Abstract
The Tractatus revolves around the connection between two central topics – the preconditions of symbolic representation and the nature of logic-cum-philosophy. Proper philosophy is an activity, namely of revealing the hidden structures that allow language to represent reality by way of logical analysis. At the same time the main purpose of such logical analysis consists in revealing metaphysical statements to be nonsensical. In the subsequent development of analytic philosophy, these two ideas parted company. The positive aim of revealing the logical form of sentences resulted in a program closely associated with Davidson, namely a theory of meaning for natural languages that yields metaphysical corollaries. The negative aim of overcoming metaphysics ushered in the activity of dissolving conceptual confusions through conceptual rather than logical analysis, propelled by the later Wittgenstein. My presentation pursues these historical lines of influence. But the ultimate aim is a substantive one, namely to establish whether the two projects can be kept apart. With the later Wittgenstein, I criticize the claim that formal calculi constitute the hidden structure of natural languages. But I also contend that the hope of engaging in anti-metaphysical dialectic without relying on logico-conceptual analysis of some kind falls prey to a “myth of mere method”.
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Notes
- 1.
The specific target of his criticism in this passage is their failure to notice that “formal” concepts, i.e., those for logico-syntactical categories, cannot be used in bi-polar propositions with a sense, but instead are manifested by the type of symbol used in the analysis of such propositions through an ideal notation. See Sects. 5 and 6 and Glock (1996), 215–216, 330–336.
- 2.
There is a terminological unclarity here (see Glock 1996, 115–20). In a letter to Russell Wittgenstein stated that a Sachverhalt is what corresponds to a true elementary proposition, e.g., p, while a Tatsache is what corresponds to a true molecular proposition, e.g., ‘p.q.r’ (RUL 19.8.19); and he approved of Ogden’s translation of Sachverhalt as atomic fact. Nevertheless, “state of affairs” is the literal translation and does not beg exegetical questions. For there is also evidence that the difference is also one between what is possibly and what is actually the case (see below), with states of affairs being possible combinations of objects depicted by elementary propositions and situations (Sachlage) being potentialities depicted by molecular propositions. The sense of a proposition, what it depicts, is a state of affairs or situation. A state of affairs is a possible combination of objects which obtains if the proposition is true, and does not if it is false. By contrast, a fact is something which is actually the case (TLP 1ff.; 2.201ff., 4.02ff.; NB 2.10./2.11.14).
- 3.
6.1 restricts “the propositions of logic” to tautologies. But in their contrast to empirical propositions on the one hand, nonsensical pseudo-propositions on the other, the two are completely on a par. This includes in particular that they “say nothing” and are hence “senseless” (4.461), which is supposed to be a central characteristic of the propositions of logic according to 6.11. Note also that according to 6.1201-2, the logical relations that are shown by certain truth-functional combinations of propositions being tautologies can also be shown by the negations of these combinations being contradictions. And in the same context NM 108 suggests that the use of tautologies instead of contradictions in “ordinary Logic” is optional.
- 4.
Russell’s theory of types endeavours to protect logicism from set-theoretic paradoxes by prohibiting as nonsensical formulae that predicate of sets properties which can only significantly be predicated of their members (as in “The class of lions is a member of the class of lions”). But according to Wittgenstein this would only be possible if the class of lions being a member of itself were a genuine possibility that could then be excluded as not obtaining.
- 5.
There is an inconsistency here that has gone unnoticed, namely between this passage which identifies the propositions of natural science with those that can be said, i.e. bi-polar propositions with a sense that include false propositions, and 4.11, which identifies “the totality of natural science”, with the “totality of true propositions” (my emphasis).
- 6.
The reason is twofold. First, a rule that projects a sign onto its meaning is not a contingent proposition; it thereby falls foul of the criterion of sense implicit in the picture theory. Wittgenstein later abandoned this undue restriction, and thereby one rationale for proscribing statements about meaning. The second rationale anticipates his later idea of the autonomy of language. The rules of logical syntax cannot capture an independently existing relation of signification between a sign and its meaning; for they are precisely constitutive of the sign signifying something. A sign only comes to signify something by being used according to such a rule (3.327-8).
- 7.
Like the Tractatus, Davidson uses a version of the first-order predicate calculus to bring out the underlying structure of natural languages. There is an alternative approach to the formal semantics of natural language, adopted by Kripke, Lewis and Montague. They do not share Davidson’s conviction that a theory of meaning for natural languages should be confined to an extensional, first-order language; in consequence they employ intensional rather than extensional logic. But their approach is equally hospitable to the project of drawing metaphysical conclusions from the diagnosed logical depth-structure of natural languages. See Montague (1969).
- 8.
Admittedly, according to the Tractatus, “there can never be surprises in logic” (6.1251). But as the context demonstrates, this is meant to rule out empirical discoveries only. The book’s a priori claims about the logical structure language must possess (e.g., all meaningful propositions are descriptive and arise out iterated joint negations of elementary propositions) are surely surprising in any other respect.
- 9.
This chapter has profited from the discussion at the Tractatus Centennial Lecture Series and from copyediting by Christoph Wagner. I am particularly grateful to the editors Martin Stokhof and Hao Tang for their incisive yet constructive comments.
References
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Glock, HJ. (2023). “The Only Strictly Correct Method of Philosophy”: Logical Analysis and Anti-Metaphysical Dialectic. In: Stokhof, M., Tang, H. (eds) Wittgenstein's Tractatus at 100. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-29863-9_8
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