In a seminal essay, Hidé Ishiguro argued that names in the Tractatus are ‘like dummy names’ and that a simple object is to be conceived of as ‘an instantiation of an irreducible predicate’. In this paper, I argue that Ishiguro’s view is incompatible with other claims made in the Tractatus and should be abandoned for this reason. To this end, I adopt a two-step strategy. First, I show that Ishiguro’s view implies the adoption of an anti-haecceitistic position. Then I show (...) that the Tractatus allows for the possibility of there being haecceitistic differences between two complete descriptions of the world. Since anti-haecceitism will be characterized as the doctrine that haecceitistic differences are meaningless, this provides a refutation of Ishiguro’s view. In the final section, I make a few remarks on the relation between anti-haecceitism and the context principle. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that a corollary of resolute readings of Wittgenstein’s conception of nonsense cannot be sustained. First, I describe the corollary. Next, I point out the relevance to it of Wittgenstein’s discussion of family resemblance concepts. Then, I survey some typical uses of nonsense to see what they bring to an ordinary language treatment of the word “nonsense” and its relatives. I will subsequently consider the objection, on behalf of a resolute reading, that “nonsense” (...) is a term of philosophical criticism. Finally, I conclude that resolute readings have not sufficiently accounted for how nonsense behaves in our language; they have failed to heed Wittgenstein’s warning: “don’t think, but look!”. (shrink)

Bogusław Wolniewicz – polski tłumacz Pism semantycznych Gottloba Fregego – przełożył termin Bedeutung na język polski jako „znaczenie”, zauważając w przypisie, że wątpliwości, jakie może budzić w tym przypadku użycie tego słowa, budzi również użycie w języku niemieckim przez Fregego słowa Bedeutung. Jednocześnie Wolniewicz, w tym samym przypisie, twierdzi, że „to, co Frege nazywa znaczeniem znaku, pokrywa się z tym, co w dzisiejszej terminologii semantycznej zwykło się nazywać »denotacją« albo »denotatem«” (Frege, 2014a, s. 62, przypis 27). W niniejszym artykule postaram (...) się przedstawić rozumienie Fregowskiej kategorii znaczenia (Bedeutung), które oddawałoby sposób, w jaki posługiwał się nim niemiecki filozof, tj. zarówno w odniesieniu do nazw, zdań, jak i predykatów. W części pierwszej przedstawię pokrótce wzajemny stosunek podziałów na przedmioty i funkcje oraz na sens i znaczenie wyrażeń. W drugiej zarysuję sposób, w jaki Frege podchodził do problemów językowych i filozoficznych. W części trzeciej dokonam szczegółowej interpretacji kategorii znaczenia dla nazw, zdań pojedynczych i złożonych, a także predykatów. Część ostatnia dotyczy kwestii Fregowskiego realizmu, która jest kluczowa z punktu widzenia późniejszych krytyk forsowanej przeze mnie interpretacji Bedeutung. (shrink)

In this paper, I try to answer the following questions: what are objects in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus? What function does a name perform in a sentence according to Wittgenstein? What is the Bedeutung of a name? I argue that answers to these questions come from the Wittgensteinian vision of logic. The first part of the article concerns Frege and Russell’s universalist conception of logic, which is the main object of Wittgenstein’s attack. The second part of the article is about Wittgenstein’s (...) conception of logic and some consequences of this conception for the interpretation of Tractatarian objects and names. My main result is that the meaning of a name should be understood as a truth-value potential of an expression. The last part concerns the connections between the so-called ontological parts of the Tractatus and Wittgenstein’s views on an ideal formal language. (shrink)

In the following article I intend to examine the problem of the unity of the proposition in Russell, Frege, and Wittgenstein. My chief aim will be to draw attention to the distinction between Russell’s conception of propositional constituents, on the one hand, with Frege and Wittgenstein’s on the other. My focus will be on Russell’s view of terms as independent, propositions being built up out of these building blocks, compared with Frege and Wittgenstein’s ‘top down’ approach. Furthermore, I will argue (...) that, contra certain other commentators, Frege’s metaphor of saturation and unsaturation does not serve as a solution to the problem of unity, and that the extension of this metaphorical language to Wittgenstein is, therefore, inappropriate. (shrink)

This book attempts to explicate and expand upon Frank Ramsey's notion of the realistic spirit. In so doing, it provides a systematic reading of his work, and demonstrates the extent of Ramsey's genius as evinced by both his responses to the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus , and the impact he had on Wittgenstein's later philosophical insights.

This paper articulates a deflationary interpretation of the notions of meaning and necessity in Wittgenstein's Tractatus. This interpretation is developed through a new account of the socalled color‐exclusion problem and of why the formalism of the Tractatus fails to solve it. According to my analysis, this failure calls into question whether the limits of the sayable and the thinkable can be drawn from within language and thought by means of a purely formal logical analysis. I argue that the lesson to (...) learn from the color‐exclusion problem concerns the limitations of a formal logical analysis of language in eliminating the philosophical mythologies formed around the notions of meaning and necessity, and more generally the limitations of formalism as a deflationary strategy in philosophy. (shrink)

New York and London: Routledge, 2015. 208 pages. Hardcover. ISBN 978-0-41-573039-6. Reviewed by Peter Hanks.

ABSTRACTIn 1931 Wittgenstein wrote: ‘the limit of language manifests itself in the impossibility of describing the fact that corresponds to a sentence without simply repeating the sentence’. Here, Wittgenstein claims, ‘we are involved … with the Kantian solution of the problem of philosophy’. This paper shows how this remark fits with Wittgenstein's early account of the substance of the world, his account of logic, and ultimately his view of philosophy. By contrast to the currently influential resolute reading of the Tractatus, (...) the paper argues that the early Wittgenstein did not aim at destroying the idea of a limit of language, but that the notion lies at the very heart of Wittgenstein's early view. In doing so, the paper employs and defends the Kantian interpretation of Wittgenstein's early philosophy. (shrink)

Over fifteen years have passed since Cora Diamond and James Conant turned Wittgenstein scholarship upside down with the program of “resolute” reading, and ten years since this reading was crystallized in the major collection _The New Wittgenstein_. This approach remains at the center of the debate about Wittgenstein and his philosophy, and this book draws together the latest thinking of the world’s leading Tractatarian scholars and promising newcomers. Showcasing one piece alternately from each “camp”, _Beyond the Tractatus Wars_ pairs newly (...) commissioned pieces addressing differing views on how to understand early Wittgenstein, providing for the first time an arena in which the debate between “strong” resolutists, “mild” resolutists and “elucidatory” readers of the book can really take place. The collection includes famous “samizdat” essays by Warren Goldfarb and Roger White that are finally seeing the light of day. (shrink)

There are historically three main trends in understanding Wittgenstein's Tractatus. The first is the interpretation offered by the Vienna Circle. They read Wittgenstein as arguing that neither metaphysical nor normative propositions have any cognitive meaning, and thus are to be considered nonsense. This interpretation understands Wittgenstein as setting the limits of sense, and prescribing that nothing of substantive philosophical importance lies beyond that line. The second way of reading the Tractatus, which has became popular since the 1950s, is the interpretation (...) which most currently accept as the early Wittgenstein's view; for this reason I refer to it as the 'standard reading.' According to this interpretation, Wittgenstein did not consider metaphysical and ethical discourse as nonsense. Rather, relying upon the distinction between saying [sagen] and showing [zeigen], he meant that these truths cannot be uttered, but instead are only shown. The standard reading can perhaps be best understood in contrast with the third interpretation, dubbed the "resolute reading." The resolute reading takes seriously Wittgenstein's remark at 6.54 that "[m]y propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as nonsense [unsinnig]." According to the resolute interpretation, Wittgenstein is not advancing a series of philosophical theses in the Tractatus. Rejecting the distinction characteristic of standard readings, between propositions without sense [sinnlos] and just plain nonsense [unsinnig], these interpreters read Wittgenstein as treating ethical and metaphysical inquiry, as well as a bulk of the doctrines in the text, as nonsense. To them, Wittgenstein did not intend to put forth any theses in the the text. Instead his methodology is therapeutic, similar to the later philosophy. It In this essay I explain each interpretation, and evaluate them in terms of textual and philosophical viability. I conclude by arguing that the biases which exist in the tradition of analytic philosophy substantively temper the interpretation of historical texts, which ultimately leads to the fundamental distinction between these three interpretations. (shrink)

The power of Wittgenstein's N operator described in the Tractatus is that every proposition which can be expressed in the Russellian variant of the predicate calculus familiar to him has an equivalent proposition in an extended variant of his N operator notation. This remains true if the bound variables are understood in the usual inclusive sense or in Wittgenstein's restrictive exclusive sense. The problematic limit of Wittgenstein's N operator comes from his claim that symbols alone reveal the logical status of (...) propositions. This would require knowledge of the size of the Tractarian domain of unchangeable, simple objects, and this, Wittgenstein maintained, cannot be known. (shrink)

I discuss the account of logical consequence advanced in Wittgenstein's Tractatus. I argue that the role that elementary propositions are meant to play in this account can be used to explain two remarkable features that Wittgenstein ascribes to them: that they are logically independent from one another and that their components refer to simple objects. I end with a proposal as to how to understand Wittgenstein's claim that all propositions can be analysed as truth functions of elementary propositions.

This paper articulates a deflationary interpretation of the notions of meaning and necessity in Wittgenstein's Tractatus. This interpretation is developed through a new account of the socalled color‐exclusion problem and of why the formalism of the Tractatus fails to solve it. According to my analysis, this failure calls into question whether the limits of the sayable and the thinkable can be drawn from within language and thought by means of a purely formal logical analysis. I argue that the lesson to (...) learn from the color‐exclusion problem concerns the limitations of a formal logical analysis of language in eliminating the philosophical mythologies formed around the notions of meaning and necessity, and more generally the limitations of formalism as a deflationary strategy in philosophy. (shrink)

The paper suggests a way of viewing the two Fregean principles of compositionality and contextuality as working together in the enterprise of interpretation. A third Fregean theme, that of elucidation (more precisely, the elucidation of primitive, undefinable terms of logic, mathematics and metamathematics) secures a place for some version of the context principle in Frege's later writings. When thinking about the functioning of elucidations, Frege acknowledges a principle of charitable interpretation. I argue that there is a deep connection between the (...) three themes, and that not only compositionality and contextuality, but also charity is a genuinely Fregean theme. -/- Context. Interpretation. Linguistics. Logic. Meaning. Word. (shrink)

Much has been written on the relative merits of different readings of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The recent renewal of the debate has almost exclusively been concerned with variants of the ineffabilist (metaphysical) reading of TL-P - notable such readings have been advanced by Elizabeth Anscombe, P. M. S. Hacker and H. O. Mounce - and the recently advanced variants of therapeutic (resolute) readings - notable advocates of which are James Conant, Cora Diamond, Juliet Floyd and Michael Kremer. During this debate, (...) there have been a number of writers who have tried to develop a third way, incorporating what they see as insights and avoiding what they see as flaws in both the ineffabilist and resolute readings. The most prominent advocates of these elucidatory readings of TL-P are Dan Hutto (2003) and Marie McGinn (1999). In this paper we subject Hutto's and McGinn's readings of TL-P to critical scrutiny. We find that in seeking to occupy the middle ground they ultimately find themselves committed to (and in the process commit Wittgenstein to) the very ineffabilism they (and Wittgenstein) are seeking to overcome. (shrink)

This thesis develops an account of ethics called the Linguistic Perspective, which is realist in a practical, non-theoretical sense, and is rooted Wittgenstein’s 'On Certainty'. On this account, normativity is intrinsic to human action and language; the norms of ethics are the logical limits of the most basic, unassailable concepts that practical reasoning requires for intelligibility. Part I lays the groundwork for this account by developing a Tractarian Reading of 'On Certainty'. Here, I contend that 'On Certainty' is primarily concerned (...) with the logical requirements and limits of language, and like the 'Tractatus' it develops these concerns in a realist direction. 'On Certainty', I argue, does so by advancing three key claims about logic: Everything descriptive of a language-game is part of logic; the boundary between logical and empirical propositions is not sharp; logic is founded on action. I investigate these claims, with particular emphasis on how natural human reactions provide logical conditions for the possibility of language. Hinge propositions, I argue, are rooted in these reactions; they point us to the limits of intelligibility of our concepts, though these limits are vague and inarticulable. In Part II, I discuss the practical syllogism and its validity. I argue that practical reasoning is distinct from theoretical reasoning and embodies a different standard of logical validity for inference. This standard is not strict and narrow, but creative and wide open; furthermore, it is an intrinsically ethical standard. Then, I advance my Linguistic Perspective on ethics, according to which human reactions provide the conditions for ethical normativity, just as they do for language. I argue that we can access ethical norms by reflecting on those linguistic concepts that are rooted in the most basic patterns of action, and by identifying the norms of behaviour that ensure the development of those concepts without contradiction. (shrink)

The following contribution aims at presenting a reading of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy as a kind of idealism within the Kantian and post-Kantian traditions. The goal is to argue that Wittgenstein’s position shares substantial theoretical and methodological grounds with Hegel’s idealism. The main concepts pertaining to the later Wittgenstein’s position are analyzed and understood as a form of idealism. After defending the reading against anti-idealist interpretations we argue that the kind of idealism presented clashes with central tenets of the Kantian position. (...) These points of departure are then shown to cover in a substantial manner the same kind of criticism Hegel raised against Kant. In the last section, an interpretation of central concepts of the Hegelian position is offered in order to dissolve any fundamental incompatibility with Wittgenstein’s idealism. (shrink)

In this article I offer a novel explanation of Wittgenstein’s claim, in his Tractatus, that to represent the logical form of a proposition would require our being positioned outside of logic. The account here presented aims to exploit a connection, widely noticed, between the logical forms of objects and those of the propositions in which the names of those objects figure. I show that the logical forms of propositions may, on Wittgenstein’s view, be identified with places in logical space, and (...) that places in logical space are reducible to the forms of both objects and their names. I argue, though, that according to Wittgenstein the representation of a proposition’s logical form would require the existence of a place in logical space not so reducible. I conclude that on Wittgenstein’s position, the attempt to represent logical forms cannot, therefore, succeed. (shrink)

According to the species of neo‐logicism advanced by Hale and Wright, mathematical knowledge is essentially logical knowledge. Their view is found to be best understood as a set of related though independent theses: (1) neo‐fregeanism—a general conception of the relation between language and reality; (2) the method of abstraction—a particular method for introducing concepts into language; (3) the scope of logic—second‐order logic is logic. The criticisms of Boolos, Dummett, Field and Quine (amongst others) of these theses are explicated and assessed. (...) The issues discussed include reductionism, rejectionism, the Julius Caesar problem, the Bad Company objections, and the charge that second‐order logic is set theory in disguise.The irresistible metaphor is that pure abstract objects […] are no more than shadows cast by the syntax of our discourse. And the aptness of the metaphor is enhanced by the reflection that shadows are, after their own fashion, real. (Crispin Wright [1992], p. 181–2)But I feel conscious that many a reader will scarcely recognise in the shadowy forms which I bring before him his numbers which all his life long have accompanied him as faithful and familiar friends; (Richard Dedekind [1963], p. 33)1 Introduction2 Logical‐historical preliminaries3 The linguistic turn4 Reductionism5 Rejectionism6 The ‘Julius Caesar’ problem7 Second‐order logic8 Bad company objections9 Conclusion. (shrink)

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. 264pp. £ 40.00 (hardcover). ISBN 978–0–19–969152–4.

Explores the stable core of Wittgenstein's philosophy as developed from the Tractatus to the Philosophical Investigations.

Cora Diamond has claimed that Wittgenstein’s Tractatus contains an early ‘private language argument’: an argument that private objects in other people’s minds can play no role in the language I use for talking about their sensations. She further claims that the Tractatus contains an early version of the later idea that an inner process stands in need of outward criteria. The paper argues against these claims, on the grounds that they depend on an unwarranted construal of the Tractatus’s notion of (...) use. It is further argued that Diamond’s interpretation makes a mystery of the relation between the Tractatus and Wittgenstein’s 1929 account of sensation language, set out in Philosophical Remarks and elsewhere. Finally, the paper considers and defends Michael Dummett’s contention that the Tractatus is a paradigm of semantic realism, in the light of Diamond’s claim that the Tractatus in fact suggests a form of anti-realism about sensation language. (shrink)

Many interpreters of the Tractatus accept that the book endorses an argument for simples based on the reflection that, since complexes exist only contingently, if names referred to complexes the propositions in which they figure would lack sense if their referents went out of existence. More specifically, most interpreters read 2.0211-2.0212 as putting forward this argument. My main goal in this paper is to attack this reading and to put forward an alternative. I argue that there is no good reason (...) for thinking that the Tractatus advances this argument. I argue that 2.0211-2, in particular, should not be read in this way, and put forward an alternative reading of the passage. (shrink)

This paper focuses on a central aspect of the “picture theory” in the Tractatus – the “identity requirement” – namely the idea that a proposition represents elements in reality as combined in the same way as its elements are combined. After introducing the Tractatus' views on the nature of the proposition, I engage with a “nominalist” interpretation, according to which the Tractatus holds that relations are not named in propositions. I claim that the nominalist account can only be maintained by (...) rejecting the “identity requirement.” I then consider an opposite – “realist” – interpretation, according to which Tractarian names include names of properties and relations. I argue that, although it can accommodate the “identity requirement,” the realist interpretation falls short of providing a correct interpretation of the Tractatus' conception of a name. I conclude by presenting an alternative account (to both nominalism and realism) of the Tractatus' conception of a name. (shrink)

Wittgenstein (1993), Derek Jarman’s biopic of the Austrian-born Cambridge philosopher is a fascinating – if perplexing – film. In equal measure aesthetic and didactic, its status is ambiguous, and not only because didacticism in the philosophy of art is often assumed to diminish aesthetic value. Nothing, however, of the film’s aesthetic is depreciated by the intention to instruct. Even if the objective was to teach, the film is also highly aestheticised. Composed of a series of richly theatrical set-pieces, Jarman’s film (...) aspires to a painterly aesthetic. This paper examines the aesthetic and epistemic dimensions of Wittgenstein . The consensus among professional philosophers is that the film, while idiosyncratic and stylised, nevertheless says something important about Wittgenstein’s philosophy. It is as if he has used the project to innovate ways of translating Wittgenstein’s philosophy to aesthetic form. The resultant representational strategies are best understood with reference to the picture theory developed in Wittgenstein’s early philosophy. In the Tractatus Logico - Philosophicus (1922) Wittgenstein characterised the proposition as an articulation of elements that, by virtue of shared logical form, corresponds to the disposition of objects in a possible fact. Under Jarman’s direction, cinematic tableaux are transformed into propositions in the Wittgensteinian sense. In this film, therefore, Jarman has refined his cinematic process into what, following the picture theory, I have called tractarian montage. It is because the philosophy is embedded in the film as a structural component of its form (and not just presented didactically) that Wittgenstein seems oddly right to Wittgensteinian viewers. The aesthetic and epistemic consequences that result from Jarman’s approach are precisely what make the film philosophically interesting – indeed they provide a valuable opportunity to reflect not only on the development of Wittgenstein’s philosophy but also, uniquely, on the relationship between his philosophy and his life. (shrink)

Many commentators have attempted to say, more clearly than Wittgenstein did in his Tractatus logico-philosophicus, what sort of things the ‘simple objects’ spoken of in that book are. A minority approach, but in my view the correct one, is to reject all such attempts as misplaced. The Tractarian notion of an object is categorially indeterminate: in contrast with both Frege's and Russell's practice, it is not the logician's task to give a specific categorial account of the internal structure of elementary (...) propositions or atomic facts, nor, correlatively, to give an account of the forms of simple objects. The few commentators who have hitherto maintained this view have mainly devoted themselves to establishing that this was Wittgenstein's intention, and do not much address the question why Wittgenstein held that it is not the logician's business to say what the objects are. The present paper means to fill this lacuna by placing this view in the context of the Tractatus's treatment of logic generally, and in particular by connecting it with Wittgenstein's treatment of generality and with his reaction to Russell's approach to logical form. (shrink)

According to the species of neo-logicism advanced by Hale and Wright, mathematical knowledge is essentially logical knowledge. Their view is found to be best understood as a set of related though independent theses: (1) neo-fregeanism-a general conception of the relation between language and reality; (2) the method of abstraction-a particular method for introducing concepts into language; (3) the scope of logic-second-order logic is logic. The criticisms of Boolos, Dummett, Field and Quine (amongst others) of these theses are explicated and assessed. (...) The issues discussed include reductionism, rejectionism, the Julius Caesar problem, the Bad Company objections, and the charge that second-order logic is set theory in disguise. (shrink)

The article argues for a contextualised reading of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. It analyses in detail the role that use and application play in the text and how that supports a conception of transcendentality of logic that allows for contextualisation. The article identifies a tension in the text, between the requirement that sense be determinate and the contextual nature of application, and suggests that it is this tension that is a major driver of Wittgenstein’s later ideas.

The translation of both ‘bedeuten’ and ‘Bedeutung’ in Frege's works remains sufficiently problematic that some contemporary authors prefer to leave these words untranslated. Here a case is made for returning to Russell's initial choice of ‘to indicate’ and ‘indication’ as better alternatives than the more usual ‘meaning’, ‘reference’, or ‘denotation’. It is argued that this choice has the philosophical payoff that Frege's controversial doctrines concerning the semantic values of sentences and predicative expressions are rendered far more comprehensible by it, and (...) that this translational strategy fulfills the desiderata of offering a translation which is acceptable both before and after Frege introduced the distinction between sense and reference or, as this paper would have it, between the sense of an expression and what it indicates. (shrink)

This paper argues that Wittgenstein opposed theories of meaning, and did so for good reasons. Theories of meaning, in the sense discussed here, are attempts to explain what makes it the case that certain sounds, shapes, or movements are meaningful linguistic expressions. It is widely believed that Wittgenstein made fundamental contributions to this explanatory project. I argue, by contrast, that in both his early and later works, Wittgenstein endorsed a disjunctivist conception of language which rejects the assumption underlying the question (...) that such theories seek to answer—namely, the assumption that the notion of a meaningful linguistic expression admits of non-circular analysis. Moreover, I give two arguments in favor of the view I ascribe to Wittgenstein: one based on later Wittgenstein's discussion of meaning skepticism and one based on considerations concerning the identity of linguistic expressions. (shrink)

This thesis undertakes a systematic, tripartite analysis of the interactions between the fiction and essays of Thomas Pynchon and the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Michel Foucault and Theodor W. Adorno, resulting in a solid set of original reference-material for those undertaking work on Pynchon and philosophy, or more generally on philosophico-literary intersections. Premised upon the notion that Pynchon's literature harbours a fundamental hostility to much systematizing philosophical thought, this work avoids a dominating imposition of philosophy, or an application of philosophical (...) thought as a validating Other, by examining those aspects of Pynchon's work that seem ill at ease with, or aggressive towards, aspects of each philosopher's thought. This is explored through the concept of an intra-textual polyvocality and relational situation of philosophical intersection; when Wittgenstein is cited, for instance, who is speaking and what are the connotations of that placement? I do not propose, therefore, a Wittgensteinian / Foucauldian / Adornian Pynchon, but rather explicitly highlight excluded aspects of thought to instead develop a complementary reading; a form of intersubjective triangulation. This polyvocality is examined from a univocal perspective. The specific conclusions of this work re-situate Pynchon, in many cases against forty years of critical consensus, as a quasi-materialist or at least anti-idealist, a regulative utopist and a practitioner of an anti-synthetic style akin to Adorno's model of negative dialectics. In a broader sense, it answers the questions regarding hostility towards philosophical thought in Pynchon's work by demonstrating that no single philosophical standpoint has yet to totally resonate with even one of his novels. Simultaneously, it also shows that a profitable approach can be found in the spaces of philosophical overlap and divergence. (shrink)

This thesis investigates the continuity of Wittgenstein’s approach to, and conception of, philosophy. Part One examines the rule-following passages of the Philosophical Investigations. I argue that Wittgenstein’s remarks can only be read as interesting and coherent if we see him, as urged by prominent commentators, resisting the possibility of a certain ‘sideways-on’ perspective. There is real difficulty, however, in ascertaining what the resulting Wittgensteinian position is: whether it is position structurally analogous with Kant’s distinction between empirical realism and transcendental idealism, (...) or whether philosophical ‘therapy’ is meant to dissolve any drive towards such idealism. I argue that both of these readings of Wittgenstein are found in the work of McDowell. Part Two argues that related issues arise in respect to the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and the question of realism. In the Tractatus Wittgenstein rejects the possibility of a certain ‘sideways-on’ perspective. Again, I argue, it is unclear whether Wittgenstein embraces a form of transcendental idealism or, on the contrary, ultimately reveals the idealist position to be empty. Part Three connects ‘sideways-on’ glances with the threat of idealism by introducing a philosophical ‘measure’. I argue that the measure is a useful tool in assessment of the Tractatus, and shows that Wittgenstein was no idealist, but is less useful as an assessment of the Investigations. It yields the result that Wittgenstein succumbed to idealism, but in doing so may overlook the ‘therapeutic’ nature of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. (shrink)

RESUMO O objetivo deste artigo é mostrar que as interpretações "tradicional" e "resoluta" não livraram o "Tractatus" da aparente autoderrota paradoxal. Argumento que essas leituras apresentam apenas uma nova roupagem ao paradoxo. A leitura "tradicional" de Hacker acaba atribuindo uma conspiração metafísica ao "Tractatus", o que é incompatível com os objetivos do livro. A leitura "resoluta" de Diamond e Conant atribui a Wittgenstein uma conspiração autoral, o que contradiz suas opiniões sobre autoria e método. Com base nas dificuldades encontradas em (...) ambos os lados do debate atual, concluo este artigo propondo vários requisitos que a correta interpretação do "Tractatus" deve preencher. (shrink)

What is it to see a stove as world (als Welt) and why does the early Wittgenstein use such a curious example to describe what it means to see something as significant (bedeutend)? I argue that Wittgenstein's odd choice can be best understood in the light of a conceptual relation between value and semantic meaning. To that purpose, I draw attention to his use of the word Bedeutung to denote value, and to the direct connection he draws between seeing as (...) world and seeing with the whole logical space. To see a stove as bedeutend, I conclude, is to see it against the background of the propositional contexts in which a stove figures meaningfully. (shrink)

That Wittgenstein in the Tractatus likens logic to geometry has been noticed; however, the extent and force of the analogy he develops between logical form and a broadly Kantian account of geometry has not been sufficiently appreciated. In this paper, I trace Wittgenstein's analogy in detail by looking closely at the relevant texts. I then suggest that we regard the fact that Wittgenstein develops his account of logical form by analogy with a Kantian account of geometry as evidence for the (...) bold thesis that Wittgenstein belongs within a Kantian epistemological tradition. Finally, I supply two small pieces of the interpretive puzzle needed to support the larger thesis: first, evidence that Wittgenstein's concern with logical form involves a crucial epistemological component; second, a sketch of how Wittgenstein's account of logical and mathematical knowledge can be viewed as continuing a Kantian tradition. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the status of a symbol in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. It is claimed in the first section that a Tractarian symbol, whilst essentially a syntactic entity to be distinguished from the mark or sound that is its sign, bears its semantic significance only inessentially. In the second and third sections I pursue this point of exegesis through the Tractarian discussions of nonsense and the context principle respectively. The final section of the paper places the forgoing work in (...) a secondary context, addressing in particular a debate regarding the realism of the Tractatus. (shrink)

The main question addressed by this article is this: How should one understand the role of the sentences of the Tractatus, given Wittgenstein’s statement that they are nonsensical? I begin with a presentation of three general principles of interpretation in order to avoid answering the question in an inappropriate way. I then move on to a short presentation and commentary on a selection of readings – namely, the ineffabilist, resolute and elucidatory ones – and elaborate the answers given by advocates (...) of these to the question explored here. I agree on many points with resolute and elucidatory readings: the Tractatus presents an austere conception of nonsense, and is not a book that seeks to present ontological or semantic theories. I point out, however, that these readings cannot fully explain the nature of Tractarian elucidations. Then I discuss those parts of the Tractatus which refer to the sentences of the book itself. The main proposal of my own approach is this: Tractarian elucidations should be construed as rules of translation, in that they show how to substitute certain expressions for others. They enable us to construct a notation in which everything that is expressible in ordinary language can be said perspicuously. (shrink)

The identity conception of truth holds that a thinkable is true just in case it is a fact. As such, it sets itself against correspondence theories of truth, while respecting the substantive role played by truth in respect of enquiry. In this article, I motivate and develop that view, and, in so doing, promote a particular conception of sense. This allows me to defend the view from two substantial criticisms. First, that the identity conception of truth is incoherent in respect (...) of its treatment of objects in the realm of reference, and, second, that it is committed to a view of the world in which ordinary objects have no place. (shrink)