[C] [Wittrs] Re: On When the New Wittgenstein Arrived (Again)
- From: "J D" <ubersicht@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2010 03:51:30 -0000
SW,
I first want to emphasize that the idea of a "middle" or "transitional" period
that includes much of the first half of the 1930s can be found in Stroll,
Stern, and Hacker, all of whom have undoubtedly read Monk and the latter of
whom are noted for their close examination of the wider Nachlass, including
material likely unavailable to Monk at the time he wrote DoG. Such an "appeal
to authority" does not make my interpretation correct but it does suggest that
it isn't obviously wrong. (On the other hand, we'd agree that placing BBB in
such a transitional period would be wrong. And so do they.)
I do think you're onto something in suggesting that we may be talking about
different things. I'd be inclined to characterize it as a contrast between
hagiographic and hermeneutic concerns. Put another way, we might distinguish
between "a man going through a transition" and "a man's ideas going through a
transition", and in that case it may be that our "hero's journey" has passed
through the "crisis stage" sometime in 1930, but that his seeing "how to go on"
and his actually applying that approach to working through old ideas and
developing new ones could well take longer.
I'd remind you of my remarks concerning the "cash value" of periodization.
What I emphasized in those remarks could be called an issue of "presumptive
consistency": a scheme of periodization gives us a rule of thumb for judging
how much we can treat various works as reflecting a consistent view on various
topics. That's a hermeneutic concern and I take it that this is the concern to
which the remarks of exegetes such as the aforementioned Stroll, Stern, and
Hacker would be addressed. (A further rule of thumb is that concerns in
transitional works give clues to the understanding of where Wittgenstein
identified problems in the early work and how he came to alternatives in the
later works.)
You compared phenomenology in Wittgenstein's transitional period to a
"band-aid" and I think that's somewhat apt. But in continuing that metaphor,
the band-aid did had not come off when he dictated BT in 1932/1933. While it's
not in PG, there is a section on phenomenology in BT that is quite similar to
phenomenological remarks in PR. If someone continues to wear a band-aid,
that's good reason to suppose that the wound hasn't entirely healed. Or
alternatively (and here's where the metaphor becomes strained), they may not
yet recognize the band-aid as such but mistake it for healed flesh.
Now, I'll comment directly on some of your specific remarks.
> 1. rejection of elementary propositions and logical
> inference.
Just to be clear, there is nothing that could be called a rejection of logic
inference anywhere in Wittgenstein's work. And the idea of elementary
propositions wasn't rejected in the passage you quote. What was rejected was
the idea that all logical inference was could be accomodated in the form of
tautologies demonstrable in the propositional calculus. And the corrolary of
that: the idea that all elementray propositions are mutually independent.
In rejecting that idea and its corrolary, the idea of "tautology" - or at any
rate, "logical inference" - is shown to involve more than the propositional
calculus (read: the method of truth-tables) can accomodate. This is in no way
a rejection of logical inference and to call this (or anything else
Wittgenstein ever wrote) "anti-logic" would be highly misleading.
Whether he has rejected elementray propositions is another matter. Certainly
the conception has changed and so clearly he has rejected elementary
propositions as described in the Tractatus. But he still speaks of them and
treats their relations are being determined by their place in "logical space".
That's not early Wittgenstein. It's not late Wittgenstein either. It's
transitional. And it occurs in BT, which he was dictating in 1933.
In the full remark from which you quoted, as it appears in WWK, Wittgenstein
explicitly prefaces the remarks you provided saying, "I used to have two
conceptions of elementary propositions, one of which seems correct to me, while
I was completely wrong in holding the other." (That clearly shows that calling
these remarks evidence that he'd rejected elementary propositions is at the
very least quite misleading.) He then proceeds to describe his first
assumption, viz. that analysis of propositions would "eventually reach
propositions that are immiediate connections of objects without any help from
the logical constants." And he says, "I still adhere to that." He then spells
out why he rejects the independence of elementary propositions, as I described
above.
He adds, "in cases where propositions are independent everything remains valid
- the whole theory of inference and so forth"(!)
(As a part of logical theory, the theory of formal systems, it is valid. But
in the later work, the theory of formal systems is not considered the
appropriate method of dispelling philosophical confusion, whatever value such
theory may have in other contexts.)
You also misquote him (inadvertently I assume), "without paying much attention
to their inner connection." "(T)heir" in this sentence would read as referring
to the inner connection between logical constants. (Whatever that might mean.)
But that's wrong. What he actually said was, "without paying attention to the
inner connection of propositions."
(Cf. PG 5, p.215: "If we had grammar set out in the form of a book, it wouldn't
be a series of chapters side by side, it would have quite a different
structure. And it is here, if I am right, that we would have to see the
distinction between phenomenological and non-phenomenological. There would be,
say, a chapter about colours, setting out the rules for the use of
colour-words; but there would be nothing comparable in what the grammar had to
say about the
words 'not', 'or', etc. (the 'logical constants').")
As I've said, the independence of elementary propositions was the first domino
to fall. But his rejection of that alone does not bring him to the ideas of
the later work, an an examination of these remarks clearly demonstrates.
> 2. introduction of a central role for grammar.
First, an observation. The remarks on the circle have antecedents in Poincare
and Hilbert, who is described as a Formalist, so whatever you may have meant by
your later reference to "anti-formalistic" talk, to describe this as
"anti-formalistic" would be highly misleading. If anything, these remarks
would be illustrations of Wittgenstein's Formalism, though that comparison is
easily pushed too far.
Second, "a central role for grammar" (or "syntax", which he also uses at this
time) could equally describe the early Wittgenstein!
Third, the point I would emphasize is that the transition to treating
philosophical problems as entirely grammatical involves the insight that where
we may be tempted to look to phenomenology, we are actually dealing with
grammar. "Phenomenology is grammar", declares a headline from BT. But this is
not the sort of claim he would later make. On the contrary, Wittgenstein would
later emphasize the difference, as in RC I.53, "The is no such thing as
phenomenology, but there are indeed phenomenological problems." And PC II,
"Here the temptation to believe in a phenomenology, something midway between
science and logic, is very great."
There are four reasons at least for eschewing talk of phenomenology. The first
is that the picture of intuiting essences through such a method does not sit at
all easily with either the insights about symptoms and criteria or with
insights about family resemblance. The second is that the picture suggests
"private objects" and runs afoul of the insights concerning talk of "private
ostensive definition". Third, the temptation to confuse such an investigation
with some sort of descriptive psychology is just too great, although that's a
problem of which Wittgenstein was well aware of early on. And fourth, the
notion of some special discipline or activity whose business it is to
investigate essences, the very idea of phenomenology, militates against the
insight that grammar is arbitrary.
> 3. Rejection of doctrines and theses as philosophical
> method;
This insight is vital to what was to come, but recognizing it and working
through one's various ideas with this insight in mind are two quite different
things. Resisting the temptations of substantive doctrine is extremely
difficult and it should not surprise us in the least if learning to catch
himself being so tempted and to reorient his thinking in light of this
awareness took no small amount of work.
> 4. Seeing philosophical method as a craft or technique
> (rather than formulating proofs).
First, formulating proofs is a technique (or a family of techniques).
Second, being "business like" could equally describe phenomenology. The idea
of a method for setting out to achieve piecemeal but lasting results contrasted
with trying to construct a systematic philosophy from first principles is as
much a part of the propaganda of Phenomenology and as Ordinary Language
Philosophy. So his having finding a method that seemed "business like" to him
and his continuing to think in terms of phenomenology are not incompatible.
> 5. waffling on the verification principle soon
> after reinforcing it to Schlick and Waisman in the same
> year. (Monk doesn't give a date, but the suggestion is 1930
> [if this is wrong, it could be important if after 32:]
Actually, the remark was recorded by Gasking and Jackson, both of whom (if
memory serves) didn't study at Cambridge until the late 30s. Among other
things, they recorded some of Wittgenstein's lectures on mathematics in 1939.
I don't know the exact time frame of their attendance and don't have the source
text handy but 1930 doesn't seem plausible. That he is here recounting ways
that he had been misunderstood in things he said, ca. 1930 is quite likely
though.
> 6. Announcing in the lectures of the Lent term of 1930 that
> philosophy's role is to dispel puzzles of language, and
> that doing so involves spelling out grammar
Again, how one is to go about this (phenomenology?) could still be an open
question. As could be the question of grammar's arbitrariness.
> 7. Arriving for the Fall term, Wittgenstein had a clear
> conception of the right method in philosophy...
> ... I am not interested in constructing a building, so much
> as in having a perspicuous view of the foundations of
> possible buildings." (300-301)
Remarks similar to those I've already made apply here as well, but I want to
emphasize another point with regard to that last quotation: it is ambiguous
with regard to matters that would later be important. We speak of different
buildings having different foundations but we also speak of a single building
having "foundations" as well as "a foundation", so it isn't clear whether he is
supposing that there is a single foundation (or kind of foundation) to various
possible buildings or whether different buildings might have entirely different
foundations.
(Cf. the issue of primitive language games as preparatory sketches, as showing
historical priority, as showing logical priority, or as objects of comparison,
and the reflections on the idea of Urpflanze and so forth.)
Such a statement is actually suggestive of this, from the first chapter of PR:
"A recognition of what is essential and what inessential in our language if it
is to represent, a recognition of which parts of our language are wheels
turning idly, amounts to the construction of a phenomenological language."
"Physics differs from phenomenology in that it is concerned to establish laws.
Phenomenology only establishes the possibilities. Thus, phenomenology would be
the grammar of the description of those facts on which physics builds its
theories."
Also, even if we take "foundations" as indicating a variety of possible
foundations, the idea that he is concerned with the foundations of possible
buildings still suggests a distinction between what is essential or inessential
in our language.
Then there's the whole idea of "foundations", which would be subject to much
scrutiny in OC as well as PI.
I don't think the quotation is as clearly "late Wittgenstein" as you seem to
suppose.
JPDeMouy
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