The aim of my paper is to describe and evaluate different conceptions of holism in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I distinguish three readings of holistic elements in this work: i) Minimal Holism (E. Anscombe, M. Black, D. Pears); ii) Moderate Holism (J. Conant, C. Diamond, G. Ryle); and iii) Radical Holism (G. Bar-Elli, M. Kremer, P. Livingston). The conclusion is that the most viable option is Moderate Holism since it embraces the logico-syntactical notion of use, rejects (...) an anachronistic interpretation of Tractatarian ontology and allows us to see that the holistic elements are complementary to the initial atomism of the work. Moreover, I point to the consequences of the topic for the overall reading of Wittgenstein’s early and late work. (shrink)

Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus -Irfan Ajvazi.

The article will expose the problem of the nature of reality stablished in the first sections of Wittgenstein"s “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus”, especially the aphorisms 1 to 2.063 seeking to show points of contact between the Aristotelian-Thomistic and Suarezian thought. Initially, (I) a distinction is made between metaphysics and ontology in order to understand why Wittgenstein, notorious for his anti-metaphysical thought, actually ends up producing a theory of reality. Subsequently, (II) the relationship between reality and language will be drawn (...) from the characteristic isomorphism of the Tractatus in which a structural similarity will appear with the Aristotelian-Thomistic thought. This relationship will be the basis for (III) the construction of an ontological image of reality as the condition of possibility for a meaningful language. With this outlook, the (IV) hypothesis of the influence of Francisco Suárez"s thought as the content behind this Wittgensteinian description of reality will be advanced. (shrink)

TLP is a remarkable document which continues to seduce some the best minds in philosophy, with new books and articles dealing partly or entirely with it appearing frequently over a century after it was first conceived. The first thing to note is that W later rejected it entirely for reasons he spent the rest of his life explaining. He was doing philosophy (descriptive psychology) as though the mind was a logical mathematical machine that processed facts, and behavior was the result. (...) Thus, long before computers W gave the ultimate statement of what was half a century later to become known as strong AI, CTM (Computational Theory of Mind) and most recently DSM (Dynamic Systems Theory). Eventually, W realized that perception and memory were the raw material acted upon by our innate psychology (EP) and logic and math were some of the results. Being able to say or understand anything presupposed EP and trying to make logic primary leads to incoherence, as is evident throughout TLP (and the explanation for its many bizarre statements-see e.g. Hutto). Even so, one can “understand” TLP in the sense that one can state the confusions he labored under and which most of the world still does. I briefly review Wittgenstein’s work in modern context. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019), The Logical Structure of Human Behavior (2019), and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019). (shrink)

TLP is a remarkable document which continues to seduce some the best minds in philosophy, with new books and articles dealing partly or entirely with it appearing frequently over a century after it was first conceived. The first thing to note is that W later rejected it entirely for reasons he spent the rest of his life explaining. He was doing philosophy (descriptive psychology) as though the mind was a logical mathematical machine that processed facts, and behavior was the result. (...) Thus, long before computers W gave the ultimate statement of what was half a century later to become known as strong AI, CTM (Computational Theory of Mind) and most recently DSM (Dynamic Systems Theory). Eventually, W realized that perception and memory were the raw material acted upon by our innate psychology (EP) and logic and math were some of the results. Being able to say or understand anything presupposed EP and trying to make logic primary leads to incoherence, as is evident throughout TLP (and the explanation for its many bizarre statements-see e.g. Hutto). Even so, one can “understand” TLP in the sense that one can state the confusions he labored under and which most of the world still does. I briefly review Wittgenstein’s work in modern context. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019) and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019). (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)

Departing from and closing with reflections on issues regarding teaching practices of philosophy of mathematics, I propose a comparison between the main features of the Leibnizian notion of symbolic knowledge and some passages from the Tractatus on arithmetic. I argue that this reading allows (i) to shed a new light on the specificities of the Tractarian definition of number, compared to those of Frege and Russell; (ii) to highlight the understanding of the nature of mathematical knowledge as symbolic or (...) formal knowledge that Wittgenstein mobilizes in his book; (iii) to offer reasons for the claim that Wittgenstein can be considered the philosopher of mathematical practice avant la lettre. The paper ends with an overview, a return to the initial reflection on the connections between research and teaching, and a defense of the reading key used here in terms of its potential for the research in philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

Review of Roger M. White, Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: A Reader's Guide.

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)

El Tractatus Logico-philosophicus es una obra filosófica de una enorme complejidad. Su estilo es sentencioso, por momentos oracular, otras veces casi telegráfico, de manera que en muchas ocasiones cuesta discernir los nexos entre las diversas proposiciones. Con todo, en el "Prólogo", en particular en sus observaciones sobre la cuestión del límite, Wittgenstein proporciona algunas indicaciones de las que conviene tomar debida nota para la interpretación de la obra. Este trabajo es fundamentalmente una propuesta de interpretación de estas (...) observaciones, de su proyección sobre el Tractatus, de su relevancia para comprender la naturaleza, de la ruptura operada por Wittgenstein en las Investigaciones filosóficas. -/- THE PROBLEM OF THE LIMIT AND THE TRACTATUS AS A TRANSCENDENTAL REFLECTION Tractatus Logico-philosophicus is a very complex philosophical work. It is writen by means of short phrases in a oracular style. Some parts are telegraphic, in such a way that it becomes difficult to elucidate the links among the different propositions. However, in the "preface", in particular in his remarks about the cuestion of the limit, Wittgenstein gives us some indications that we should consider carefully in order to interpret his work. This paper is basically a proposal to interpret the above mentioned remarks, of how they illuminate Tractatus, of how they are relevant to understand the nature of the profound change that Wittgenstein introduces in Philosophical Investigations. (shrink)

This paper is divided in four parts. In the first part we introduce the method of internal critique of philosophical theories by examination of their external consistency with scientific theories. In the second part two metaphysical and one epistemological postulate of Wittgenstein's Tractatus are made explicit and formally expressed. In the third part we examine whether Tractarian metaphysical and epistemological postulates (the independence of simple states of affairs, the unique mode of their composition, possibility of complete empirical knowledge) are (...) externally consistent with the theory of quantum mechanics. The result of the inquiry is negative: Tractarian postulates ought to be be revised. Relying on the result we approach the question of the empirical character of logic in the fourth part. The description of theoretical transformations of the notion of disjunction, in its ontological, epistemological, and logical sense, is a common element of in all parts of the text. The conjecture on the existence of different types of disjunctive connectives in the language of quantum mechanics concludes the paper. (shrink)

Mi objetivo es discutir las principales dificultades que Frank P. Ramsey encontró en Principia Mathematica y la solución que, vía el Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, propuso al respecto. Sostengo que las principales dificultades que Ramsey encontró en Principia Mathematica están, todas, relacionadas con que Russell y Whitehead desatendieron la forma lógica de las proposiciones matemáticas, las cuales, según Ramsey, deben ser tautológicas.

Esta enciclopédia abrange, de uma forma introdutória mas desejavelmente rigorosa, uma diversidade de conceitos, temas, problemas, argumentos e teorias localizados numa área relativamente recente de estudos, os quais tem sido habitual qualificar como «estudos lógico-filosóficos». De uma forma apropriadamente genérica, e apesar de o território teórico abrangido ser extenso e de contornos por vezes difusos, podemos dizer que na área se investiga um conjunto de questões fundamentais acerca da natureza da linguagem, da mente, da cognição e do raciocínio humanos, bem (...) como questões acerca das conexões destes com a realidade não mental e extralinguística. A razão daquela qualificação é a seguinte: por um lado, a investigação em questão é qualificada como filosófica em virtude do elevado grau de generalidade e abstracção das questões examinadas (entre outras coisas); por outro, a investigação é qualificada como lógica em virtude de ser uma investigação logicamente disciplinada, no sentido de nela se fazer um uso intenso de conceitos, técnicas e métodos provenientes da disciplina de lógica. O agregado de tópicos que constitui a área de estudos lógico-filosóficos é já visível, pelo menos em parte, no Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus de Ludwig Wittgenstein, uma obra publicada em 1921. E uma boa maneira de ter uma ideia sinóptica do território disciplinar abrangido por esta enciclopédia, ou pelo menos de uma porção substancial dele, é extrair do Tractatus uma lista dos tópicos mais salientes aí discutidos; a lista incluirá certamente tópicos do seguinte género, muitos dos quais se podem encontrar ao longo desta enciclopédia: factos e estados de coisas; objectos; representação; crenças e estados mentais; pensamentos; a proposição; nomes próprios; valores de verdade e bivalência; quantificação; funções de verdade; verdade lógica; identidade; tautologia; o raciocínio matemático; a natureza da inferência; o cepticismo e o solipsismo; a indução; as constantes lógicas; a negação; a forma lógica; as leis da ciência; o número. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus logico-philosophicus and Edmund Husserl’s Experience and Judgement (Erfahrung und Urteil) are based on remarkably different conceptual frameworks and methodologies. After analyzing their respective accounts on the foundations of (formal) logic, I map out their common aims and different conclusions. I hold that Husserl and Wittgenstein both use the epistemic necessity of the existence of logical relations among things as an argument against philosophical scepticism, but their different epistemological convictions lead them to decisively diverging accounts (...) of the nature of those relations. Wittgenstein assumes a syntactic correspondence theory of truth, which identifies general logical form as a necessary condition for accurate representation, apparent in the existence of local truth-functions between propositions. As logical form is the (transcendental) necessary condition of every meaningful proposition, he infers that it is itself not representable and without ontological status. Husserl, by contrast, does not draw from a correspondence theory, but from a processual theory of certainty and truth, which offers genetic instead of categorical distinctions between perception and the logical relations apparent in conceptual knowledge. His theory of formal logic ultimately offers a coherent ontology for logical objects, which avoids logical mysticism. (shrink)

This essay presents a heterodox reading of the issue of solipsism in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, out of which the whole of the TLP can be re-read. Inspired by, though not dependent on, the themes of virtuality and singularity found in Deleuze’s ‘transcendental empiricism’, Wittgenstein’s concept of ‘logical space’ is here complexly related to the paradoxes of the ‘metaphysical subject’ and ‘solipsism,’ within which the strictures of sense are defined, and through which the logico-pictorial scaffolding of the (...) TLP precipitates its own systematic dissolution. It shows how nonsense envelopes not only not idle chatter, and metaphysical confusion, but sense itself. (shrink)

The austere view of nonsense says that the source of nonsense is not a violation of the rules of logical syntax, but nonsense is always due to a lack of meaning in one of the components of a sentence. In other words, the necessary and sufficient condition for nonsensicality is that no meaning has been assigned to a constituent in a sentence. The austere conception is the key ingredient of the resolute reading of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus that presents (...) a therapeutical interpretation of the work, and rejects a possibility of conveying some ineffable truths by means of nonsensical sentences. In this paper, I defend the austere view against the most important objections. Firstly, I discuss textual sources for ascribing to Wittgenstein the austere view that have not been sufficiently thoroughly discussed yet. Next, I indicate that the apparent occurrence of words out of the context of a sentence on lists of verbs and in definitions is not in conflict with the version of the context principle recommended by austere theorists, since this argument does not sufficiently take into account the distinction between sign and symbol. Furthermore, I argue that the austere conception and the principle of compositionality are jointly tenable, for the former view does not exclude the existence of syntactic and semantic rules, but only shows that they are recognizable conditionally. Finally, I indicate that the austere view of nonsense should be seen as a viable option by a contemporary theorist of nonsense, for it helps us to avoid making controversial assumptions about the nature of meaning and content. (shrink)

Tractatus 4.024 inspired the dominant semantics of our time: truth-conditional semantics. Such semantics is focused on possible worlds: the content of p is the set of worlds where p is true. It has become increasingly clear that such an account is, at best, defective: we need an ‘independent factor in meaning, constrained but not determined by truth-conditions’ (Yablo 2014, p. 2), because sentences can be differently true at the same possible worlds. I suggest a missing comment which, had it (...) been included in the Tractatus, would have helped semantics get this right from the start. This is my 4.0241: ‘Knowing what is the case if a sentence is true is knowing its ways of being true’: knowing a sentence’s truth possibilities and what we now call its topic, or subject matter. I show that the famous ‘fundamental thought’ that ‘the “logical constants” do not represent’ (4.0312) can be understood in terms of ways-based views of meaning. Such views also help with puzzling claims like 5.122: ‘If p follows from q, the sense of “p” is contained in the that of “q”’, which are compatible with a conception of entailment combining truth-preservation with the preservation of topicality, or of ways of being true. (shrink)

Legal-Philosophical Propositions. It is possible to write a Kelsenian ‘Legal-Philosophical Tractate’ analogous to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The following main and first sub-propositions analogous to the main and first sub-propositions of the Tractatus are a proof thereof and give an initial impetus to it: “May others come and do it better”. Unlike Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, that ends with the famous main proposition 7 that one should be silent about what cannot be spoken, a Kelsenian Tractate would not (...) end with an analogous main proposition 7, but with two sub-propositions that show the value of both ‘the speaking’ and ‘the silence’ of positive law. (shrink)

L'article s'intéresse aux obstacles épistémologiques qui empêchèrent Wittgenstein d'admettre l'idée moderne de logique modale et, en particulier, les logiques d'attitudes propositionnelles. Tout en proposant un aperçu rétrospectif de la logique des modalités épistémiques, nous verrons que ces obstacles reposent avant tout sur la nature de l'espace logique présenté dans le Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus et le statut métaphysique du sujet. Des passages éclairants seront rappelés pour justi.

This paper critically discusses Hacker’s reading of nonsense in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus in terms of his notion of misuse, which is taken to consist in the violation of rules of logical syntax. I argue that Hacker’s reading relies on an equivocation between sign and symbol: what is ‘misused’ is a mere sign, but the verdict of nonsensicality relies on seeing it as a symbol. Although Hacker seeks to distance himself from resolute readings – according to which nonsense always consists in (...) nothing but a failure to assign meaning to one’s sentences – I argue that his own verdicts of nonsensicality have their ultimate grounds in exactly the same sort of assessment, i.e. whether meaning has been assigned to a sentence. The rules of logical syntax, contrary to his own intentions, do no real work in determining whether a sentence is nonsensical or not. (shrink)

The article contains a critical analysis of Wittgenstein’s theory of logical symbolism. According to an influential interpretation, Wittgenstein presented in the Tractatus a new method of solving paradoxes. This method seems a simple and effective alternative to Russell’s type theory. Wittgenstein’s theory of logical symbolism is based on the requirement of clear notation and the context principle: the type of a symbol only “shows” itself in the way we use the signs of our language. The function sign φ(φx) does (...) not express any paradox, because the syntactic rules for its use, written in clear notation, should “show” us that φ(φx) = ψ(φx). Many researchers (Davant, Ishiguro, Mounce, Ruffino, Friedlander, Jolley, Livingston, Ladov, et al.) follow this interpretation. However, the difficulty of such a view on Wittgenstein’s theory of logical symbolism is that there hides the fallacy of petitio principii. Indeed, in examples of a functional sign of the form φ(φx), we are interested not only in the question of whether the functions φ are different symbols, but also in how this functional sign φ(φx) itself excludes the symbolization of the same object by different ways. This interpretation is contrasted with the idea that Wittgenstein’s theory of logical symbolism is in fact a modified analogue of Russell’s simple theory of types. The reciprocality principle becomes the core of Wittgenstein’s theory: the combinatorial potential of the “prototype” of a functional sign is identical to the combinatorial potential of the “prototype” of an argument. According to Wittgenstein, only describing the combinatorial potential of linguistic expressions (symbols) can vanish the illusion of paradoxes. The function cannot be its argument, because the function sign φ(φx) already contains the “prototype” of its argument, “showing” us that φ(φx) = φx. The correctness of this interpretation does not exclude the possibility that the differences between Russell and Wittgenstein are in fact nothing more than façon de parler. (shrink)

The analysis of logical predication has long philosophical tradition in which one of the central subjects of study is the analysis of the logical form of the proposition. We contemporaneously can say that the way more well-finished of logic predication is propositional function. Historically, the propositional function arises as a logical analysis of the proposition scheme resulting from the convergence of mathematics and logic between the XIX and XX centuries. Two of the main responsible for this convergence were Gottlob Frege (...) (1848 - 1925) and Bertrand Russell (1872-1970). Influenced by Frege's ideas and direct heir of Russell, having been a disciple of this in Cambridge, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 - 1951) has become, in view of the originality of his thought, one of the most discussed and commented thinkers of the twentieth century, especially with the publication of his work entitled "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" (1921). It's in this work that Wittgenstein more considers himself debtor from Frege and Russell, having left explicit mention to them. Then the question that guides the development of this thesis is: what is the meaning of the propositional function of Frege and Russell in the Wittgenstein's Tractatus (1921)? Our goal is, in this sense, to investigate the meaning of the concept of propositional function in the Tractatus (1921). Our starting point is to understand the meaning of the propositional function in Frege and Russell to understand its meaning in the Tractatus (1921). We will focus our analysis on what Wittgenstein calls "propositional variable" (Satzvariable), term that best approximates, in our view, of the propositional function of Frege and Russell. In this sense, our interpretative question was formulated as: what is the meaning of the concept of propositional variable in the Tractatus (1921)? We defend the thesis that the role of the propositional function in Frege and Russell corresponds to the role of the propositional variable in Wittgenstein. (shrink)

Tractatus Politico-Philosophicus (Political-Philosophical Treatise) of W. Julian Korab-Karpowicz proposes a new idea-system. Ideas concerning different topics related to politics are introduced. The work aims to establish the principles of good governance and of a happy society, and to open up new directions for the future development of humankind. It is also in part a critique of the epistemology of early Wittgenstein as presented in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. It argues that one can speak about politics and (...) ethics with sense, and that political philosophy is still a viable enterprise for us. This explanation is provided in response to the review of Tractatus Politico-Philosophicus by Katarzyna Heremska and a critical note of Pawel Kloczowski that were both published in Argument 6(1), 2016. (shrink)

Tractatus Politico-Philosophicus (Political-Philosophical Treatise) aims to establish the principles of good governance and of a happy society, and to open up new directions for the future development of humankind. W. Julian Korab-Karpowicz demonstrates the necessity of, and provides a guide for, the redirection of humanity. He argues that this paradigm shift must involve changing the character of social life and politics from competitive to cooperative, encouraging moral and intellectual virtues, providing foundations for happy societies, promoting peace among countries (...) and building a strong international community. (shrink)

_Wittgenstein_ presents a concise, comprehensive, and systematic treatment of Ludwig Wittgenstein's thought from his early work, _Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus,_ to the posthumous publication of _On Certainty_, notes written just prior to his death. A substantial scholarly addition to our understanding of one of the most original and influential thinkers of the twentieth century, by renowned Wittgenstein scholar, Hans Sluga Proposes an original new interpretation of Wittgenstein's work Written to also be accessible to readers unfamiliar with Wittgenstein's thought Includes discussion (...) of the social and political background and contemporary relevance of Wittgenstein's thoughts. (shrink)

Drawing mainly from the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and his middle period writings, strategic issues and problems arising from Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mathematics are discussed. Topics have been so chosen as to assist mediation between the perspective of philosophers and that of mathematicians on their developing discipline. There is consideration of rules within arithmetic and geometry and Wittgenstein’s distinctive approach to number systems whether elementary or transfinite. Examples are presented to illuminate the relation between the meaning of an arithmetical (...) generalisation or theorem and its proof. An attempt is made to meet directly some of Wittgenstein’s critical comments on the mathematical treatment of infinity and irrational numbers. (shrink)

"'It is clear", wrote Wittgenstein in the Tractatus, "that ethics has nothing to do with punishment and reward in the usual sense of the terms" (6.422). But he insisted also that there must be some kind of ethical punishment and reward; "the reward", he tells us, "must be something pleasant, and the punishment something unpleasant" (ibid.). I argue that we can understand what Wittgenstein meant by "reward" and "punishment" by conceiving these notions as elements in a system of interrelated (...) concepts connected with the idea of law. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s experiments on rhythm (1912-13) were based on Charles Myers’s 1911 written protocols for laboratory exercises. The experiments provided an early onset for Wittgenstein’s career-long exploration of the philosophically pervasive implications of aspects. Years before the Tractatus, Wittgenstein already got a glimpse of a philosophical angle, which was bound to become very important to him not only in aesthetics, but also for his overarching philosophical development. He became interested in the possibilities of aesthetic conversation, in what we actually do (...) when we re-phrase, compare, come up with good similes in order to illuminate something definite within the space of possibility. These initial insights were bound to recede into the background for a while by the mounting demands of the Tractatus framework, only to fully bloom in Wittgenstein’s later work. (shrink)

Karl Pfeifer revisits Wittgenstein’s parenthetical allusion in the _Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus_ to the Grimms’ fairytale “The Golden Lads”, confirming that it does not work well as an illustration of the notion of “internal identity” that figures in Wittgenstein’s picture theory. He then proposes alternative ways of understanding the relationship of identity apparent in “The Golden Lads”.

This essay takes up the significance of Wittgenstein's philosophy for our understanding of literature (and vice versa) through a comparative reading of the stakes and aims of Kafka's and Wittgenstein's respective circa 1922 puzzle texts “Von den Gleichnissen” (“On Parables”) and the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The essay builds upon the so-called resolute program of Wittgenstein interpretation developed by Cora Diamond, James Conant, and others, bringing its insights to bear on Kafka's perplexing work. The essay explores the ethical weight (...) of these two writers' investment in the philosophical depth of riddles, irony, and parabolic and nonsensical expression as unorthodox modes of indirect instruction about ordinary language and world, the yearning for transcendence, and the failure to achieve it. Both demanding works deal with the ethical difference between “getting” the philosophical import of a story or joke and not getting it in the context of an examination of the relationship (or lack thereof) between the activities and difficulties of everyday life, on the one hand, and those of literary expression and/or spiritual or philosophical teaching, on the other. Both strive to open readers to experience — as revealed through everyday language — by leading us beyond the dichotomy of facticity and transcendence, away from the urge to transcend the limits of language, and toward a recognition of the possibility of seeing our ordinary dealing with things as presenting a face of significance that is at once linguistically meaningful and ethically valuable. The central aim of this discussion of Wittgenstein's Tractatus and “Lecture on Ethics” alongside Kafka's parable is to examine the ways in which Wittgenstein's philosophical outlook, writing, and method (shaped by his general attraction to the Book and book writing as well as by his reading of certain works of literature) are deeply relevant to literary studies, and particularly to our understanding of literary modernism. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s Tractatus construes the nature of reasoning in a manner which sharply conflicts with the conventional wisdom that logic is normative, not descriptive of thought. For although we sometimes seem to reason incorrectly, Wittgenstein denies that we can make logical mistakes (5.473). My aim in this paper is to show that the Tractatus provides us with good reasons to rethink some of the central assumptions that are standardly made in thinking about the relation between logic and thought. In (...) particular, the rejection of logical mistakes is to be understood in connection with Wittgenstein’s non-psychological approach to the thinking subject (5.641). On Wittgenstein's view, inference, understanding, and meaning are holistically related; cases of defective reasoning are to be explained in terms of a defective grasp of meaning which manifests in an indeterminate use of signs. Invalid reasoning therefore does not count for Wittgenstein as a species of reasoning, but rather as the mere illusion of reasoning. The rejection of logical mistakes thus gives voice to a radical disjunctivist approach. (shrink)

Der vorliegende Aufsatz stellt den Versuch dar, die normative Seite von Wittgensteins Frühwerk herauszuarbeiten und dabei an seinem Ansatz insofern Kritik zu üben, als gezeigt wird, wie sehr dessen Implikationen mit unseren üblichen ethischen Vorstellungen in Konflikt stehen. Die Arbeit hat aber auch einen etwas wohlwollenderen Aspekt: Sie versucht zu zeigen, wie Wittgensteins scheinbar widersinnige Ansichten so formuliert werden können, daß sie zumindest begreifbar erscheinen. Zu diesem Zweck beginnen wir mit der Untersuchung des demjenigen Wittgensteins erstaunlich ähnlichen ethischen Ansatzes, wie (...) er von einem seiner frühen väterlichen Freunde vertreten wurde, nämlich von Karl Kraus. (shrink)

A draft White Paper associated with Fulbright Specialist Program lectures at the University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia, in March-April 2015, concerning neo-liberal capitalist exploitation of academic research and publications.

Em 27 de janeiro de 1937, o filósofo Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) anotou em seu diário, enquanto viajava para Skjolden, um vilarejo norueguês à beira do fiorde Sogne, onde havia construído em 1913 uma cabana para viver isolado: “Certamente sou singular em muitas coisas & por isso, muitas pessoas se comportam de maneira comum quando comparadas comigo; mas em que consiste minha singularidade?” De acordo com psiquiatras contemporâneos como Michael Fitzgerald, Christopher Gillberg e Yoshiki Ishisaka, a singularidade de Wittgenstein decorria de (...) ele ter autismo. Considerando-se o diagnóstico póstumo feito por esses especialistas em transtorno do espectro autista, este livro tem dois objetivos básicos: (1) detalhar como se refletem na obra de Wittgenstein tanto as suas particularidades comportamentais quanto as suas dificuldades cognitivas, inclusive aquelas relacionadas à linguagem, e (2) mostrar que Wittgenstein “dissolveu” em sua segunda filosofia, especialmente nas Investigações filosóficas, problemas que não são problemas para ninguém valendo-se de conhecimentos linguísticos e filosóficos básicos acumulados no Ocidente desde a Grécia Antiga que ele havia ignorado no Tractatus logico-philosophicus, livro de sua primeira filosofia. (shrink)

This essay deals with the relationship between the mystical and meaning in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s early philosophical work, especially the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The interpretation offered here is intended not primarily for professional scholars of Wittgenstein or historians of the early 20th century philosophy, but for those broadly interested in connections between mysticism and meaning and in what contributions Wittgenstein’s early work might make to the subject. My goal is to explain his conception of the relationship between the mystical (...) and meaning to the interdisciplinary reader not well versed in Wittgenstein’s early philosophy or the vast body of scholarship that has grown up around it, without entirely ignoring the insights into other areas of philosophy that have made the Tractatus highly respected even by those philosophers who most vigorously and completely disagree with his idiosyncratic views. (shrink)

R.C. Pradhan claims in Language, Reality, and Transcendence that, in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Philosophical Investigations, “[i]n no case is Wittgenstein interested in the empirical facts regarding language, as for him philosophy does not undertake any scientific study of language” (Pradhan 2009, xiv). I consider Ludwig Wittgenstein’s purportedly anti-scientific and anti-empirical approach to language in light of advances by philosophers and linguists in the latter half of the 20th century. I distinguish between various ways of understanding (...) Wittgenstein’s stance against scientism. Due to the success of more recent work on language, I argue that Wittgenstein’s critique, as interpreted by Pradhan in Language, Reality, and Transcendence, does not undermine the formal study of language. Nevertheless, I argue, the contention of Wittgenstein and Pradhan that language, through grammar (in Wittgenstein’s sense), serves a variety of functions still sheds light on the differences in meaning across different discourses. I argue that a synthesis of Wittgenstein’s pluralist theory of meaning with elements of a theoretical study of language offers the best comprehensive account of natural language. I will argue that this conception of language is consistent with elements of Pradhan’s interpretation. As Pradhan notes, “The aim here is not to project one kind of grammatical determination but keep options open for many such grammatical determinations such that the grammatical nuances are not papered over in the name of the unity of grammar” (Pradhan 2009, 28). (shrink)

This paper deals with the mutations in Wittgenstein’s treatment of the notions of “generality” and of “singularity”, from his first philosophy, in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, to his later mature philosophy represented by the Philosophical Investigations. As we shall see, Wittgenstein’s philosophical handling of the notion of “visual perception” plays a key role in those conceptual transformations.

When Wittgenstein was young, he wrote a small book intended to solve all of philosophy’s problems with language, called Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922). As an intellectual piece, the Tractatus is a strange beast, written by a student with the voice of a professor. Its process of creation resembles that of a fictional piece: the author is struck by inspiration, labours in solitude, and then translates the vision onto paper. Yet the Tractatus was not meant to be (...) a work of fiction, rather to have the final say in a conceptual debate about the relation between language and world. This little book was meant to be the end of all philosophical conversation, the final nail in its coffin. Written outside the university, the Tractatus had the ambition of ending the academic conversation in philosophy, while it refused to engage with that conversation. This was not fair-play on any account. The Tractatus was never intended to be an academic text; it had no footnotes, no references to other authors. It was a vision of language that Wittgenstein had shared with the world. (shrink)

In this article I examine some remarks from Wittgenstein‘s Tractatus logico-philosophicus about the point and the method of his work. First part of the article concerns relationships between Frege‘s conception of elucidation and Wittgenstein‘s conception of philosophy. Second part of the article is about Wittgenstein‘s attitude to science and the role of science in philosophy. Third part of my article concerns the ethical purpose of Wittgenstein‘s Tractatus logico-philosophicus.

If we classify ethical theories into ‘immanentist’ (those that detect what is ethically acceptable in some type of world events, such as the utilitarian growth of general benefits) and ‘transcendentalist’ (those that locate in some space beyond this world the reason why we should behave ethically – for example, due to some kind of otherworldly reward –), then the moral philosophy of the so-called ‘first’ Wittgenstein would occupy a special place between both extremes of such a dichotomy. To a certain (...) extent, it could be said that the ethical proposal of Wittgenstein during his years composing the Tractatus Logico-philosophicus maintains a delicate balance that avoids both its exclusive submission to transcendental instances (fundamentals), and its total assimilation by immanent motivations (benefits) when justifying the fact of acting in a correct way. In this article we will look at such a Wittgensteinian pirouette between both members of the transcendent-immanent dualism, and we will suggest that the peculiar place where he leaves ethics, between the heavenly and the earthly, may not be completely alien to some thesis of the Christian religion. (shrink)

This paper examines the almost ineradicable misconception of Wittgenstein's alleged antagonism to science as evidenced through some characteristic disparaging comments by world-renowned scientists, notably by Anton Zeilinger. Above all, he criticizes Wittgenstein on the basis of the opening sentence of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, "The world is all that is the case", which he regards as expressing *"the naive world-view"*1 of a *"typical philosopher of classical physics"*. He proposes an extension in agreement with the findings of quantum theory, (...) namely by the clause *"… and all that can be the case"* (Zeilinger 2003, 231). -/- It will become apparent, however, that this amplification is redundant, that Wittgenstein was in tune with modern physics, that a surprising number of his philosophical concepts are in agreement with it, and that various quantum pundits consider them to be relevant. (shrink)

JOHN CORCORAN AND WILIAM FRANK. Surprises in logic. Bulletin of Symbolic Logic. 19 253. Some people, not just beginning students, are at first surprised to learn that the proposition “If zero is odd, then zero is not odd” is not self-contradictory. Some people are surprised to find out that there are logically equivalent false universal propositions that have no counterexamples in common, i. e., that no counterexample for one is a counterexample for the other. Some people would be surprised to (...) find out that in normal first-order logic existential import is quite common: some universals “Everything that is S is P” —actually quite a few—imply their corresponding existentials “Something that is S is P”. Anyway, perhaps contrary to its title, this paper is not a cataloging of surprises in logic but rather about the mistakes that did or might have or might still lead people to think that there are no surprises in logic. The paper cataloging of surprises in logic is on our “to-do” list. -/- ► JOHN CORCORAN AND WILIAM FRANK, Surprises in logic. Philosophy, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260-4150, USA E-mail: [email protected] There are many surprises in logic. Peirce gave us a few. Russell gave Frege one. Löwenheim gave Zermelo one. Gödel gave some to Hilbert. Tarski gave us several. When we get a surprise, we are often delighted, puzzled, or skeptical. Sometimes we feel or say “Nice!”, “Wow, I didn’t know that!”, “Is that so?”, or the like. Every surprise belongs to someone. There are no disembodied surprises. Saying there are surprises in logic means that logicians experience surprises doing logic—not that among logical propositions some are intrinsically or objectively “surprising”. The expression “That isn’t surprising” often denigrates logical results. Logicians often aim for surprises. In fact, [1] argues that logic’s potential for surprises helps motivate its study and, indeed, helps justify logic’s existence as a discipline. Besides big surprises that change logicians’ perspectives, the logician’s daily life brings little surprises, e.g. that Gödel’s induction axiom alone implies Robinson’s axiom. Sometimes wild guesses succeed. Sometimes promising ideas fail. Perhaps one of the least surprising things about logic is that it is full of surprises. Against the above is Wittgenstein’s surprising conclusion : “Hence there can never be surprises in logic”. This paper unearths basic mistakes in [2] that might help to explain how Wittgenstein arrived at his false conclusion and why he never caught it. The mistakes include: unawareness that surprise is personal, confusing logicians having certainty with propositions having logical necessity, confusing definitions with criteria, and thinking that facts demonstrate truths. People demonstrate truths using their deductive know-how and their knowledge of facts: facts per se are epistemically inert. [1] JOHN CORCORAN, Hidden consequence and hidden independence. This Bulletin, vol.16, p. 443. [2] LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Kegan Paul, London, 1921. -/-. (shrink)

Abstract Wittgenstein’s approach towards ethics would have remained undiscovered had he not claimed in a letter to his publisher, Ludwig Ficker that Tractatus Logico Philosophicus (TLP) was an ethical book; although all most all the points discussed in this book belonged to the domain of philosophy of logic. Only a few lines in this book from 6.4 through 6.54 are used for ethics. While in Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein is not interested at all to discuss anything about ethics, (...) in his ‘A Lecture on Ethics’ he has delivered few lines which are all about the status of ethics and ethical judgments. From the purview of (i) his written portion which is just like the top of a visible iceberg, (ii) he himself declared that TLP is an ethical one and (iii) on the basis of his delivered lecture; this paper may be treated as a hypothesis to establish Wittgenstein’s ethics by introducing a new meta-ethical theory named as Ethical Supernaturalism for the justification of the moral value judgment. (shrink)

The chapter draws a very rough (and rather idiosyncratic) map of the terrain of the contemporary scene in the philosophy of language, as it was set out in the work of Frege, Russell and the early Wittgenstein – the presupposed common background, taught to beginners in the discipline, for the themes to be further explored from a present-day perspective in the rest of the book. The chapter outlines some core issues as they are presented in the insightful systematic articulation of (...) Frege’s and Russell’s themes in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Then it sums up the main issues, describes some contributions to them in Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein and other historical landmarks, and indicates how they are approached today, as presented in the book's chapters. The introduction concludes with a brief discussion of research methods and problems in the field. (shrink)

The objective of this work is to present Ludwig Wittgenstein's perspective on the impossibility of the existence of philosophical problems, to then reflect on the implications of such a perspective based on Popper's thought. For that, Wittgenstein's perspective, as exposed in his work Tractatus logico-philosophicus, is contrasted with Karl Popper's perspective presented in “The nature of philosophical problems and their scientific roots” (in Conjectures and refutations). The example of the problem faced by Kant in his work Critique (...) of pure reason will also be considered for the analysis of Wittgenstein's argument. According to Wittgenstein, philosophical problems are pseudo-problems because they have no solution. However, despite admitting the existence of pseudo-problems, Popper argues that factual, logical, or hybrid problems, under certain circumstances, can be philosophical. Thus, the aim is to contrast these two perspectives in order to emphasize how not all philosophical problems are pseudo-problems. (shrink)

The first section of this paper introduces talk about absolutely everything -- the world as a totality -- as an integral element in the project of natural theology, as it has been presented by Fergus Kerr and Denys Turner respectively. The following section presents talk about the world as a totality of facts as a theme in philosophical logic and outlines a problem it has given rise to there. After confronting the solution originally suggested by Bertrand Russell and defended by (...) David Armstrong, the paper points to key elements of the solution presented by Wittgenstein in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I show how Wittgenstein’s answer to the question of unrestricted quantification draws on his notion of showing and the inexpressible. Against this background, the concluding section draws attention to an important difference in ambition between Kerr’s and Turner’s description of the prospects for natural theology. (shrink)

Quoique l'on ne trouve qu'un nombre limité de références à Nicod dans les manuscrits de la période dite « intermédiaire » de Wittgenstein, une lecture attentive de La Géométrie dans le monde sensible s'avère pourtant décisive pour comprendre la nature du projet phénoménologique de Wittgenstein de la fin des années vingt. Nous nous proposons de montrer que la prise en compte ainsi que la reformulation du problème posé par Nicod en 1924, celui de la nature de la relation d'inclusion spatiale, (...) conduit Wittgenstein à remplacer dès 1929 l'ancien critère logique du simple et du complexe (celui du Tractatus logico-philosophicus) par un critère phénoménologico-grammatical inédit et désabsolutisé applicable à toute donnée visuelle quelle qu'elle soit. Plus généralement, la priorité donnée par Wittgenstein au visuel dans son « investigation phénoménologique des impressions sensorielles » trouve sa meilleure justification dans l'esquisse par Nicod d'une géométrie de la vision à la fois complète et indépendante. Nous montrons en particulier que les propriétés structurales du champ visuel mises au jour par Nicod dans sa construction (diversité et simultanéité des places sensibles, coloréité) sont tacitement utilisées par Wittgenstein pour justifier la possibilité d'une description phénoménologique conçue, précisément, comme description des places ou « localités » constitutives de cet espace perceptif. (shrink)

This work-in-progress aims to explain as accurately as possible the philosophical meaning given by Wittgenstein to the silence in both of his major books, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, and the Philosophical Investigations. REMARKS ARE WELL RECEIVED.