[C] [Wittrs] Re: Tractatus and Verification
- From: "J D" <ubersicht@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2010 04:08:50 -0000
SW,
It appears to me that the Tractatus is neutral with regard to verificationism.
The Logical Positivists welded Tractarian ideas to their verificationist ideas
and Wittgenstein adopted verificationist ideas while transitioning away from
the views of the Tractatus, but I don't find in the Tractatus itself anything
that decides one way or the other.
Some of the material you quote clearly supports a correspondence theory of
truth but one can accept a correspondence theory of truth without being a
verificationist!
(And the matter of truth-tables seems quite irrelevant either to correspondence
or verificationist views.)
The theory of meaning in the Tractatus is based on objects corresponding to
elements that make up elementary propositions. So meaning is clearly being
tied to truth-conditions. But truth-conditions and verification-conditions are
not (necessarily) the same thing!
Equating the meaning of a sentence with the correspondence between a model and
the things in the world to which the elements of the model correspond is only
verificationist if one adds the additional requirement that one most be able to
make a comparison between the model and the state of affairs it represents.
But he nowhere says that.
It might be if the objects were objects of acquaintance a la Russell, with the
analysis of propositions always ending with elementary propositions whose
elements correspond only to such objects of acquaintance. But Wittgenstein
doesn't say that. He leaves the nature of objects open to further analysis.
JPDeMouy
=========================================
Need Something? Check here: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/wittrslinks/
Other related posts:
- » [C] [Wittrs] Re: Tractatus and Verification - J D
