----- Original Message ----- From: "Donal McEvoy" <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Sunday, April 18, 2004 3:23 PM Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: EP has left the building (Was: Saying an EP) > > > First of all, read the quotes provided by JL from the OED to clear up the > > misconceptions you have about EPs. > > These "misconceptions" you merely insinuate as if you are some authority on > the matter and in a frankly complacent and inadequate way. > > Are you claiming that that a name like "cat" that can be analysed in terms of > other names (eg. leg, head, tooth) can be an EP? That any name that be so > broken down can at the same time be "elementary"? > > Try to argue more clearly. You might learn something. > > Donal > Yes, whence my insinuated claim to be "some authority on the matter" (the complacency in my doing so and its frankness, as well as the inadequacy of my ways, is not mine to judge)? It is not so much that my authority on the matter has risen, it is that--at least in my estimation (which you are free to evaluate)--the authority of others (whom I too had once respected) on the matter has sunk. Every day, every mention of the matter brings new examples: Today's lesson is taken from the blurb on the back of the Pears and McGuinness translation of Wittgenstein's _Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus_, taken, that is, to illustrate the respect for their *authority*, and from TLP 2.13, to illustrate why it has (in my eyes, and I would hope in others')sunk: "Mr. Pears and Mr. McGuinness have not only achieved a clear and natural English but have been meticulous in their care for accuracy."--The Times Literary Supplement [The sole example of 2.13 will show that every word of praise here is false--"clear and natural English," "meticulous . . . care for accuracy."] "Pears and McGuinness can claim our gratitude not for doing merely this (a better translation) but for doing it with such a near approach to perfection. The present reviewer can find little or nothing of consequence wrong with their work."--Mind I'll start with a sort of run-up to 2.13 to show how things begin rocky and then fall completely apart in a revealing and representative way in 2.13. We are in an area of the Tractatus that touches upon that which the back-cover blurb describes, accurately enough, as Wittgenstein's early "view that propositions were pictures of reality." 2.063 Die gesamte Wirklichkeit ist die Welt. 2.063 The total reality is the world. [Ramsey's 1922 translation--acceptable] 2.063 The sum-total of reality is the world. [Pears' and McGuinness's 1974 translation--sinking, pseudo accuracy of semi-technical term where none is required and where such is even misleading (implication of mathematical totality of reality)] 2.1 Wir machen uns Bilder der Tatsachen. 2.1 We make to ourselves pictures of facts. [The "to" already shows that Ramsey is faltering] 2.1 We picture facts to ourselves. [seriously sinking--due to exaggerated respect for Ramsey, P and G attempt to retain his erroneous "to ourselves" and adapt the rest to fit by being less literal and more idiomatic--"pictures of facts" is not exactly "picturing facts," which is kind of significant when what we are talking about is the whole "view that propositions [are] pictures of reality": "We picture facts" is intellectual cowardice on the part of the translator because it does not go as far as the original, that is, to speak literally of making pictures of facts. Fewer people will criticize the P and G translation because it's nearly a commonplace. The only people who will criticize such a reasonable commonplace are those who can read the original and see the difference, see what has been lost in the translation. But it gets worse . . . . ] 2.1* We make ourselves pictures of the facts. [just a suggestion] 2.11 Das Bild stellt die Sachlage im logischen Raume, das Bestehen und Nichtbestehen von Sachverhalten vor. 2.11 The picture presents the facts in logical space, the existence and non-existence of atomic facts. [Ramsey sticking close to Wittgenstein, figuring that the latter knows what he is doing and preferring to err in his English before erring in his Wittgenstein.] 2.11 A picture presents a situation in logical space, the existence and non-existence of states of affairs. ["A" picture because P and G had verbalized "pictures"; Ramsey retains the "the" and shows that Wittgenstein is following 2.1 with 2.11 as a clarification and exemplification--and "das Bild," "the picture" will eventually be "a proposition."] 2.11* The picture presents the circumstances [actually more "the way things are," "the lay of things" (on the analogy of "the lay of the land") if you could say that] in logical space, the existence and non-existence of states of affairs. [just a suggestion] 2.12 Das Bild ist ein Modell der Wirklichkeit. 2.12 The picture is a model of reality. 2.12 A picture is a model of reality. [We are really not far apart here, it seems, but P and M will continue to talk about *all* pictures in general while Ramsey maintains the focus on the pictures we make ourselves of reality, where Wittgenstein is really getting at our conceptuality, our propositioning of the world, the picture we make ourselves of the world.] Here it comes . . . 2.13 Den Gegenständen entsprechen im Bilde die Elemente des Bildes. 2.13 To the objects correspond in the picture the elements of the picture. [Ramsey makes the same kind of mistake he made in 2.1 by slavishly clinging to the German word order. Here it distorts the meaning, but a comparison with the German shows that every English word is correct--they just need to be reshuffled: in the picture the elements of the picture correspond To the objects. But what do Pears and McGuinness do!?] 2.13 In a picture objects have the elements of the picture corresponding to them.[!] [This is a marvel of translation science. Am I right in assuming that Pears and McGuinness see the objects as being *in the picture*? In what way can an object *have* an element of a picture, in particular one "corresponding to them"? Does Mona Lisa's smile *have* the painted smile in Da Vinci's painting "corresponding to" it? Read that several times. "In a picture objects . . . "! Try substituting some objects: "In a picture [of a face] a face has the elements of the picture corresponding to it" or "In a picture [of a city] a city has the elements of the picture corresponding to it." Try the same experiment of substitution with my suggested translation.] 2.13* In the picture the elements of the picture correspond to the objects. [In the picture [of a face] the elements of the picture correspond to the face. In the picture [of a city] the elements of the picture correspond to the city. Perhaps if Pears and McGuinness had not made such a mess of this sentence people like Donal would not have had so much trouble accepting that in the proposition/picture "The dot at the bottom of this window between 'www' and 'andreas' is blue" is an elementary proposition and all the elements of this proposition/picture correspond to the objects named/described in it. I am sorry if I have not been able to "argue more clearly." Such are the miseries endemic to teaching. I can only hope that it's not always my fault. In any case, every time I'm not understood, I learn something. By the way, not you, but maybe some others might be thinking that because "atomic fact" and "atomic proposition" were Wittgenstein's and Russell's alternative names for these structures that that would indicate that we're not there yet if we haven't resolved every element in them to atomic and subatomic particles. Not you, but others should not think that. Richard Henninge University of Mainz ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html