[lit-ideas] "Objects Are Colourless" (TLP): the 'internal/external' property distinction
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 10:24:08 EDT
In a message dated 5/26/2004 9:56:46 PM Eastern Standard Time,
Henninge@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
One is the distinction between internal and external
properties of the objects. The internal properties are logical, are in his
logical space. Basically, color is an external property.
-----
I'm not sure I understand this.
I understand Wittgenstein was familiar with both propositional and predicate
logic.
In predicate logic, something like "There is a blue book (Wittgenstein's) on
the table" would come out as
Ex.Fx & Gx & Hx
where "F" refers to the property, "being a book"
"G" " " "being blue"
"H" " " "being on the table.
Ditto, "all crows are black" comes out as
(x) Fx -> Gx
For every x, if x is a black, x is black.
The point being that 'colour' looks like a pretty _logical_ (internal)
property in that it gets a representation in the logical form of what you are
trying to say.
As opposed to 'beautiful':
That blue Picasso is beautiful.
would come out as
(!)(ix) Fx & Gx
The x is blue and the x is Picasso, and BUY IT (or admire it)! ('beautiful'
can have just an 'emotive' meaning -- does not represented in the logical
form).
Some colour words do tend to have 'connotative associations' -- 'Red!' --
but that's surely implicatural.
If Wittgenstein meant to say that 'external' properties are _perceiving
subject_-relative, then most in life generally is.
Cheers,
JL
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