| Phi 346-01 Spring 2014 |
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Wittgenstein’s Tractatus is made up of short sections that I will refer to as “remarks.” We will focus on remarks numbered n, n.m, or n.0m. It has been suggested, for the remarks with such numbers, that n.1, n.2, etc. lead up to n+1 while n.01, n.02, etc. fall under n as further elaborations. Most, but not all, remarks with such numbers from the first part of the book (up to 4.1) and the end (from 6.33 on) are included on the handout. I’ve included a few other remarks when they have connections to other things we have read or will read.
• For our purposes, the key idea in the remarks before 4.1 is what is known as the “picture theory of meaning” (see, for example, 2.1 and the remarks following it). It is an alternative to the account of meaning you’ve seen in Russell according to which the propositions we can understand must be analyzable into “constituents” with which we are acquainted. Wittgenstein’s “objects” play a role analogous to Russell’s “constituents” with the important difference that an “object” in this sense brings with it all the possibilities of combining it with other objects to form a state of affairs. (Russell said, on the contrary, that we can be acquainted with a constituent without knowing anything about its relations.) The range of possible combinations of objects is one of the things Wittgenstein has in mind when he speaks of “logical space.”
• From 4.1 on, Wittgenstein can be understood to develop an alternative to an account of a priori knowledge offered by Russell. According to Russell, a priori knowledge was substantive knowledge of facts about universals (i.e., properties and relations). Wittgenstein’s rejection of Russell’s view is noted (somewhat mysteriously) in remark 5.5422. We are skipping most of the statement of Wittgenstein’s alternative view, but his characterization of Newtonian mechanics as a conventional framework for describing nature (6.341 and 6.35) provides a relatively concrete way into the idea.
Another way Wittgenstein uses to make his point that a priori truths have no content is his distinction between showing and saying, for he says that a priori propositions say nothing though they may show something about the structure of meaning. This distinction is described briefly in remark 4.022:
The proposition shows its sense.
The proposition shows how things stand, if it is true. And it says, that they do so stand.
Another aspect of it appears is the even briefer remark 4.12.12: “What can be shown cannot be said.”
These ideas have ties to the picture theory via remarks 2.171:
The picture can represent every reality whose form it has.
The spatial picture, everything spatial, the coloured, everything coloured, etc.
and 2.172:
The picture, however, cannot represent its form of representation; it shows it forth.
The distinction between showing and saying also has ties to the conception of philosophy sketched in the last few remarks of the book.