[lit-ideas] Re: The essence of Wittgenstein
- From: Robert.Paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Robert Paul)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: 23 Mar 2004 20:21:09 PST
Replies to Objections. [This is a long post, and will probably contain many
mistakes of spelling and grammar and may be from time to time incoherent, but I
hope not all the time, and wrong in places, too, but not everywhere.]
*I wrote: Nevertheless, 'my propositions' refers to propositions such as e.g.
6.432 'How things are in the world is a matter of complete indifference for what
is higher. God does not reveal himself in the world.' This is, strictly
speaking, nonsensical, for it is not a proposition whose elements can be matched
with elements of the world.
Donal replies: I assume you mean "cannot be matched".
*No, I meant 'can be.' (I know we've talked about this, but I point it out again
here, for the record.)
*I wrote: It cannot be resolved into 'names' in 'immediate combination.' This
and similar propositions are elucidatory but ultimately dispensable.
Donal replies: Well, this idea they are "dispensable" gives me pause -
especially as we seem to agree that W gave these nonsensical propositions the
greatest value. He does suggest that they are a ladder of nonsense we may climb
up on, then discard. But this doctrine of transcending these propositions
borders on, if
not crosses the line, into some form of mysticism.
*No doubt it does. If this is a problem for the Tractatus, though, it is a
problem for anyone who wants to limit the kinds of things that 'can be talked
about,' i.e., meaningfully expressed, to empirical propositions and the
propositions of mathematics and logic. The Positivists had to say, 'a
proposition is meaningful only if it can be empirically verified (etc.),' but of
course in saying this they were not saying anything empirically verifiable, nor
were they setting forth a proposition of mathematics or logic. One might say at
least Wittgenstein had the courage of his convictions.
Donal explains: In fact, the thesis that what binds the earlier and later W are
two doctrines of the unsayable could be reworked as the thesis that what binds
them are two different doctrines fusing a kind of positivism with a kind of
mysticism: for both doctrines of the unsayable involve a combination of a
positivistic/sayable and a mystic/unsayable.
*I can follow little of this. The thesis here is Donal's (although for all I
know it can be found elsewhere, maybe in Popper--?). How one _fuses_ positivism
(Wittgenstein was no 'positivist') with mysticism is positively mysterious.
*About the unsayable: the unsayable isn't coextensive with 'the mystical.' That
is, what cannot be said but only shown isn't a species of the mystical. (The
original claim, I think, was that what could not be said but only shown was 'the
unsayable,' and that it was this 'unsayable' we were discussing. Das mystische
cannot even be shown. I've explained why what cannot be said but only shown
cannot be said. Simply: if that the form of a proposition shared its form with
the world could be expressed by that proposition there would be an endless
regression of such explanatory propositions, so that a proposition has this
relationship with the world can only be shown. ('This shows itself.')
Donal cites part of a letter quoted in Monk's book: "The main point is the
theory of what can be expressed by props - ie. by language - (and, which comes
to the same, what can be _thought_) and what cannot be expressed by props, but
only shown; which, I believe, is the cardinal problem of philosophy."
*The problem is how to to explain (my word) how propositions mirror the world,
how the elements of a proposition represent objects in the world (so that the
whole proposition represents a state of affairs--viz., an arrangement of
objects). I don't mean that this is 'the problem of philosophy,' but that this
requirement led to the 'picture theory,' in which a proposition is a logical
pictures of how the world would be if it were true. A proposition shows by its
'pictorial' form that it is a picture of such-and-such a state of affairs, but
this cannot be _said_ but only shown: a proposition _shows_ how things stand if
it is true and it _says_ that they do so stand. (4.022) This is the unsayable,
that which cannot be said. If we wanted to add to this the 'unsayability' of the
elucidatory propositions, we could, but this is a different topic.
*Donal confuses, I think, this conceptual truth about what would be unsayable if
the picture theory were true, with the 'unsayability' of Wittgenstein's
'elucidatory' propositions. This is a confusion because it is only in the former
case that the saying/showing distinction makes sense. The elucidatory
propositions, so called, the 'framework,' as it were, are not unsayable yet
'showable.' They are, strictly speaking, neither. That they are said at 6.54 to
be 'nonsensical' rules out their being somehow 'showable.' Propositions are
never 'showable.'
He continues: This, I suggest, remained for W the "cardinal problem of
philosophy".
*'Nonsense,' I argue.
*I wrote: The propositions which 'can be said,' viz., 'the propositions of
natural science,' and the 'factual' propositions of ordinary language ... are
neither dispensable nor nonsensical, and it does not follow that because 'my
propositions' in the foregoing sense are ...unsayable, that atomic propositions,
the ultimate residue of the 'analysis' of propositions are unsayable: 'The
simplest kind of proposition, an elementary proposition, asserts the existence
of a state of affairs.' [4.21]
Donal replies: It does not necessarily follow, but nor does it necessarily
follow that it is not the case.
*To say that P does not entail Q _is_ to say that P doesn't entail Q. so, I am
lost here. Perhaps Donal means that it might be true that the elementary
propositions are unsayable but not for that reason. However, in what he wrote
earlier, he did give just that reason, or appeared to.
He continues:
The open question, which your comment and quotation do not resolve, is whether
an "elementary proposition" is *sayable*. If so, one should be able to give an
example - to *state* one. No?
*If someone wants to argue that although 'the simplest kind of proposition, an
elementary proposition, asserts the existence of a state of affairs,' such a
proposition is unsayable, then I have no response.
*However:
*[4.25] 'If an elementary proposition is true, the state of affairs [it depicts]
exists: if an elementary proposition is false, the state of affairs does not
exist.' [4.26] 'If all elementary propositions are given, the result is a
complete description of the world. The world is completely described by giving
all elementary propositions, and adding which of them are true and which
false.'
*I take it that a description of the world is a 'logical picture' of it, and
that insofar as it is, the proposition(s) in question can be said. Arguing
against this--but this is not your argument--might be that elementary
propositions are characterized as 'names in immediate combination.' Arguing for
it, is not only what I just laid out, but the claim that 'It is a sign of a
proposition's being elementary that no [other] elementary proposition
contradicting it.' [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.)'
*So, why is _this_ relevant? Because, it was a _problem_, and Wittgenstein saw
it as a problem, as to how it could be true that [1] one elementary proposition
can't contradict another, _and_ that [2] 'the statement that a point in the
visual field has two different colors _is_ a contradiction. One might reasonably
infer from this that he believed that something like 'x is blue,' had the form
of an elementary proposition--if not, he would have seen no conflict. So, yeah,
I'll say that 'Blue, here,' has the form of an elementary proposition, even
though 'Blue here and red here,' do not (on his initial, unsatisfactory account)
contradict each other, a claim which he later saw as incompatible with 6.3751.
What this yields, if there is a conflict, is that 'Blue here,' e.g., is an
elementary proposition, one that someone might assert. (He's already said that
they are assertible.)
Donal continues: But W states none. And your contention that "elementary
propositions" are sayable needs more support than pointing out that this
contention is, or may be, consistent with recognising that other kinds of
proposition are for W not sayable.
*This was never the argument. The argument, as you earlier note, was that what
is said about the 'dispensable' propositions tells us nothing about elementary
propositions (which are _indispensable_).
Donal: To amplify: W does not explicitly restrict the propositions that cannot
be said to only the kinds of claim such as the one you mention at 6.432, and it
seems to me you have not clearly justified reading in any such restriction
implicitly.
*I have not argued _for_ such a restriction. After awhile one becomes hoarse
whispering the obvious. There are, although this seems irrelevant to the present
discussion, other kinds of nonsensical propositions, ones that Donal and I would
probably both recognize as being so, e.g. the assertion that 'the good is more
or less identical than the beautiful.' [4.003] What I have argued for by
citation and now, a sketch of an argument, is that elementary propositions can
be asserted.
Donal says: One obvious counter-argument to implying any such restriction is
that, 6.53, W identifies "what can be said" with the "[propositions] of natural
science". But the claim such propositions can themselves be broken down into
"elementary propositions" is not itself a proposition of natural science. If
not, it is, according to this doctrine, nonsensical.
*And--? This argument has the form 'The propositions of natural science can be
broken down into elementary propositions' implies that 'elementary propositions
are nonsensical.' If this isn't the argument here, what is? A note: that there
are elementary propositions isn't discovered by actually 'breaking down' other
propositions; that there must be such propositions is a consequence of the
requirement that sense be determinate.
Donal: This is certainly what I understand to be P's reading of the TLP, and of
course I am, among other things, curious to know why it is, or may be, wrong.
*If Popper's (Parmenides') reading of the Tractatus includes such an argument
this would count strongly against its being a plausible interpretation of
anything. If the intent here is to make the obvious point, covered in our
earlier discussion, that 'Propositions can ultimately be analyzed into
elementary propositon' is merely elucidatory and in the end nonsensical, there
is, as far as I can see, no problem and no disagreement. But what follows from
this?
Donal: In any case your point that from the unsayability of some other kinds of
propn. it does not necessarily follow that "elementary propositions" are
unsayable, is - even if we concede it is true - not adequate to settle whether
they are sayable or not. And the generality of 6.53 etc. speaks against the view
they are sayable.
* Generality is not a synonym for 'complete license' (licence?). How could the
_generality_ of an assertion speak _against_ the claim that some things which
happen not to be explicitly mentioned in it do not fall within its scope? If
this is an argument, what are its premises? I have given you in fairly plain
English, a straightforward translation of Wittgenstein's own statement that
elementary propositions assert things. They do not try but fail to assert
things: they do. And I've suggested to you that if Wittgenstein saw a conflict
between 4.22 and 6.3751, at least we have an example of the kind of thing an
elementary proposition might be. This leads me to two questions:
*What do you think elementary propositions are, and _why_ do you think that they
are unsayable?
*I had said: Plenty of examples of [the isomorphism of propositions and the
world] can be given
Donal asks: Please give some..W afaik never did.
*Well, no, he did not run through a list of propositions that had sense (where
the sense of a proposition is what must be the case if it is true). But by
referring to the propositions of natural science, e.g., he must have thought he
was referring to the sorts of things that natural scientists say, and to such
unexceptional propositions as 'The Thames flows through London,' which I offer
you as an example of a proposition that (if true) is 'isomorphic' with some
state of affairs. If you want to check out whether it is in fact isomorphic with
some state of affairs, take the train down, and have a few pints on me. Any
proposition with sense is an example of such isomorphism, just as any map would
be, and just as any phonograph record is an example of the isomorphism between
its grooves and ridges and the score.[see 4.011]
*Donal has been arguing that distinguishing what can be said from what can only
be shown was the central philosophical problem for Wittgenstein. I have
responded by pointing out that the say/show distinction does not apply to the
propositions of the Tractatus but only to the difference between what
propositions with a sense ('logical pictures') can say and what can only be
shown, exhibited, by them. What they show is that they share a common form with
the world; this they do _not_ say, anymore than a picture of a fish says that it
is a picture of a fish. It says, however, 'this fish has an iridescent body,'
and it can only say this because it is a picture of a possible fish such that it
can be matched against actual fish. This isomorphism is a requirement for the
assertion 'this fish has...,' to be able to have a sense, not a part of a
proposition with a sense: hence, it can only be exhibited. A proposition/picture
is not a proposition/picture that it has this possibility of fit, it is a
proposition that something in the world is disposed in a certain way. This is
the say/show distinction. It doesn't apply to the elucidatory propositions of
6.54
That's it for now. Investigations later--?
Thanks, Donal.
Robert Paul
Reed College
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