[lit-ideas] Re: "A Proposition Is A Fact" (Tractatus)
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:41:25 -0700 (PDT)
A proposition is a fact when I am making it. I am sure that this is what
Wittgenstein intended to say. (Otherwise there would be a logical
contradiction.)
O.K.
--- On Wed, 4/22/09, Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: "A Proposition Is A Fact" (Tractatus)
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Wednesday, April 22, 2009, 12:51 PM
--- On Mon, 20/4/09, Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> Provide the Deutsche. Ogden tried, Pears tried,
> McDowell tried. You are
> thinking English in Wittgenstein when you should be
> thinking Wittgenstein in
> German.
This may be so: but does it matter so much in this case i.e. does the German
from which a "proposition is a fact" is derived have such a different meaning?
> Sachverhalt, I say
> -------
>
> "of a fact" is ungrammatical
> English.
I'm not so sure it is ungrammatical since surely as well as proposing "about" a
fact I can utter a proposition that is "of" (i.e. pertains to or asserts) a
"fact". Anyways..
> But surely one can _think_ that the cat is on the
> mat. Which is not a
> fact, i.e. what we think is not a fact, though it is a fact
> that we think that
> the cat is on the mat.
I'm not sure the relevance of this. My problem is that while the utterance or
assertion of a proposition may itself be a fact (of utterance or assertion)
that would not make the propositional content _true_ or such that it
corresponds with the facts - and in this sense it would not make the
proposition, viewed not as a linguistic act but in terms of its content, "a
fact".
> I'm surprised at McEvoy's
> non-understanding since this is all too basic
> for philosophers (of my ilk).
Ah well. Guess I'm full of surprises.
> Thus we say, 'know' is
> FACTive.
>
> You cannot know, unless you are Popper, know and be
> wrong.
You cannot have "certain knowledge" and be wrong (by definition of "certain
knowledge"). But there is no "certain knowledge" only conjectural knowledge.
So, in the sense in which we have actual "knowledge", we can "know and be
wrong".
Popper is not alone in this view (which can be traced to Xenophanes).
Donal
London
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