This paper argues that there are three reasons why we should regard Wittgenstein's Tractatus as a forerunner of formal semantics: Wittgenstein is convinced that we can apply formal notions to natur...

In this article I argue that the strong fascination that Wittgenstein has had for artists cannot be explained primarily by the content of his work, and in particular not by his sporadic observation on aesthetics, but rather by stylistic features of his work formal aspects of his writing. Edoardo Paolozzi’s testimony shows that artists often had a feeling of acquaintance or familiarity with the philosopher, which I think is due to stylistic features of his work, such as the colloquial tone (...) in which Wittgenstein shares his observation with the reader, but also the lack of long-winded arguments or explanations. In the concluding part I suggest that we can read Wittgenstein’s artworks of a specific kind: as philosophical works of art. (shrink)

This paper explores early Australasian philosophy in some detail. Two approaches have dominated Western philosophy in Australia: idealism and materialism. Idealism was prevalent between the 1880s and the 1930s, but dissipated thereafter. Idealism in Australia often reflected Kantian themes, but it also reflected the revival of interest in Hegel through the work of ‘absolute idealists’ such as T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley, and Henry Jones. A number of the early New Zealand philosophers were also educated in the idealist tradition (...) and were influential in their communities, but produced relatively little. In Australia, materialism gained prominence through the work of John Anderson, who arrived in Australia in 1927, and continues to be influential. John Anderson had been a student of Henry Jones, who might therefore be said to have influenced both main strands of Australian philosophical thought. (shrink)

This thesis discusses some central aspects of Wittgenstein's conception of language and logic in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and brings them into relation with the philosophies of Frege and Russell. The main contention is that a fruitful way of understanding the Tractatus is to see it as responding to tensions in Frege's conception of logic and Russell's theory of judgement. In the thesis the philosophy of the Tractatus is presented as developing from these two strands of criticism and thus as the (...) culmination of the philosophy of logic and language developed in the early analytic period. Part one examines relevant features of Frege's philosophy of logic. Besides shedding light on Frege's philosophy in its own right, it aims at preparing the ground for a discussion of those aspects of the Tractatus' conception of logic which derive from Wittgenstein's critical response to Frege. Part two first presents Russell's early view on truth and judgement, before considering several variants of the multiple relation theory of judgement, devised in opposition to it. Part three discusses the development of Wittgenstein's conception of language and logic, beginning with Wittgenstein's criticism of the multiple relation theory and his early theory of sense, seen as containing the seeds of the picture theory of propositions presented in the Tractatus. I then consider the relation between Wittgenstein's pictorial conception of language and his conception of logic, arguing that Wittgenstein's understanding of sense in terms of bipolarity grounds his view of logical complexity and of the essence of logic as a whole. This view, I show, is free from the internal tensions that affect Frege's understanding of the nature of logic. (shrink)

The German physicist Heinrich Hertz played a decisive role for Wittgenstein's use of a unique philosophical method. Wittgenstein applied this method successfully to critical problems in logic and mathematics throughout his life. Logical paradoxes and foundational problems including those of mathematics were seen as pseudo-problems requiring clarity instead of solution. In effect, Wittgenstein's controversial response to David Hilbert and Kurt Gödel was deeply influenced by Hertz and can only be fully understood when seen in this context. To comprehend the arguments (...) against the metamathematical programme, and to appreciate how profoundly the philosophical method employed actually shaped the content of Wittgenstein's philosophy, it is necessary to make an intellectual biographical reconstruction of their philosophical framework, tracing the Hertzian elements in the early as well as in the later writings. In order to write Wittgenstein's biography, we have to take seriously the coherence of his thought throughout his life, and not let convenient philosophical ideologies be our guidance in drawing up a “Wittgensteinian philosophy”. To do so, we have to take a second look upon what he actually wrote, not only in the already published material, but in the entire Nachlass. Clearly, this is not easily done, but it is a necessary task in the historical reconstruction of Wittgenstein's life and work. (shrink)

Novices sometimes misidentify authorities and end up endorsing false beliefs as a result. In this paper, I suggest that this phenomenon is at least sometimes the result of culturally evolved mechanisms functioning in faulty epistemic contexts. I identify three background conditions which, when satisfied, enable expert-identifying mechanisms to function properly. When any one of them fails, that increases the likelihood of identifying a non-authority as authoritative. Consequently, novices can end up deferring to merely apparent authorities without having failed in any (...) epistemic obligations. (shrink)

The main goals of this paper are to highlight the new philosophical aspects emerging from Wittgenstein’s Nachlass and to analyze some of the philological questions that should be considered by editors and translators of Wittgenstein’s writings and by scholars of Wittgenstein’s philosophy. There are undoubtedly advantages to be had from exploring Wittgenstein’s Nachlass and this contribution will be focused on them. However, there are also some critical issues to be taken into account. They concern Wittgenstein’s way of writing and doing (...) philosophy as well as the status of Wittgenstein’s manuscripts and the history of their publication. The advantages of investigating Wittgenstein’s movements of thought through and across the Nachlass and the resulting critical issues will be argued from the perspective of direct work editing Wittgenstein (e. g., the edition of two discovered letters of 1934 from Wittgenstein to Sraffa) and through the semantic reconstruction of crucial concepts from Wittgenstein’s philosophy. This reconstruction has been realized by the searching of Wittgenstein’s concepts occurrences and the recording and exploration of the nuances of meaning represented by each occurrence within the project to compose a Wittgenstein dictionary from the Nachlass. (shrink)

This paper investigates Wittgenstein’s account of the relation between elementary and molecular propositions (and thus, also, the propositions of logic) in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I start by sketching a natural reading of that relation – which I call the “bipartite reading” – holding that the Tractatus gives an account of elementary propositions, based on the so-called picture theory, and a different account of molecular ones, based on the principle of truth- functionality. I then show that such a reading cannot be (...) attributed to Wittgenstein, because he holds the view that an explanation of logical complexity is already given by a correct account of the (pictorial) nature of elementary propositions; this is implied in his claim that “an elementary proposition contains all logical constants/operations in itself”. After clarifying Wittgenstein’s notion of an operation from the Notes on Logic to the Tractatus, I finally explain why Wittgenstein claims that an elementary proposition contains all logical operations in itself, and hence why he can be said to provide a unified (and thus not bipartite) account of language and logic. (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)

On January 11 1951 Chadbourne Gilpatric met with Wittgenstein to offer him, on behalf of the Rockefeller Foundation, funding for any forthcoming publications. Wittgenstein politely declined the offer as he did not believe his health would permit him to bring any projects to completion. The meeting is referred to in a letter from Wittgenstein to Norman Malcolm and is also recalled by O.K. Bouwsma. Bouwsma learned of it from conversations with Wittgenstein and by Gilpatric. However, it is also recounted in (...) Gilpatric’s diary. Gilpatric’s account comprises the fullest account of the meeting. It has remained unedited, until now, and is here transcribed for the first time. Five years later on February 1 1956 Gilpatric submitted a report, entitled ‘Logician and Mystic’, to the Rockefeller Foundation This report adds detail to his original account and summarises the Rockefeller’s financial support of the posthumous publication of Wittgenstein’s work. It also sketches Gilpatric’s view of Wittgenstein’s work. (shrink)

This paper uses archival material to contextualize Georg Henrik von Wright’s making of Vermischte Bemerkungen (Culture and Value), an edition that assembles Wittgenstein’s remarks on cultural topics. Von Wright was particularly interested in these remarks but initially regarded them as too detached from philosophy to be published. In 1967-68, however, he began seeing socio-political questions as belonging to philosophy. He then resumed editing Wittgenstein’s ‘general remarks’ and published them in 1977. Von Wright did not read Culture and Value as a (...) philosophical work, but as a means for helping readers understand Wittgenstein in relation to his times. It is argued that the intention to provide documents enabling readers to recognize the historical Wittgenstein motivated much of von Wright’s work as one of Wittgenstein’s literary executors. Moreover, through making available his own archives, he inspired the same documentary approach to fathom the history of editing Wittgenstein in its historical context. (shrink)