[lit-ideas] Re: The New Islamists Unmasked/TLP
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2012 11:44:12 +0100 (BST)
________________________________
From: Thomas Hart <tehart@xxxxxxx>
>I replied to Lawrence's statement that he didn't want to annoy me because I've
>sworn off politics & said that I was more interested in having an explanation
>of Wittgenstein than in discussing politics. Hence Wittgenstein was introduced
>into the discussion.>
I'm not so paranoid yet as to doubt this. However, and though I may not know
better, I do not agree with John's interpretation:
>1 The world is all that is the case.1. The world is all that we take for
>granted.>
No, it is more like starting from the view that there is nothing "that is the
case" outside of the "world":- this might seem strange to say, but we might say
it reflects that whatever might be speculated as being outside "the world" it
is not something that could be a matter of being "the case" insofar as we can
speak of anything being "the case". Certainly the sense of 1 is _not_ that we
take the world for granted - for how could we, if it is not granted what its
facts are? Nor, I think, is W suggesting that we take for granted that there is
a world (rather W's POV is 'that there is a world' is something that shows
itself: see TLP's treatment of solipsism).
>1.1 The world is the totality of facts, not of things. 1.1 The world is
>constituted by facts, i.e., propositions accepted as true about things, not
>the things themselves.>
The first part is right enough but the "i.e." goes off track. The "totality of
facts" are not propositions, still less propositions "accepted as true". Facts
are facts. What 1.1 'says' is that facts are not necessarily "things". That a
thing - say, an elephant - exists (a specified somewhere) may be a fact. But it
will also be a fact if it does not exist (a specified somewhere) - yet that 'it
does not exist' is not a "thing". Hence the world is the totality of facts, not
merely the totality of things. For the non-existence of the elephant (a
specified somewhere) is part of "the world" just as its existence would be.
This indicates that "the world" W means is "the world" as "logical space".
>1.11 The world is determined by the facts, and by their being all the facts.
>1.11 The world as we know it is all and only these propositions.>
Again: the "totality of facts" are not propositions, so John's suggestion is
awry (propositions may pertain to facts: but facts are facts and are not
propositions). Rather what this is 'saying' is that "the totality of facts"
shows us "the world". It perhaps stops short of 'saying' there is no more to
"the world" than the "totality of facts" - whether we take it as 'saying' there
is no more to "the world" than the "totality of facts", perhaps depends on what
logical meaning we give to "determined by".
>From which it follows that any proposition advanced as a possible fact will be
>accepted if consistent with the facts that constitute the world as we know it
>and otherwise rejected as not part of that world.>
There is a potential mistake in this (aside from its confusion of
'propositions' and 'facts') for the relationship between a true
proposition and "the facts" is not (for W in TLP) one of mere consistency but
of
one-to-one correspondence. A true proposition 'pictures' "the facts" in a way
of one-to-one correspondence between the objects into which the proposition may
be analysed and the objects into which "the world" is divided. [No examples are
ever given].
Dnl
Ldn
Other related posts:
