[lit-ideas] Re: Essence of Wittgenstein: is 'Blue here' an elem.prop.?
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 4 Apr 2004 21:34:54 +0100 (BST)
D - As you point out, and as Ramsey I think also did,
this last claim
created difficulties for W's overall theory. So that
in 'Some Remarks
on Logical Form' W abandoned the claim that
elem.props. are independent.
The question is how this bears on the sayability of
elem.props...
*[4.22] Why does this support the
claim that such propositions
are 'sayable'? Because in 6.3751, we have 'For
example, the simultaneous
presence of two colours at the same [point] in the
visual field is impossible,
in fact logically impossible. ...(It is clear that the
logical product of two
elementary propositions can be neither a tautology nor
a contradiction. The
statement that a point in the visual field has two
different colours at the same
time is a contradiction.)'
______________________
If it is logically impossible that two colours co-exist at the same
space-time point, then it is logically impossible that 'Here is blue'
and 'Here is red' [where 'Here' posits such co-existence] are both true:-
hence the "product" of these two propositions is a contradiction.
But if the product of two elementary propositions cannot be a contradiction,
then 'Here is blue' and 'Here is red' - since as a "product" they contradict
-cannot be elementary propositions.
So I am unsure how you think the logic of 6.3751 et al supports the view that
'Here is blue'/'Here is red'/etc. are each an elem. prop. - rather than the
view that they cannot be.
That said, the problem remains of understanding how blue/red/etc can
contradict (rule each other out of the same 'logical space') without the EPs
into which these terms might be further analysed contradicting each other.
But this is not to say that 6.3751 supports the view that 'Here is blue' or
any other such proposition is both a. elementary b. sayable.
Rather the logic of the text is to the effect that such a [sayable]
proposition cannot be elementary.
Donal
Trying to avoid 'Good Will Hunting'
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