claims to "constants" and "variables" and "boolean", syntax errors, undefined variables, and such from his propositions of linguistic analysis- and as it works for that purpose, it is fine and dandy.
However, as it is trying to actually picture the "world" and "reality" (not just be an internal guide for parsing out terms in a language), it falls short. And I am not saying that Kant is RIGHT or has captured THE TRUTH. But rather, I see Kant as actually doing epistemology while Witt is doing proto-programming. That is to say Witt might be coherent within the system he defines thusly, but it's explanatory power for how his claims map onto the world is anemic. That is to say, there is nothing really doing this corresponding. There is nothing putting the claims to the world as to how this occurs. It doesn't have to be Kantian, but it does have to be explanatory as far as how the epistemology operates and works. This is not done, so there is no "picture theory". Objects are ill-explained. How the mind creates objects, observes objects, observes cause and effect, are given short shrift, etc. It is coherentism looking to be correspondence theory.
I take your point, and I think looking at one side of the work, there are a lot of questions on can bring to bear. There is good reason to wonder whether the analytic project as a whole was a misguided effort, despite seeming reasonable at its roots.
But, considering your point, and reading other remarks that Witt makes, I'm beginning to get the sense that, perhaps, he was critiquing that very project.
I think that Fooloso4 put it well when they pointed out:
Quoting Fooloso4
Witt. seems to ultimately say that one cannot provide all the elementary propositions apriori; because you can never predict beforehand if you'll find yourself in a situation which needs a new sign. The world is logical, and human logic mirrors its form; we cannot say what that form is though. We cannot even think it. So, regarding epistemology we're limited to only possibilities we can think, but things could always turn out otherwise.
Concepts like "evolution" are one possible description of the world - we can arrange things in this way; but this is only one possible description, and we could always discover some new, better, description. We can, however, be certain that it will make sense, once given all the pieces; it will be logically in order.
All the point about the elementary propositions is now left in such state that all they can accomplish is, perhaps, as you've said: useful for making sure that scientific discourse is culled of unnecessary signs ...that is, they are simply a useful tool, but one cannot glean anything meaningful from them, because there could always be more. Science is meant to discover the states of affairs, first, for which the elementary propositions will follow insofar as if we understand anything it must be logical, and our language will mirror that logic when we attempt to express our ideas. We will always be able to analyze language and eliminate unnecessary signs, better displaying the logic that was always present, but this comes after the fact.
I'll just end with this quote from the work that I think is helpful insofar as its not technical, and also that it seems to express a general sentiment that Witt wanted to express for the work:
[b]"All propositions of our colloquial language are actually, just as they are, logically completely in order. That most simple thing which we ought to give here is not a simile of truth but the complete truth itself.
(Our problems are not abstract but perhaps the most concrete that there are)" (5.5563).[/b]
We cannot abstract our problems away. We are always in a situation where we are forced to adopt the best picture we have of the world, and furnish the objects accordingly. Analysis cannot show whether you've got the right description, only whether the picture is logically in order.
Interesting. That matter of abstraction puts the focus on what "psychology" is understood to be in the text. Close or far, as it is described.
He was. But since he did so using their language it may seem as though he is in agreement with them.
Quoting 013zen
A couple of remarks from Wittgenstein:
Do I want to say, then, that certain facts are favorable to the formation of certain concepts; or again unfavorable? And does experience teach us this? It is a fact of experience that human beings alter their concepts, exchange them for others when they learn new facts; when in this way what was formerly important to them becomes unimportant, and vice versa. (It is discovered e.g. that what formerly counted as a difference in kind, is really only a difference in degree. (Zettel 352)
He accepts that there are facts, but facts do not determine concepts.
Elsewhere:
(CV 18)
The larger issue for Wittgenstein is ways of seeing, seeing aspects, "seeing as". The "fertile point of view" of "a Copernicus or a Darwin" is a conceptual revolution, the displacement of the Earth as the center or the rejection of kinds in favor of variations. We do not simply see things as they are but according to the way we represent or picture them.
How would this be different thank Kant or Plato for that matter?
One main difference is hes using language parsing to explain epistemology. Thats like me saying that you got a coding error because you didnt follow the correct syntax from the Programming language I created. I couldve created a different language with a different syntax where that error didnt occur, but according to the Tractatus and Wittensteins view, these errors occur. Notice, this isnt how necessarily reality works just how his programming language (I.e. his Tractatus claims) works, which he uses to somehow describe the limits of reality. I just dont buy it.
Not following a certain limited programming, syntax isnt how epistemology works. Kant was explaining how various epistemological reasoning occurred. Cognitive science does the same. Anthropological evolutionary science does the same. None of them need rely on syntax errors of language parsing. Writing bad code is not an epistemology. Acting as if epistemology is writing code that is not in the correct syntax is not an epistemology. And yes, I believe that Tractaus is the rules for basically writing some programming language (pretending to be some key to the limits of what we can say about reality).
Quoting schopenhauer1
It is, rather, according to your misrepresentation of Wittgenstein's view in the Tractatus.
Wittenstein is not a god to me he could be wrong. Schopenhauer could be wrong can could be wrong. All of them could be wrong. Hes trying to say that certain things cannot be stated clearly in language. Hes using the methods of a programmer to do this in my opinion. This isnt Explaining anything. It is just limiting language using language, parsing, syntax errors and such. It is making claims on EPISTEMOLOGY without EXPLAINING IT.
Is Aristotle correct on the definition of a human because he wrote a passage in a book on it and that book is studied in philosophy?
Of course he could! But you being wrong about him is still wrong.
Ah yes the old, YOU DONT UNDERSTAND HIM game. I could also write some stuff and then say that you just dont understand it and continually do it so that I am always at an advantage whereby whatever I wrote is correct and whatever your interpretation of it is incorrect. And somebody who I just like his interpretation of what I wrote will be correct while yours will always be incorrect. its a bullshit game. quit it.
Wittenstein wasnt writing unambiguous shit. Its clearly ambiguous to the point that even people who knew him best, including Russell didnt quite understand it he thought.
Go fanboy yourself.
I will try again. You said;
Quoting schopenhauer1
An object does not refer to a variable. A variable can be used, however, to refer to an object. The term 'object' is not a particular object. It is analogous to a number. The term 'number' is not a particular number,
that is why we use variables such a 'n' or 'x' where no specific number or object is specified.
An object in not a data point. Data points do not make up the substance of the world.
Simple objects do.
An object is not a function. The possibility of and ways in which simple objects combine is determined by those objects themselves.
An object is not a way of organizing data. Objects are self-organizing in that the possibilities of combining are build into the objects.
Objects are not in memory. They subsist independently of what is the case.
An object is not a logical marker. It is a substantive thing.
An object is not a name. It is what is named in an elementary proposition.
None of this is a matter of what I say being right or wrong. It can all be supported and has been supported in this thread by reference to the text.
You tried?
Quoting Fooloso4
Which are....???
Quoting Fooloso4
Why would that be the case being that we don't have any idea what objects are other then they are "simples"? Why would it be the objects themselves that determine it and not some other factor of relations? But here further investigation, commentary, etc. is needed. Not opaque statements..."Thus spake Zarathustra!".
Quoting Fooloso4
Why? How? What views is this set against?
Quoting Fooloso4
How do we know? What are some reasons for at least, strongly believing this?
Quoting Fooloso4
But is it supportable, whether or not Wittgenstein believed it or not?
These claims are without explanation as far as I see. Now, I believe strongly in comparing styles and content to show if and where there is an insufficient account of explanation for one's exposition on one's worldview. Well, where is the explanation for any of this other than supposition and possibly because "The rest of my beliefs won't work if these initial claims don't hold"? Having your theory not be coherent if it isn't the case, is not a case in itself for somethings soundness, though certainly validity. This is why I said that it is very much like a programmer writing a language setting out how the language will operate so that it doesn't run into errors.
How is it that objects are the building blocks for atomic facts? Why should there even be atomic facts? Why is objects the building blocks and not processes? This is all strange to simply "Thus claim...".
You can say to me, "Because it has to stop somewhere". Sure, but imagine if any other thinker said that he doesn't have to explain themselves any further.. It just seems like a strange thing to NOT demand from a thinker trying to give you such a comprehensive take on the world. And I would suspect that any modern, living thinker would be grilled to death with more questions to answer for, and the work would NOT just stand on its own to have fanboys be gatekeepers for the deep mysteries of the great Witty.
Now let's compare this to a radically different thinker (from the same time period), Alfred North Whitehead:
Notice the author explains, detail, what his terms mean, provides some context, etc. Or here:
Or just look at Kant:
Notice here Kant EXPLAINS his reasoning. Even if you disagree with his premise, he gives why he thinks what he thinks.
No exposition. No context. No justification. We just accept that these statements must be true without why, how, what for, etc. It builds from there, but from what epistemic foundation other than fiat of the author? "Entities and things" are also extremely vague, yet even this can be somewhat forgiven if it's explained. But its vagueness is not explained ("This is purposely left vague by me, the author, because...??""")
I have provided evidence in support of my claim that you got him wrong. But you just skip over that as if it is just a game you don't want to play.
Quoting schopenhauer1
He is not writing a language. He is using the German language.
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Quoting schopenhauer1
Since you believe so strongly in comparing styles and content you should know that we don't have to imagine it. Other thinkers, both ancient and contemporary, have based their explanations on reality being granular. It seems likely that Wittgenstein was influenced by Plato's account in Theaetetus. (201d)
Quoting schopenhauer1
It just seems strange to believe than any thinker could provide a comprehensive take on the world. In the preface to the Tractatus Wittgenstein says:
and toward the end he says:
(6.52)
The problems of life are not scientific problems. They are not problems that can be solved scientifically. Or by propositional analysis. The focus of Wittgenstein's concern is not ontological or epistemological. He points to the limits of logic in order to safeguard ethics and aesthetics which lie outside its domain. To put it differently, his concern is not with what is on the table, but what we bring to it.
Why should that be our purpose? Why one substance and not two or two million or no substance?
Why should we start with Locke's account of mental operations? Why not start with whatever it is that makes mental operations possible?
Why? Because Kant says so?
Quoting schopenhauer1
Why should we begin with an exposition of the conception of space?
Quoting schopenhauer1
Why should a representation of space be the foundation of anything?
Quoting schopenhauer1
The luggage will either fit in the trunk of the car or it won't. It won't fit in this space because you can represent it as fitting.
Quoting schopenhauer1
The same should be asked of a Whitehead and Kant fanboy.
Leibniz first postulated the idea, calling is the characteristica universalis. This is chiefly what influenced Frege, and why he developed his concept-script which postulated simple objects in functional relations as underlying and furnishing the logic of our general language.
I called attention earlier, to a commonality I see between the two positions in this thread, namely that Witt seems to want to ultimately criticize the project, despite still seeing some utility in its development. The analysis of language can never furnish us with anything new we cannot, for example, discover whats true after the fact, so to speak. There are no surprises in logic. If we understand the premises, the conclusion is always obvious. We do not, therefore, discover what is true from analysis.
I get the sense that the work is set up sort of like an argument from contradiction. He starts by assuming the general framework of the analytic project, simply stating some common assumptions that school of thought takes, before showing that this line of reasoning admits of a contradiction, namely that:
1. analysis should tell us what's true, by culling any signs which dont represent aspects of reality
2. analysis does not tell us what's true, rather, it tells us whats possible. Truth seems to come before analysis.
Truth is presupposed, not proven by logical analysis. That some propositions are true, and others false, must be determined outside of logic.
Why does this matter?
Again, the entire tradition was geared towards trying to guarantee what we can know. Can we know whats true of the world? Hume said, only insofar as we can experience it, and theres no guarantee. Kant said we could know whats true, even beyond experience, and there could be some guarantee. But, we dont directly experience reality, like Hume thought.
Witt seems to want to say that truth is nothing more than a manner of situating things in the world based on what we perceive as logically possible. Not only do we not experience reality directly, but we are also incapable of knowing whether our picture is true or not, because its exactly that, just one picture of reality.
This is why Witt seems to make comments regarding solipsism, and the individual being a microcosm. We are each, individually, limited by how we can logically situate things...this is why some things make sense to some people, and are utterly nonsensical to others. Its not that some additional facts are needed on one side or the other, rather a way of seeing the facts and situating them.
The development of a new theory, like evolution, didnt discover, for example, the differences and similarities between species that was always apparent. Rather, it considered as possible a relation between them that wasnt considered possible before.
What is true is what is the case. There are things that are logically possible but not true.
Quoting 013zen
What leads you to say this? He does say:
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But this does not mean we are incapable of knowing whether it is true or false. In order to determine if it is we must compare it to reality-.
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Quoting 013zen
More specifically, differences are not differences in kind but differences in degree.
This is what I'm trying to get at. He's doesn't seem to be putting forth a correspondence theory. At least not in the traditional manner. He seems to want to say that while we might measure a proposition against reality in order to determine whether or not it's "true", we don't ever get, say capital T "truth" insofar as the picture tells you nothing about the reality it presents.
I can, for example, refer to electromagnetic "waves" as waves, and it seems true to refer to them as such. It seems obvious, in fact. But, calling them waves is just a way we conceptualize what's going on, and it seems to in some sense get at what's occurring, but we can be almost certain that they aren't behaving like traditional waves.
Perhaps this is a bad example, but hopefully you can understand what I'm trying to get at. Or I'm not making sense... I'm tired, I was out late last night lol
Leibniz did present a 'universal character' suitable for a principle of sufficient reason to be up to the task of sorting out what things are. Or at least provide a ground for talking about the fundamental elements in a coherent way.
The challenge of the Tractatus begins with separating 'facts' from 'things'. That seems like a clear withdrawal from a "correspondence theory". In that regard, Wittgenstein is taking a step backwards. Regrouping after failed attempts.
Quoting Paine
To my understanding, Leibniz did at least provide the coherent framework for what he envisioned. So, in that sense, I agree. He tried to express what he imagined as being possible. Thinkers definitely tried to develop this, with Frege being one of them; other thinkers, like Mach, might have even been influenced by this, because I know that he, like Leibniz, thought this "possible language" should be something like differential equations.
Quoting Paine
I get the sense that Witt might be trying to challenge the idea a bit. He seems to follow after Frege's and Russell's attempt, but ultimately seems to conclude that the idea is actually incoherent. It seems, at face value, that the idea has merit, but if you try and develop something of the sort, you're left with nothing more than a framework for parsing language syntactically, but you don't learn anything new, like Leiniz envisioned. I can only show you, for example, that an argument is valid - that it has the proper truth preserving form - but, I cannot determine its soundness; I only fancy it sound if already presuppose its truth.
Anyways, interesting post :)
I think Witt def shows us certain things - the isomorphism between thought, language, and reality.
Language can be analyzed into atomic statements featuring simple objects that are indefinable, and to these can correspond simple parts of thoughts - logically simple thoughts. But, knowing this doesn't teach us anything new or helpful...except, perhaps, for clarification purposes.
What's the point of "objects" for Wittgenstein, if he already has "atomic facts" as the primary constituents of his language?
"Objects" indicates a metaphysics beyond the linguistic. Since there is a distinction between objects and atomic facts, there must be a reason why it is important to note. And if it is important, why is more not said about objects (entities, things, as he "clarifies")? It seems like a metaphysics shoe-horned into something that is intended to be completely about how language describes the world...
And if we want to go around the merry-go-round again we can discuss how objects don't have to be physical. Right.. but then later he distinguishes between concepts proper (things of the world), and formal objects (their signs in formal language), and pseudo-objects, (abstracted objects that are neither true or false).
Thank you for the considered response. I agree that there is a departure from Russell and Frege in the work but see it from a different angle.
I, too, am working, so will elaborate when free.
From my understanding...
Objects form the substance of the world. Witt tells us:
"Substance is what exists independently of what is the case" (2.024).
And several lines later:
"The object is the fixed, the existent; the configuration is the changing, the variable" (2.0271).
Consider it this way...
Pseudo concepts are in some sense, fixed. What can fall under them is changing and variable, and this is what's shown in atomic facts.
I can say: "Socrates is mortal" or "schopenhauer1 is mortal" or "013zen is mortal" the logic expressed by the atomic sentence these analyze into is the same; it exists beyond individual instances of the atomic sentence.
A particular atomic fact either obtains or it does not obtain. We can imagine it obtaining, even if it doesn't. But, there are possible atomic facts outside of our imagination, and yet the logic will persist to cover those new examples when we discover them. The "objects" reach past our experience, and past the atomic facts. This allows the pseudo-concept to be open to change and creation.
Suppose we had a world with 1 ball. We'd have perhaps a handful of atomic facts.
One about a ball existing, one about its shape (identifying it as a ball), one perhaps about its color. We'd have simple pseudo-concepts that supply the base level of the analysis. Things like existence, shape, color, number, would be within the pseudo-concept's logical framework, so to speak, ..if, somehow later on, some other entity came into existence, the simple pseudo-concepts would still contain the new complex object. The logic pervades all possible reality, in a sense. I cannot imagine an entity without some shape if it exists in space. I cannot imagine an entity existing without being able to count it.
Or consider hearing a melody. There is a specific vibration in your ear translated by a particular agitation in the air. This same agitation can be translated onto a record which is just scratches in a record caused by the agitation as translated by some device. We can also write the melody out on a musical score. In each instance, we can imagine the atomic facts associated with 1.) the original sound wave 2.) the vibration on your ear drum 3.) the scratches in the record 4.) the written notes of the musical score.
each has its own associated atomic fact, but the form between them must be the same, right? The logic of the scratches in the record must correspond to the logic of the air molecules being agitated by a sound wave, as must it correspond to the logic of a particular vibration on the meaty apparatus of your ear drum, or notes on a written musical score. To wildly different atomic facts, belong the same internal logic between individual aspects that compose the atomic facts.
I want to state that I am still working through this, so don't take what I am saying as definitive in any sense, but thus far this is how I am imagining it.
I'm sorry, none of this makes much sense and the only way to make sense of it is to "reach beyond what Wittgenstein provides" (to borrow your phrasing of objects :wink:). What you do state I feel can better be described by other metaphysical/epistemological systems more clearly...ironically.
From what I can gather, what you state coincides with my interpretation more-or-less.. That is to say, Wittgenstein views objects of the "aboutness" of the atomic facts. That is to say, the atomic facts has to be about something (the substance of the world), and so he proposes an anemic metaphysics (objects), which is scarcely explained, but is considered sort of fundamental and brute and simple.
One can say that he doesn't have to explain it because he didn't care about it. Or, one can say that his whole point was to not explain things that could not be analyzed any further, and thus he left it brief and moved forward with propositions being built of atomic facts that represent states of affairs of the world. Perhaps trying to explain objects further would be going beyond what he thinks is legitimate for language to describe.
As just an audience and someone who also likes to think about the world, this picture he is providing just doesn't give me much to hang my hat on. Maybe it's just me and my reaction to it. I don't see much "there" there. It seems like an interesting attempt at something, but a mere outline based on some form of logical analysis of objects and their attributes (predicates), but I am really not seeing its greater significance. One problem is that since it is not situated in a framework of what it sets out to disprove (i.e. other theories that are competing with it), I am not really sure what he is trying to prove. He can say something like, "The world is facts" etc. but without explanation of what this is set against, it is rather lost on me why it should be important or interesting. If he went on about how previous to him, or other philosophers think x, y, and z, I could more clearly see what he is trying to set his view against.
Sure, we the audience can try to do that for him, but then, you can say that about anyone. I can write an obscure or obtuse paragraph and say that you should just read up on a bunch of other stuff to really "get me", and I think that is not fair to the interlocutor or audience and is possibly even writing out of bad faith towards one's audience to make them do the job you are supposed to be doing. If I make something just obscure enough, I can always claim you don't "really" get me, or some such.
Haha, perhaps you're right. I may be taking certain liberties with my current thinking, but once I have more time, I'll dig back into the text properly :P But, I think that we've come a long way, and the discussion has taken interesting avenues! I certainly have a fuller appreciation, and thinking regarding the work, than i had previously, I think. Hopefully, the same is true of you, as well.
I think its interesting that you find we, more-or-less have similar ideas regarding the text, when you also admit that I might be reaching a bit here and there :P I have nothing much to say about that, I just wasn't expecting you to say that after starting out by saying the first part lol
Anyways, to your point...
Quoting schopenhauer1
I don't think this is quite right. Remember, Wittgenstein gave clear examples of atomic sentences; they have to do with the underlying logic of propositions. Proposition are about something...an atomic fact is merely the underlying logical form of that "about" relation, as stated by the proposition. A Wittgensteinian object is a logical object, or rather, the manner in which its discussed is meant to show what he has in mind as his focus.
Consider one of the areas of the work associated with dispelling "Russell's paradox". The "paradox" that caused Frege to have a nervous breakdown and, more-or-less resign his attempts at constructing a type-script in Leibniz's vision. The colloquial take:
The barber shaves every man that does not shave himself. Does the barber shave himself? We know either leads to a contradiction. But this was a contradiction that first showed up in Russell's logical notation, and also occurred in Frege's.
Wittgenstein's response is to look at the atomic propositions associated with the paradox. Suppose some set f(x) containing only men that do not shave themselves. Then the barber shaving them would add: F(fx). Now, if we supposed this set could contain itself, we'd write F(F(fx)). But, Wittgenstein remarks that this can't be correct, because while these two "F"'s have different meaning's entirely. By re-writing the atomic facts in his own notation:
(??) :F(?u) . ?u = F u
He says the paradox vanishes.
Russell originally thought about the problem as:
{x | x ? x}
The set of all sets that don't contain themselves. Does it contain itself? If it does, then it doesn't and if it doesn't it does.
Using Wittgenstein's comments, we see that he find's Russell's take rather wrong headed. We must conclude
1. The original set has one meaning, and the outer an entirely different one, but the two sets are equal to one another: they contain the same members.
2. Because of this, we cannot even ask the question that lead Russell to the paradox in the first place: "Is the set a member of itself?" Well, if you're asking about all the sets that do not contain themselves, I'm not sure what you even mean. A set is a mathematical concept containing elements. Russell supposed that any set could have the property of either containing itself or not. While weird, it doesn't appear wrong. We can, actually, think of sets that either contain themselves, or not. Okay, whatever, so what? Well, could we have a set of all sets that don't contain themselves? Wittgenstein says this doesn't even make sense to ask. If so, containing is being used in two different senses, but nonetheless, the members between the two sets is equal.
In the barber example, we see when it's drawn out properly...
The set of men shaved by the barber has a different meaning than the set of all men that do not shave themselves, and are also shaved by the barber. They may have the common expression "shaved by the barber", but really, they are two different sets, in a logical sense.
I think Wittgenstein thought the "paradox" itself was a great example of an instance of unclear thinking leading to too much time and effort on the part of his mentors.
I think that at Wittgenstein's time, there was a huge identity crisis in mathematics, science, and philosophy...an erosion that took centuries to wear away at the foundations of some of these disciplines.
Serious scientific and philosophic metaphysics was reduced to postulations of "simple elements" composing an experience of reality divorced from the reality which its supposed to be an experience of.
Wittgenstein's approach suggests, despite not overtly saying that much of the concerns at this time were ill-founded. We might not experience reality "directly", but how we experience it shares the same logic. We can be certain that we will not discover a paradox in reality, only a paradox in our understanding. But we can tease it out by properly analyzing what's going on. Russell's hiccup was in some sense, short sighted. The question was formulated incorrectly.
Perhaps the same is true of the simple objects of Mach which influenced Russell. We might not be able to say what the ultimate constituents of reality are, but we can be certain that their logic will be contained in how the operate within our minds if and when we understand them. In some sense, the question doesn't make sense: "Is my experience of reality identical to reality?" Of course not, but whatever you understand of reality at least came from reality, and therefore must contain the same logical relation amongst its parts. The sets contain the same logical relation amongst elements, but the sets are different.
But then why even bring up "Substance of the world" in relation to objects? This puts it in the metaphysical camp, not simply "logical object". Which is it? You seem to mix form (the relation of objects to predicates.. how they "hang together"), and the objects themselves. And perhaps Wittgenstein is doing the same.
To me that is a very anemic, yet present metaphysics in what he is conveying. Objects are the "real", so-to-speak, and he provides his "reason" for it (2.0211-2.0212). He also says they are "simple". Again, another metaphysical claim.
As for resolving Russell's paradox by regrouping them, cool. I think of this as clever mathematical parsing- computer programming or mathematical proofs. Perhaps there are some interesting philosophical applications, but I haven't encountered where yet. When I do, I will thank Wittgenstein for providing a context for answering it I guess.
Remember, objects may be the substance of the world, but the world exists in [I]logical space [/i] (1.13).
There is a distinction being made between reality and the world. The world is made up of pictures in our mind; reality is not made up of pictures and certainly not pictures in our mind. Nowhere in the text does Wittgenstein say that objects form the substance of reality...its only ever tied to the world.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Well, lets be clear.... Metaphysics is an attempt to acquire knowledge of reality above, or beyond, what we can directly experience. To present a metaphysical thesis is to attempt to explain some phenomena by appealing to extrasensory reasoning. This is precisely what Newton did with his theories, and why he was taken as exemplary of proper metaphysics, despite having many critiques.
After Kants noumena left scientists truly left to concede that we have no, direct, access to reality folks were left to wonder how we could be certain of even Newtons ideas. Einstein, still feeling the positivists ripples, wrote his theory of relativity to challenge the metaphysically bankrupt notion of absolute space, for example.
My point is, whether or not anything has any philosophical merit depends entirely on it being a commentary on the ideas of its time. We dont study Aristotles metaphysics because we think he was right about nature being made of fire, water, earth, or air. We read him to see how we have thought about these problems in the past, and take from them lessons which are applicable to our thinking today. Sometimes we do read a thinker because we think they got something right despite disregarding mostly everything else they said.
I think, at least, we can see Witt wrestling with the ideas of his time, and he does a decent job of capturing the common-place ideas held by his contemporaries but also offers his own approach. That is philosophy, after all. Now, whether it offers us anything useful? I think yes.
I think by applying some of his ideas, we can derive useful thought processes that arent nearly as anemic.
If Im puzzled about how its possible that a person can read a musical score and sing into a microphone, and have that sound be translated into electrical signals, which are then translated into vibrational energy before being re-translated into etchings on a material surface .and that we could then put a needle attached to another machine that would translate those patterns back into electrical signals and then back into sound again I can understand that there is a logical relation that must be what's common between them. What do I mean by logical relation? Well, in the Tract, Witt says that we can only think of uniform relations...that is logically uniform relations. To each note a specific sound wave must correspond, and to that a specific electrical signal, and a specific material vibration, and to that a specific etching on a material surface. And the total number of notes are same same total number of sound waves, and electrical signals, etc.
Notice how the explanation makes sense because of that logical balance between parts. Thats at least a step in the right metaphysical direction when trying to understand the phenomenon.
Anyways, you keep referencing a less anemic metaphysics, and Im curious which might apply? Certainly by anemic you dont mean simply more robust at the expense of being...to put it bluntly, misguided?
At least what little Witt does provide can be reasonably said to be, like, well, yea, from our contemporary standpoint. Perhaps it was less so in the past, I dont know.
This is even more perplexing then. Whence objects? Why propose them other than the circular reasoning that it is needed to support a theory of objects. It just belies further explanation. If Schopenhauer had a few sentences about "The world is will and my representation".. I would indeed say that he also had an anemic metaphysics. However, he wrote four volumes elaborating on it. Perhaps he put too much stock in presuming the noumena of Kant (being Will), but I can point to where he might have gone wrong rather than wring it out from sparse text.
Here is ChatGPT on the world being relations rather than objects in the style of Tractatus:
The world is not a collection of objects, but rather a dance of processes.
1.1 To understand reality, one must grasp the ceaseless flow of events.
1.11 A process is not a thing, but an unfolding narrative of change.
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must process.
2.01 The limits of my language are the boundaries of my processing.
2.011 What we cannot process, we must dance around in uncertainty.
The meaning of life is not found in static truths, but in the dynamic interplay of processes.
3.01 Life is not a puzzle to be solved, but a dance to be experienced.
3.1 To live is to engage with the ongoing performance of existence.
3.141 Procession is all there is; to step outside it is to step into the void.
The process of understanding is not to arrive at final conclusions, but to embrace the continual unfolding of insights.
4.01 Language is not a tool to capture reality, but a medium to navigate the currents of experience.
4.1 To speak is not to assert, but to participate in the ongoing dialogue of existence.
4.2 The meaning of a sentence lies not in its structure, but in the rhythm of its processing.
What can be processed at all, can be processed humorously.
5.6 To laugh is not to mock, but to celebrate the absurdity of our existence.
Whereof one cannot dance, thereof one must laugh.
6.42 The process of philosophy is not to solemnly ponder, but to playfully engage with the cosmic comedy.
The process of writing philosophy is not to construct impenetrable tomes, but to craft invitations to join in the dance of understanding.
7.001 My propositions serve as signposts, not as stone tablets of truth.
7.0011 To read between the lines is to catch the rhythm of the universe.
7.5 To conclude is not to end, but to pause before the next movement begins.
7.51 The silence between words is pregnant with possibility, awaiting the next burst of meaning.
Now talk amongst yourselves for decades about this.
It's not particularly perplexing, I don't think. Considering it from the perspective of the idealism/realism debate, which was contemporaneously relevant. It's a commentary on that distinction, ultimately saying that logic bridges the gap, therefore there need not be that debate as to where we ultimately derive our knowledge from. Whether or not he is right about that is another question, but ultimately he is simply restating what he takes the dominant views of his audience to be. He isn't trying to explain every aspect of these views...this is why he says in the preface:
"[The Tractatus] is...not a text-book".
The work is written in a manner that its meant for those who can understand it without extra teaching...
"This book will perhaps only be understood by those who have themselves already thought the thoughts which are expressed in it - or similar thoughts".
He understand that it won't be for everyone, and that ultimately he failed to accomplish what he set out to do with the work.
But he does explain why he doesn't provide sources or exegetical remarks:
"How far my efforts agree with those of other philosophers I will not decide. Indeed what I have here written makes no claim to novelty in points of detail; and therefore I give no sources, because it is indifferent to me whether what I have thought has already been thought before me by another".
Whether or not you, personally, think its fine for someone to choose to write a text in that manner in personal predilection. But, you can't conclude that this is a fault with the text when he states that he won't be digging into certain things too deeply in the preface to the work. He admits not everyone will understand it, or see the value in it.
He thinks there is value insofar as he is, after all, doing philosophy - thinking through ideas that his contemporaries were dealing with.
[b]"If this work has a value it consists in two things. First that in it thoughts are expressed, and this value will be the greater the better the thoughts are expressed. The more the nail has been hit on the head.
Here I am conscious that I have fallen far short of the possible. Simply because my powers are insufficient to cope with the task. May others come and do it better".[/b]
That's how he ends his preface. His only wish for the text was that others come and do better than he did. Not that it somehow settled "metaphysics" for everyone. He is expressing his ideas, and as it turns out is reading and commenting on the ideas of others is philosophy.
As are we...
Yes :grin:
I don't think this distinction is correct.
(1)
All that is the case is not a picture in our mind. The world is not a picture of the world.
Which distinction? The one between reality and the world?
"The total reality is the world" (2.063).
This would make no sense to say if there were no distinction between the two.
Or do you mean how I am interpreting the distinction? This might be fair...my only real thinking about it stems back to a work Frege wrote on the topic of "thoughts". I think that Witt might have something similar in mind, but I can't be certain.
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
A fact, is what is the case.
What do you think that a fact is? :razz:
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
Later in Wittgenstein's life, while translating the Tractatus to English he went through the work line by line with Frank Ramsay....Wittgenstein, after much frustration with Ramsay, does say in his diaries that he saw certain errors, but he never says what those consisted in.
In the Philosophical Investigations, he overtly refers to the Tractatus only a handful of times, and its rarely to outright dismiss a previous idea. If anything, he occasionally provides some commentary on previous remarks.
The idea that Witt had a distinct early and late period wherein he outrightly dismissed his previous work developed when there was still good reason to wonder if the work was "pro-positivistic"....which the PI clearly is not.
In modern discussions of the work, which take him to either be taking a "therapeutic" approach to philosophy or a truly "constructive" one, these two camps really see more commonalities between the PI and Tractatus than was previously thought.
This also makes more sense, and passes the "smell" test, so to speak. Typically, people expand on, and make corrections to previous thoughts, rarely outright rejecting entire mindsets. PI is, I personally think, an attempt to say something similar but, in his own style, so to speak. While structurally, the works are very similiar, the manner in which the ideas are presented is clearly not only written for people like Russell and Frege.
Quoting 013zen
If PI was clearly not pro-positivistic, but Tractatus is, then doesn't that espouse more than a marginal shift in stance?
I said that it used to be thought that the Tract was pro positivist, which is where that belief comes from...it does seem there is a shift, if you read that Tract in that manner. But, nobody really sees Witt as espousing a pro-positivist framework in the work any longer.
Between the world as pictures in the mind and reality as not made up of pictures in our mind.
Since you take an approach where philosophical positions can be precisely located in an encyclopedic fashion, consider this entry from an encyclopedia:
Quoting SEP, Logical Empiricism
Regarding the last sentence, the Tractatus argues for a cesura between strictly scientific matters and the problems of philosophy where thinkers like Whitehead and Russell do not.
On this point, it is worth mentioning that Russell was not a supporter of the thesis of Tractatus but hoping it was not true. From Russell's introduction:
"What causes hesitation is the fact that, after all, Mr. Wittgenstein manages to say a good deal about what cannot be said, thus suggesting to the skeptical reader that possibly there may be some loophole through a hierarchy of languages, or by some other exit. The whole subject of ethics, for example, is placed by Mr. Wittgenstein in the mystical, inexpressible region. Nevertheless he is capable of conveying his ethical opinions. His defence would be that what he calls the mystical can be shown, although it cannot be said. It may be that this defence is adequate, but, for my part, I confess that it leaves me with a certain sense of intellectual discomfort."
I don't think Russell understands what is being attempted. The scope of the work is mischaracterized when he says:
"Everything, therefore, which is involved in the very idea of the expressiveness of language must remain incapable of being expressed in language, and is, therefore, inexpressible in a perfectly precise sense."
The relationship between a means of expression and what is shown by it is what is being discussed. Russell treats it like an inventory being smuggled in through a sleight of hand. Wittgenstein speaks of language in the context of it doing something. The propositions within 3.4 and 4.0 do not reflect Russell's description. 4.002 has this:
What is the case, is the case. What I believe to be the case is subject to perspective, hence the word subjective, as opposed to objective.
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
A fact did not change, a belief did. The fact are the definite, unchanging, words that compose the Tractatus, in this case. What we believe about those facts, is another question entirely.
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
If you would like to believe that the work is positivistic, that's okay. I believe that you will have a difficult time maintaining that belief once you take into account more than the first few lines :razz:
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
Well, there have been a few points brought up in this thread already on that subject. There are clear historical records, commentary, and textual evidence which suggests otherwise.
With that being said, I have no interest in defending anything. I am, however, interested in discussion on the matter. It's not my responsibility to show you anything about the text; I can only provide quotes and my own thoughts on the matter. Whether or not those incline you to change your own views, is neither here nor there, in my opinion.
[b]"The world is the totality of facts, not of things" (1.1).
"The facts in logical space are the world" (1.13).
"We make to ourselves pictures of facts" (2.1).
"The picture presents the facts in logical space" (2.11)
"The picture is a fact" (2.141)
"Thus the picture is linked with reality; it reaches up to it" (2.1511).
"It is like a scale applied to reality" (2.1512).[/b]
I hope this helps.
Russell, again as you mention, had a particularly positivistic take on the work (since he himself, at the time, was more or less one). He, like many early commentators, see the work as trying to establish the logical empiricist agenda, which was born from positivism, and had many of the same tenants. From that perspective, Witt does seem to disregard his own statements, and say quite a bit about what shouldn't be said...but, that's because this isn't the agenda of the work, despite discussing many relevant positivist ideas, and problems.
Quoting Paine
Quoting Paine
This is one reason why I, personally, see a common thread between the earlier and later work. The distinction between saying and showing in the Tractatus is reestablished in the PI by the fact that the meaning of a word is its use; how it is used shows us what it means, despite perhaps it overtly saying something else.
In the Tract Witt says:
"The sign determines a logical form only together with its logical syntactic application" (3.327).
The sign, aka what an expression says, doesn't determine meaning...only together with how its being used, can we glean its meaning - what it shows through its use, or "logical syntactic application".
That suggests you agree with Russell in a way that I do not. Russell says:
The text does not support this addition to the thesis. The portion I quoted brings the "same structure" idea into question.
It doesn't. You make a distinction between the world as pictures in the mind and reality not being pictures in the mind.
(4.021)
What do you find in the text regarding pictures that is true of the world but not true of reality? Wheren does he make a distinction between the pictures of the world being in the mind and pictures of reality not being in the mind?
Of course we can make statements about ethics and aesthetics, but we cannot compare them to the facts of the world in order to determine whether they are true or false. They are outside the bounds of logic.
(6.42)
What can be said are the propositions of science. The only proper propositions are those that say something about the way things are in the world, that is, matters of fact. Ethics and aesthetics are not matters of fact. They say nothing about the world. Treating them the way we treat propositions leads only to confusion and fallacy. This does not mean that ethics and aesthetics and unimportant, but that they are so important that we should not regard them as something other than they are.
Not quite, I'm here to learn, not debate. Zen's insight was enough of a glimmer to find a path I could get behind. A simple deflection isn't going to convince someone who has a healthy skepticism now will it? Thanks for the SEP post by the way. The replies to it were actually more interesting but without it, you and zen wouldn't have had that little exchange.
I apologize, I must have been unclear in my writing. I was trying to say that, from Russell's perspective, such seems to be the case. I do not agree with Russell on this point.
So, this all depends on what we take Witt to mean by "logical space". Where or what is logical space?
For this, I draw on Frege's writing in "The Thought" wherein he wants to say that there are ideas, such as for example Pythagoras' theorem which is true regardless of what anyone thinks about the theorem, and seems to exist in its own space, therefore. It can exist in the mind, and form the content of thought, but is in some sense mind independent without being a "part" of reality.
I think Witt has a similar conception. Logical space is like the the common playing field of thoughts, without being tied to any individual instance of thought.
I can, for instance, imagine a purple pig dancing the macarena while smoking a joint, and despite existing in my mind at the moment, its possibility lies in logical space prior to the thought. Someone else can have the same thought, or may have already had the same thought before me; it isn't a genuine creation of my mind, but it is instantiated in my mind.
Pictures and the world exist in the logical space...they mirror the logic of reality, but they are distinct from it and exist separate from it.
Quoting Fooloso4
"What the picture must have in common with reality in order to be able to represent it after its manner rightly or falsely is its form of representation" (2.17).
The only commonality between pictures which compose the world, and reality, is the logical form of the picture and the state of affairs it is a picture of.
Quoting Fooloso4
This is tangled.
The world is made up of pictures, and those pictures are pictures of possible or actual reality. The world, is a possible picture of reality.
There are not "pictures of the world" and "pictures of reality", with one being in the mind and the other not.
It depends on what you mean by "attempting to bridge the gap".
Witt is quite clear that he considers Science as an activity involved in one type of business, and philosophy another activity....he does believe, however, that the activity of philosophy can, if anything, be helpful to the activity of science, without taking part in the activity of science itself. The relationship is mutually beneficial, but each is doing their own thing.
[b]"Philosophy is not one of the natural sciences.
(The word 'philosophy' must mean something which stands above or below, but not beside the natural sciences)" (4.111).
"The object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a theory but an activity...
Philosophy should make clear and delimit sharply the
thoughts which otherwise are, as it were, opaque and blurred." (4.112)
"Philosophy limits the disputable sphere of natural science" (4.113)[/b]
I agree with this. What originally got me interested in Witt many, many, moons ago was my BA thesis on Wittgenstein's ethics. It's clear that Witt considered ethical considerations important, but academically stale.
As you say, he suggests that the common theme of treating "the good" as an adjective, or something to discover about the world is entirely wrong headed, and leads to confusion.
The ethical dimensions of the Tractatus have always been of interest to me, especially considering the letter Witt wrote to Von Ficker wherein he identifies the purpose of the work as "ethical".
The discussion is centered around the ancient distinction between science and metaphysics, with the latter being the domain of philosophy.
Aristotle said we engage in philosophy to explain why things happen, as opposed to science which explains how they happen.
Bacon, calling philosophy and metaphysics the "handmaiden" of the sciences calls attention to this relation, and sets to set up philosophy in a manner which can be truly helpful to science.
Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, etc all trying to establish this agenda at different times in their projects, set out to establish a course for philosophy wherein one could derive genuine metaphysical knowledge.
Russell and others came in after this, and were concerned with the same project. They thought philosophy should mirror the rigor and style of mathematics, whereby things could be "proven" true.
Witt, I think is commenting on this, saying that this conception of the relationship is wrongheaded. Philosophy can only aid the sciences by clarifying what science provides us. It can't, on its own, tells us what's true.
So, to summarize, I take Russell and other's approach to the relationship between science and philosophy to be constructive in their conceptions. They thought philosophy could provide insights that go above and beyond science. Witt takes the relation to be more interpretive; philosophy can only help clarify thoughts for scientists.
Logic underlies both thought and the world. Logic is prior to, independent of, and the transcendental condition for them.
Quoting 013zen
The pictures do not compose the world. The world is not a collection or arrangement of pictures. The pictures of the world are pictures of reality made possible by the logical structure underlying both the picture and the world, that is, the picture and reality.
Quoting 013zen
The world is not made up of pictures. Nowhere does Wittgenstein say this.
(1.1)
A fact is not a picture, although a picture can picture a fact.
Quoting 013zen
The world is not a possible picture.
(1)
All that is the case is not a picture of what might be the case.
Quoting 013zen
Isn't that what you said?
Quoting 013zen
I agree that pictures don't compose the world. Wittgenstein's picture theory is composed of thought and propositions, thought (we picture facts to ourselves, and a logical picture is a thought T. 2.2 and 3) being the precursor to the proposition. All propositions are possible pictures of facts in the world. True propositions are pictures of actual facts, as opposed to possible facts. The logical structure of both the proposition and the world of facts provide the impetus for his picture theory.
Witt tells us that:
[b]The world is determined by the facts, and by these being all the facts (1.11).
The facts in logical space are the world (1.13).[/b]
So, all of the facts, IN logical space constitute the world. But, in what sense is a fact in logical space?
Well, later Witt says:
[b]We make to ourselves pictures of facts (2.1).
The picture presents the facts in logical space (2.11)[/b]
So, here there is a distinction being made between facts and pictures of facts. The latter presents facts in logical space, and thereby constitute the world.
A fact itself cannot be presented in logical space, only pictures of facts can be presented in logical space.
Quoting Fooloso4
No, read the two comments carefully. In the former, there are two concepts: "pictures of the world" and "pictures of reality" with one being in the mind and the other not being in the mind. I do not adopt this view.
There are only pictures of reality presented in the mind. These picture, in the mind, constitute the world.
What do you mean by constitute? The world is not made up of pictures. The world and pictures of it are not the same thing. Analogously, you and a picture of you are not the same thing. If they were then you could be in two or more places at the same time, depending on the number of pictures.
You asked:
Quoting 013zen
To which I responded:
Quoting Fooloso4
Here is your original claim:
Quoting 013zen
The first claim is wrong. The world is not made up of pictures. The second claim is correct, reality is not made up of pictures, but, as I pointed out:
(4.021)
Both the world and reality are pictured. Whatever distinction you are trying to make between them, that distinction cannot be based on pictures.
What else could I possibly mean by constitute? :razz: And, your next response shows that you take my meaning.
Quoting Fooloso4
You just disagree.
I gave quotes which seem to suggest that the world is, in fact, made up of pictures. Let's talk a bit about them.
We both can agree that in the Tract, the world is composed, or constituted by all the facts in logical space.
1.13 The facts in logical space are the world.
Witt, later says:
[b]""We make to ourselves pictures of facts" (2.1).
"The picture presents the facts in logical space" (2.11)[/b]
So, the facts in logical space that make up the world are presented in logical space by pictures.
A fact, can only "exist" in logical space and present the world insofar as it is a picture.
I'm interested to hear what your take on the relation between:
1. Reality
2. Facts
3. Pictures
4. The world
How does it all coherently fit together and to what purpose?
You could possibly mean:
be (a part) of a whole.
make up, form, compose
found
establish
to be or be considered as something
Quoting 013zen
I do disagree, but gave you a chance to clarify what you meant. The world is not "pictures in the mind". A picture and what is pictured are not one and the same.
Quoting 013zen
Your use of the term 'presented' is ambiguous. There is a difference between phenomena as what shows or presents itself and what is or can be presented in a picture. What is presented "by" pictures are not the facts themselves that are presented in the picture. The picture re-presents what is pictured. It is an image of it. Your toe does not hurt in a picture of you stubbing your toe.
Quoting 013zen
There are no illogical facts. Facts are what is the case. If the book is on the table then it is the case, a fact, that the book is on the table. A statement of fact "the book is on the table" is not the fact that the book is on the table. A statement of fact is a picture of the fact. The fact itself, the book is on the table, is not a picture. If we want to read the book we do not find it in a picture.
I see now what you meant; I was just confused because I had already been attempting to clarify all along the way :sweat:
At any rate, yes, you disagree...and I can appreciate your perspective, I'm just not certain that its correct. I don't outright disagree with you, however. You make some claims that I agree with. For example, you said:
Quoting Fooloso4
I agree with this. This is the same in my view.
I previously said:
Quoting 013zen
We both make the distinction between facts, and pictures which re-present the facts.
Something I disagree with, is when you say:
Quoting Fooloso4
If you read the comment, I am only using the term insofar as I am quoting the text wherein Witt uses the expression "presented" here:
"The picture presents the facts in logical space" (2.11)
So, while I understand that you disagree with me that the world is made up of pictures, we need to somehow make sense of the fact that:
1. Fact in logical space make up the world
2. Facts are presented in logical space by pictures
What I take Witt to be saying is: The fact is re-presented as pictures in logical space. An exhaustive collection of all the facts re-presented in logical space, as pictures, form the world.
You say more than that:
a) Quoting 013zen
and:
b) Quoting 013zen
a) Wittgenstein does not say that the picture that presents the facts is something in the mind
b) A fact does not present the world. The picture presents the facts.
Quoting 013zen
1. Wittgenstein is making a distinction between facts and things or objects. The world is all that is the case. Facts and not things determine what is and is not the case. That a thing can exist in a state of affairs is not accidental. The possibility of it occurring in states of affairs is necessary. This necessity is logical necessity. The space in which it occurs is logical space.
2. The logical structure underlying both the facts and the pictures of the facts is what makes it possible for pictures to present the facts.
Quoting 013zen
The pictures do not form the world. The facts do. The facts exist even if they are not pictured.
When you said:
Quoting 013zen
Do you agree with Bertie that Witt disregarded his own statements?
For my part, I disagree with a particular observation made by Russell:
Russell is reading an isomorphic mirroring where Wittgenstein is not. The problem is not with correspondence between separated items but the nature of representation. Before propositions are discussed in Tractatus, depictions are observed from different points of view.
One feature of the following statements is that they condition each other as well as build to a larger argument.
The mutual conditioning here is important because taking "a picture is a fact" out of context would seem to collapse the difference between the depiction and what is depicted. But the limit to depicting a "pictorial form" restores the distance from "reality." The act of making pictures is one of the events that happen. The problem is that we lack the vantage point to make a picture of making a picture using that process. The statement is not reversible, allowing one to say: "a fact is a picture." Saying that would void the quality of "reaching out" to what it is not. Observations like these are explicit claims by Wittgenstein of "expressiveness" and not a resort to mysticism as Russell describes.
Stating what cannot be represented qualifies all the assertions about what can be. Talking about "possibility" keeps returning to the limits of what the argument can uncover. The following are examples of this boundary:
It can be (and has been) argued that articulating the boundary in this way is a paradoxical attempt to stand both "inside" and "outside" the world despite arguing it cannot be done. But that aspect is quite different from Russell's suggestion that ideas banned from entering through the front door are sneaking in through the back.
I would go further and say that Wittgenstein is opposed to the framework of things in themselves versus things for us.
Kant's depiction of intuitions, as the portal of experiencing what exists, can be imagined as a condition of the person. In the Tractatus, the vivacity of perception is expressed as an observation that does not require that set of assumptions:
I agree. The discussion of the cube at 5.5423 is instructive:
Facts are separate from and independent of our perception of them.
Sorry for the late reply. Work has been busy, lately, and I've needed time to parse your comment. Truthfully, however, it has still been quite difficult to determine, exactly, why we're at loggerheads. With that being said, I believe it's regarding how we are interpreting the notion of "logical space".
As you point out:
Quoting Fooloso4
I agree that he does not explicitly say this; this is how I am making sense of the notion of "logical space". Would you admit that there is a clear distinction being made between, on the one hand:
1. Pictures - in logical space
2. Facts - not in logical space
Quoting Fooloso4
I do not disagree with this.
A Picture does present the facts, in logical space. A fact, is simply that, a fact. It is a fact, for example, that I am typing this comment. That fact does not exist in logical space, it just is...it can, however, be pictured in logical space, and the picture is what presents the fact.
Quoting Fooloso4
And where is that space, exactly? It's certainly not physical reality. Physical reality is only what is the case, namely positive atomic facts.
Quoting Fooloso4
I don't disagree with your main points, you and I have similar understandings, which isn't wholly strange...but, I find your point here a bit muddled, and doesn't appreciate the depth of the notion of logical space. Let me see if I can explain...
There are three things that are pointed out about facts:
1. They determine what is and what is not the case.
2. The existence of a fact means the existence of an atomic fact.
3. The world is determined by them.
When you say:
Quoting Fooloso4
You are conflating facts and atomic facts. The possibility of a thing occurring in an atomic fact is a logical necessity.
Note that Witt says that the existence of a fact means the existence of an atomic fact.
Later, he says:
[b]"The existence and non-existence of atomic facts is the reality.
(The existence of atomic facts we also call a positive fact,
their non-existence a negative fact.)" (2.06)[/b]
This is important. Reality, is the existence and non-existence of atomic facts, while the world is only the existence of an atomic fact.
This is because the world is limited in a manner that reality is not. The world, that is determined is determined by a possible arrangements of objects. But reality is made up of only what obtains. This is because, you cannot know, for example, that I am not a sophisticated a.i. that you've been conversing with this whole time.
Your view fails to appreciate the common sense aspects of Witt's view without being - in my opinion - wholly wrong. But, by understanding the distinction between on the one hand, reality, and on the other the world, you see that reality isn't determined by facts it is all facts...positive and negative. The world, however, is determined by positive facts, things we've experienced, and with it comes all possibilities left open to it. But, reality, is simply what is and isn't.
Logical space is the playing field of those possibilities, but they are lacking insofar as epistemologically it gets us only possible knowledge.
All facts are in logical space.
(1.13)
Logic underlies and makes possible both fact and pictures or representation of facts.
Quoting 013zen
'Atomic fact' is an infelicitous translation from the Ogden translation.
The Pears/McGuinness has:
In German "das Bestehen von Sachverhalten".
The term'Sachverhalt' simply means a fact, what is the case, a state of affairs, not an atomic fact.
Quoting 013zen
This distinction does not hold:
What is the point, on your reading, of telling us:
[b]"We make to ourselves pictures of facts.
The picture presents the facts in logical space, the existence and non-existence of atomic facts" (2.1-2.11).[/b]
That it is pictures of facts that present those facts in logical space, if the facts are already in logical space?
and why does this comment immediately follow:
"The total reality is the world" (2.063).
Right after Witt tells us:
1. Reality is the existence and non-existence of atomic facts
2. The world is only existent atomic facts
Quoting Fooloso4
I don't disagree with this.
Quoting Fooloso4
I agree that the there is a certain complication caused due to the fact that one translator heavily uses the expression: State of affairs while the the other uses Atomic facts. But, whether you translate it as one or the other, it still is the case that a fact, which is what is the case, breaks down into something simpler which has the role we are speaking of- namely the logical necessity of the object being a part of it. A fact does not have this necessity - it's objects and their relations are merely accidental.
Yes, they do determine the world, but they do not make up the world. Pictures do, and insofar as pictures are pictures of facts, the facts ultimately determine the world.
Again, we don't disagree on many core points - I don't think...we disagree over the role of logical space and its location as opposed to the role of reality.
Witt is thinking, I believe, of the realist/idealist/, empiricist/rationalist debate.
On the one hand, we have reality, and on the other we have our "picture" of reality. What bridges that gap? Well, I think Witt's answer is the logical relations.
He denigrates that distinction in the Tractatus and in the Philosophical Investigations. It is one of the persisting themes preserved from the early works and carried on into the later ones.
The facts are in the world.(1.13) A picture of the facts is in the world. The picture represents a possible situation (2.202) What is represented, however, may not be in the world.
(6.375)
That it is possible to picture the world is a logical possibility.
(5.4731)
Put differently, thought too is in logical space.
Quoting 013zen
The structure of a fact is not accidental. That some facts exist and others do not is accidental.
Quoting 013zen
If I want to eat, a picture is not going to do the job. You do not make up a pizza from pictures of dough and cheese. This seems so obvious that I think you must mean something else, but I can't figure out what that is.
Quoting 013zen
I am reminded of something Wittgenstein said:
[CV, p. 47].
Shoes that are too tight make it difficult to walk. The language used by philosophers make it difficult to think.
I'd appreciate some quotes from the Tractatus that shows that this is, in fact, the case.
I know that Witt mentions "idealism" once, in direct reference to Kant's manner of thinking, suggesting that it won't do. But, he offers an alternative which is exactly what I am referring to. He critiques the notion that we see reality through some predetermined form of space, that we bring to bear upon the the experience. He critiques it because logically, this lacks the correct "multiplicity". It fails to account for different spatial relations that we encounter. If there were no space out there in reality, and we were just wearing "glasses" that tinted what we experienced, there wouldn't be inherently distinct spatial relations, which there clearly are.
Again, what bridges the gap and ties our experience to reality? Logic. There must be the correct logical multiplicity between pictures I make of facts, and those things out there in reality. Of this, I can be certain.
At any rate, I don't see any direct denigration of the distinction made in the work, but I could be mistaken.
Correct lol That's why there is a distinction between "The world" and "reality". In reality, I make my pizza out of dough and cheese xD In logical space, however, I can picture the process of making a pizza, without it actually obtaining in reality.
At any rate, again reading through your comments I am stricken by similar thoughts:
1. We don't disagree on much
2. I am having trouble parsing out, exactly, why we are disagreeing besides how we are interpreting logical space.
3. I do disagree with certain manners you characterize things.
Like, you're seemingly outright conflating the world and reality, and having the world do all the work. Perhaps, if you told me more about what work you think
A) the world does
B)Reality does
I feel like we are talking past each other on some things, but I could be wrong. I'm having difficulty parsing why you make certain points in response to my points.
Does that make sense?
Idk perhaps I'm dense lol
In your imagination you can make this pizza, but this pizza does not exist in the world. It is not real.
Quoting 013zen
In order to conflate them there must be some pertinent distinction that is not understood. I do not see how or where Wittgenstein makes such a distinction. It is a distinction you impose on the text.
When he says:
(4.05)
he is talking about the propositions of natural science, that is, propositions about the world. Propositions about what is the case. Facts.
When you say:
Quoting 013zen
There is the assumption of inner and outer, things for ourselves versus things in themselves. That is not how logic works in the Tractatus. First of all, that assumption requires a duality to separate the realms or a monism to unite them.
Quoting ibid.
Perhaps the scenario you have in mind is by means of:
Quoting ibid
But this is said on the way to discussing solipsism. The rationalist/empiricist debate is excluded by:
The discussion of experiences is established through a distance from logic:
Quoting ibid.
These statements about what is and isn't logic do not provide a ready ground to situate your idea of two realms bridged by "logical" relations.
Then what is the purpose of Witt saying:
"The total reality is the world" (2.063).
If there is no distinction being made, and he's using the expressions synonymously, this statement would make no sense.
Compare this to:
(2.04)
The purpose is, at least in part, to exclude ethical and aesthetic propositions from what is the case. They do not refer to how things are in the world. They do not depict reality.
Compare this to:
"The existence and non-existence of states of affairs is reality (2.06).
Even in the Pears version, there is a distinction between
1. Reality all existing and non-existing state of affairs
and
2. The world all existing states of affairs.
(2.06)
To state the obvious, non-existing states of affairs do not exist. Reality does not contain non-existing facts.
2.06 includes the parenthetical remark:
also:
(2.05)
If we could know the totality of states of affairs we would thereby also know those states of affairs that do not exist, that is, any state of affairs that contradicts those states of affairs that do exist.
Ill try again...Witt says,
The totality of existent atomic facts [(states of affairs)] is the world (2.04).
in 2.06, he then goes on to say:
The existence and non-existence of atomic facts [(states of affairs)] is the reality. (The existence of atomic facts we also call a positive fact, their non-existence a negative fact.)
The world is the totality of positive facts, while reality is the totality of positive and negative facts.
Without going into it further, for the moment...consider that other comments in the text also seem to suggest that there must be a distinction between the world and reality. How else could the world of the happy man be different from the world of the sad man? On Witt account they are, despite them being pictures of the same reality.
In brief, the world must thereby become quite another. It must so to speak wax or wane as a whole. The world of the happy is quite another than that of the unhappy (6.43).
This is because I am my world. Which is why:
...In death, too, the world does not change, but ceases (6.431).
The world...my world, is in my mind and is made up of pictures of reality.
For a guy who supposedly didn't like the fight between idealists and realists, he's really making an indirect realist case here.. @RussellA would smile :blush: :wink:
The world and reality are not distinguished by the existence or non-existence of negative facts.
(4.0621)
If 'p' exists in the world then 'not p' does not. If If 'p' exists in reality then 'not p' does not. That 'not p' does not exist is a negative fact. It is true that 'not p' does not exist.
Quoting 013zen
They do not differ with regard to the facts of the world. In both cases the facts remain the same.
Quoting 013zen
He makes a distinction between the world and my world. It should be obvious that when someone dies the world does not end. People die every day and the world goes on. The discussion of the happy man is part of his discussion of ethics and aesthetics. They are not found in the world.
Okay, so a couple of things...
Your example is not so much an example of a negative fact, as simply a tautology...which is Witt's point.
But, a negative fact would be something like:
"The moon is not made of cheese".
This would still be portrayed as "P"
While, perhaps, seemingly silly, there was serious debate at the time regarding the status of negative facts. Like:
"There is not an elephant atop the Eiffel tower".
If traditionally how we think of a positive fact, like: "The earth is fairly round in shape" is that something obtains in this case. To this fact corresponds a reality. But, this got folks like Russell wondering, what exactly corresponds to negative facts?
Even supposing your example, despite being a tautology, we can see that
If P then not P and visa versa, depending on what obtains, either P or not P will have to be true at some point in many instances. Imagine the fact:
"It is raining in Manhattan"
If it turns out to not be raining, then not P is true. But, what exactly obtains here? Russell said a negative fact "It is not raining in Manhattan" is a negative fact which corresponds with reality in the true way or the false way if it turns out to be false.
This is what Witt is critiquing here...right before the part you quote, he says:
"One could then, for example, say that "p" signifies in the true way what "?p" signifies in the false way, etc".
He's saying that the solution is found in applying Frege's notion of sense and refence. Both P and not P are pictures with different senses, but to each corresponds the same reality, regardless of whether true or false. If not P turns out true, then a negative fact does obtain, and its the same facts as the positive fact, just in opposite senses.
Quoting Fooloso4
Correct - the same reality, despite the worlds being "quite another" entirely.
Quoting 013zen
Quoting Fooloso4
No, you do.
He says:
"The world and life are one" (5.621).
Which is why:
"As in death, too, the world does not change, but ceases" (6.431).
The facts of the world are the facts of reality, the world and reality are the same. There are not my facts or your facts, they are the facts. They remain as they are when I die. They do not cease to be.
The logical relationships within the world are not the only relationships. There is also the relationship between the "I' and the world.
Here is a long post on Wittgenstein's discussion of solipsism and "my world",
.
I can see you no longer want to focus on the quotes wherein Witt does not make a distinction between the world, and "my world". Where he literally says, when death occurs THE world ceases to exist. As well as where despite reality being the same, THE world is quite another - waxing and waning, as he says.
I appreciate you directing me to another post, but truthfully if you can't admit how your interpretation requires you to supplant what's literally said with slight modifications in order to maintain it, that's indicative that - while you might be right in many regards - that your theory needs reworking.
An interpretation is only viable if it can account for what is said...this is why the positivistic interpretation fell to the way side, because while in isolation some quotes seem to suggest a pro-positivism inclination, but taken as a whole, it runs into difficulties.
Again, I'd like to reiterate that it seems that you and I agree on many of the salient points, and I think draw similar conclusions, so when I say I don't see the "work" your interpretation of this area of the text does, what I mean is, it's hard for me to see how it isn't superfluous to try and maintain the point given the fact that I can maintain seemingly similar views to yours despite disagreeing on this point.
Where he does not make a distinction must be looked at in light of where he does. The text hangs together as a whole.
Quoting 013zen
How are we to understand this? Clearly the world does not literally cease to exist. Wittgenstein is dead. The world has not ceased to exist. There is more to this than can be seen by focusing on a part to the exclusion of the whole.
Quoting 013zen
It does not supplant what is said, it attempts to explain it in light of what else is said, that is, with regard to its place in the whole of the text. It is not as if he is rejecting what he said previously about the world being the totality of facts.
(5.641)
That "the world is my world" means that the world of the metaphysical subject ends when the metaphysical subject does. My world is the world I see, the world I experience, the life I lead. My limits are its limits. It comes to an end.
(5.632)
It is like the eye and the visual field. It does not alter what is in the world, but rather the ability of the metaphysical subject to see it, to experience it, to live it.
While, I agree with the second part...the first part I don't catch your meaning. I have cited several examples where it does seem as though Witt is making a distinction.
Quoting Fooloso4
Exactly right - how are we to understand this? Was Witt an idiot? I think not. By pointing out that Witt is using the word "world" in a stipulative sense which sets itself apart from how he's using the word "reality", and justifying it by citing examples where we see him say one thing about the world and another about reality, the confusion vanishes. No longer is it something which seems contradictory.
One way, which I am advocating for is that insofar as the world is made up of pictures that furnish the playing field of logical space in my mind, the world does cease when I die, despite reality continuing.
Quoting Fooloso4
Certainly not, and I'd hope that it wouldn't supplant what you'll eventually say. I don't take him to be rejecting it, I take him to be building on and clarifying it with latter statements.
The totality of facts determine the world, but only insofar as the world is made up of pictures of facts.
Quoting Fooloso4
That the metaphysical subjects ends...when it ends? I'm guessing this is a typo, because, well, yea.
Quoting Fooloso4
See, this is what I mean when I say:
Quoting 013zen
This I agree with, but the only change I would make is that I would say:
Quoting Fooloso4
As Witt says:
"(A proposition can, indeed, be an incomplete picture of a certain state of affairs, but it is always a complete picture)" (5156).
and insofar as:
"In the proposition the thought is expressed..." (3.1).
The sum total of our thoughts, which are pictures of the facts we have acquired, despite being incomplete insofar as we are limited in what we can experience, still form a cohesive whole "world". When Witt says that the world is determined by the facts and by them being all the facts, what he means is those are all the facts we have access to. Each instance of a world is a limited but complete picture of reality. Everything still makes sense to us according to our world. If this wasn't the case, we couldn't make sense of anything unless we had every piece of the puzzle already given to us by reality.
Kant- Critique of Pure Reason
The reply was this: 'Why? Because Kant says so?'
I note that 'we' includes you, and I take it that you know what time is as well as Kant does. It hardly seems controversial to assert, then, that basically, if a system is unchanging, it is timeless. Time is one of the few things we regard as regular and unchanging. That we have an incredibly complex topic is the largest part of Kant's point -- to see this much, is to become more Kantian in your view -- it's not some hypothesis that might or might not be true -- Kant's 'doctrine' that his fanboys imbibe without questioning it. It's a question. Or, call it a change of emphasis. While we are considering what is not, actually, controversial, what you believe yourself, consider that in the 17th century, physicist Isaac Newton saw time as an arrow fired from a bow, traveling in a direct, straight line and never deviating from its path. By applying this theory, he was able to assume that if the speed of light could vary, then time must be constant. This is something that it's easy to think is true. But we know of, so to speak, Einstein's theory that time fluctuates throughout the universe. I'm not trying to say anything controversial about it, so much as just to hint that it seems relevant. After all, the old definition of a second was based on the rotation of Earth. What -- the 'old' definition? Time remains a complex topic. Consider then, this not-so-constant universal constant and such. Start with what you yourself think -- Kant doesn't know anything you don't know about 'time'. How do you know what you know about it?
Firstly,
It's nice to meet you. Secondly, I appreciate this sentiment, in particular. Thirdly, I read the entire post three times now, and while I find it interesting, I can't make heads or tails about what you're trying to get at lol that could be on me, however.
Quoting Dan Langlois
While I'm familiar with the belief, I have yet to find any hard textual or historical evidence for it. Counter to some popular belief, Witt does clarify what he means by "objects" in his Tractatus. Refer to 4.24 of the work.