Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Historical Context and Philosophy of Science: Reply to Peter Simons''Coincidence and Kite-Flying'

by Susan Sterrett

La Concepción De La ética En El Primer Wittgenstein.

by Nicolas Zavadivker

The new Wittgenstein: A critique

by Ian Proops

An essay challenging Cora Diamond's influential approach to reading Wittgenstein's Tractatus. According to Diamond,... more An essay challenging Cora Diamond's influential approach to reading Wittgenstein's Tractatus. According to Diamond, the Tractatus contains no substantive philosophical theses, but is purely an exercise in the debunking of nonsense. I argue that a convincing case for this claim has not yet been made--either by Diamond herself, or by the numerous defenders of this so-called "resolute" reading. Having critically examined the arguments that have been offered in favor of the resolute reading, I go on to marshal textual evidence--using both published and unpublished sources--supporting the view that Wittgenstein advanced, and indeed took himself to have advanced, a host of substantive philosophical theses even in the (so-called) "body" of the Tractatus. I argue that resolute readers of the Tractatus have not begun to offer a satisfactory explanation of these problematic texts; and I argue that the "frame/body" distinction alleged by resolute readers does not stand up to critical scrutiny.

Logical Syntax in the Tractatus

by Ian Proops

An essay on Wittgenstein's conception of nonsense and its relation to his idea that "logic must take care of... more An essay on Wittgenstein's conception of nonsense and its relation to his idea that "logic must take care of itself". I explain how Wittgenstein's theory of symbolism is supposed to resolve Russell's paradox, and I offer an alternative to Cora Diamond's influential account of Wittgenstein's diagnosis of the error in the so-called "natural view" of nonsense.


This is a pre-publication copy. The published version appears in: Richard Gaskin, ed.,*Grammar in Early Twentieth-Century Philosophy* (Routledge, 2001).

Reading Wittgenstein Reading Tolstoy - Saying and Showing in ''The Three Hermits''

by Douglas Duhaime

Paper presented at the 2011 MLA Convention in Los Angeles

La ética y los límites de la argumentación moral. El desafío del emotivismo

by Nicolas Zavadivker

Publicado por la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad Nacional de Tucumán (Argentina), San Miguel de Tucumán, 2011.

Este trabajo se ocupa del desarrollo histórico-filosófico de las posiciones subjetivistas sobre los valores... more
Este trabajo se ocupa del desarrollo histórico-filosófico de las posiciones subjetivistas sobre los valores surgidas a partir del siglo XVIII con David Hume, en el seno de la tradición del empirismo analítico. Partiendo de esta posición, se centra en la transformación del subjetivismo axiológico de raigambre analítica en el siglo XX hacia el emotivismo, en el marco del giro lingüístico de la filosofía contemporánea. Los filósofos cuyas posiciones se examinan son David Hume, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Alfred Ayer, Bertrand Russell y John Leslie Mackie.
A partir de la dicha indagación, se examinan las posibilidades actuales del emotivismo como propuesta de análisis del lenguaje moral. En las Conclusiones se toma posición frente a dos importantes objeciones que surgieron contra el emotivismo: su incapacidad para dar cuenta de las pretensiones de verdad o de validez que estarían presentes en todo juicio de valor, y su imposibilidad de ofrecer una explicación suficiente del sentido de la discusión moral, al restringir la misma a mera retórica y negar que existan razones para apoyar un juicio de valor.
Mediante un examen crítico de esas dificultades, se vislumbra en qué medida el emotivismo (y más en general el no-cognitivismo) puede aún hoy ser reivindicado como una posición metaética posible, o bien si debe considerarse definitivamente superado. En ese sentido, se analiza también qué aspectos del emotivismo pueden reformularse de modo de mantener alguna vigencia, incorporando elementos del estudio de los juicios de valor provenientes de otras tradiciones metaéticas.
El capítulo I contextualiza la corriente del ‘empirismo analítico’, a la vez que se ocupa del tipo de tratamiento con que esta tradición filosófica abordó la problemática de la ética en general y del estatus de los valores en particular. Desde el capítulo II al VI, se presentan las posiciones de Hume, el 1º Wittgenstein, Ayer, Russell y Mackie. El capítulo VII ofrece un intento de clasificación de las distintas posturas que reciben el nombre genérico de ‘subjetivismo axiológico’. El capítulo VIII versa acerca de las relaciones del empirismo analítico con diversos temas relevantes para la ética (argumentos contra el objetivismo axiológico, posibilidad de fundamentar la ética, papel de la razón en la práctica moral, emotivismo y empirismo, etc.). Finalmente las Conclusiones recapitulan las diferentes posiciones metaéticas y de la argumentación moral expuestas, a los fines de reexaminarlas a la luz de algunas de las críticas que pretendieron impugnar el emotivismo. Se intenta así demarcar el papel que juegan las pretensiones de verdad o de validez en los juicios de valor, no tenidas en cuenta por dicha doctrina. También se examina y se defiende la posibilidad de dar cuenta de un genuino razonamiento moral en el marco de una posición emotivista.

Tractarian First-Order Logic: Identity and the N-Operator

by Kai Wehmeier

joint with Brian Rogers

On Ramsey's 'Silly Delusion' regarding Tractatus 5.53ff

by Kai Wehmeier

I supply a semantics and a tableaux calculus for a first-order logic based on Hintikka’s strongly exclusive... more I supply a semantics and a tableaux calculus for a first-order logic based on Hintikka’s strongly exclusive interpretation of the variables, and prove that the calculus is sound and complete with respect to the semantics.

Wittgensteinian Tableaux, Identity, and Co-Denotation

by Kai Wehmeier

Wittgensteinian predicate logic (W-logic) is characterized by the requirement that the objects mentioned within the... more Wittgensteinian predicate logic (W-logic) is characterized by the requirement that the objects mentioned within the scope of a quantifier be excluded from the range of the associated bound variable. I present a sound and complete tableaux calculus for this logic and discuss issues of translatability between Wittgensteinian and standard predicate logic in languages with and without individual constants. A metalinguistic co-denotation predicate, akin to Frege’s triple bar of the Begriffsschrift, is introduced and used to bestow the full expressive power of first-order logic with identity on W-logic in the presence of constants.

Wittgensteinian Predicate Logic

by Kai Wehmeier

We investigate a first-order predicate logic based on Wittgenstein’s suggestion to express identity of object by... more We investigate a first-order predicate logic based on Wittgenstein’s suggestion to express identity of object by identity of sign and difference of objects by difference of signs. Hintikka has shown that predicate logic can indeed be set up in such a way; we show that it can be done nicely. More specifically, we provide a perspicuous cut-free sequent calculus, as well as a Hilbert-type calculus, for Wittgensteinian predicate logic and prove soundness and completeness theorems.

On the Interpretation of the Propositional Calculus

by Tristan Haze

A fairly polished draft

The question considered is 'How can formulae of the propositional calculus be brought into a representational relation... more The question considered is 'How can formulae of the propositional calculus be brought into a representational relation with the world?'. Four approaches are discussed: (1) the denotational approach, on which formulae are taken to denote objects, (2) the abbreviational approach, on which formulae and connectives are taken to abbreviate natural-language expressions, (3) the truth-conditional approach, on which truth-conditions are stipulated for formulae, and (4) the modelling approach, on which formulae, together with either valuation- or proof-theory, are regarded as an abstract structure capable of bearing (via stipulation) a representational relation to the world.

The modelling approach is developed here for the first time. The simple technical apparatus used for this is then applied to two issues in the philosophy of logic. (1) I demonstrate a corollary or converse to Carnap's result that certain 'non-normal' valuation-functions can be added to the set of admissible valuations of formulae without destroying the soundness and completeness of standard proof-theories. This sheds considerable light on a recent thread of the inferentialism debate which involves dialectical use of Carnap's result. (2) I show how the approach can be extended to quantification theory, by defining a model-theoretic notion of validity equivalent to the usual one, but making use of a proof-theoretic apparatus in place of the device of assigning values to formulae. This sheds light on the close relationship between proof- and valuation-theory.

Clear as Mud

by Dawn Wilson (née Phillips)

Published in the 'Journal of Philosophical Research' Vol. 31 (2006) pp. 277-294

In both the Tractatus and the Investigations, Wittgenstein claimed that the aim of philosophy is to achieve clarity:... more In both the Tractatus and the Investigations, Wittgenstein claimed that the aim of philosophy is to achieve clarity: to see clearly the logic or grammar of our language. However, his view of clarity underwent an important change, one of many changes that led Wittgenstein to write, in the preface to the Investigations, that his new ideas “could be seen in the right light only by contrast with and against the background of my old way of thinking.”

I argue that certain “grave mistakes” of the Tractatus were due to an idealised conception of clarity, and that a revised understanding of clarity is one of the main achievements of the Investigations. In the Tractatus Wittgenstein wrongly assumed that when we see language clearly, what we see will be determinate, exact, and complete. In the Investigations he realised that when we see language clearly we cannot specify in advance whether what we see will be determinate or vague, exact or inexact, complete or incomplete. I characterise this insight as a truism: when we see clearly, what we see might not be clear.

Wittgenstein wants the Tractatus to serve as a warning to the reader of the Investigations; his own past mistakes are instructive and this is why we should read the Investigations against the background of his old way of thinking

Complete Analysis and Clarificatory Analysis in Wittgenstein's Tractatus

by Dawn Wilson (née Phillips)

Published in Michael Beaney (ed.) 'The Analytic Turn: Analysis in Early Analytic Philosophy and Phenomenology' (London, Routledge: 2007) pp. 164-177

I examine the relationship between complete analysis and clarificatory analysis and explain why Wittgenstein thought... more I examine the relationship between complete analysis and clarificatory analysis and explain why Wittgenstein thought he required both in his account of how to solve the problems of philosophy.

I first describe Wittgenstein’s view of how philosophical confusions arise, by explaining how it is possible to misunderstand the logic of everyday language. I argue that any method of logical analysis in the Tractatus will inevitably be circular, but explain why this does not threaten the prospect of solving philosophical problems. I distinguish between complete and clarificatory analysis and argue that Wittgenstein’s ‘strictly correct’ philosophical method is clarificatory analysis.

Finally I discuss the relationship between the two forms of analysis and claim that, although, at the time of writing the Tractatus, Wittgenstein believed that the possibility of complete analysis underpins clarificatory analysis, in fact this was a mistake. In the Philosophical Investigations complete analysis is rejected and clarificatory analysis is retained

Wittgenstein's 'Picture-theory' and the Aesthetic Experience of Clear Thoughts

by Dawn Wilson (née Phillips)

Published in: Image and Imaging in Philosophy, Science and the Arts Vol. 1 (eds.) Richard Heinrich, Elisabeth Nemeth, Wolfram Pichler, David Wagner (2011 Ontos Verlag) pp. 143-162

In the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Wittgenstein appeals to clarity when he characterises the aim, task and results... more In the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Wittgenstein appeals to clarity when he characterises the aim, task and results of philosophy. In this essay I suggest that his ‘picture theory’ of language implies that clarity has aesthetic significance in philosophical work. 

Wittgenstein claims that the task of philosophy is to make thoughts clear. In the ‘picture theory’ of thought and language, a thought expressed in language is a proposition with a sense and a proposition is a picture of reality.  The question I pose is: how should we construe clarity, if making a thought clear is making clear a picture of reality?

Following a close analysis of the picture theory, paying particular attention to the notions of depicting, presenting and mirroring, I conclude that the result of philosophical work – the clarification of propositions – will be pleasurable, inexpressible and intrinsically valuable. For these reasons I suggest that the attainment of a clear thought is an aesthetic experience.

Book Review: Luciano Bazzocchi's "L'albero del Tractstus", in Humana Mente - September 2011.

by Anna Boncompagni

Published in Humana.Mente Journal of Philosophical Studies, Issue 18, 2011

“La cuestión del límite y el Tractatus como una reflexión trascendental”

by Pedro Karczmarczyk

en Discusiones filosóficas, Manizales, Colombia, Año 9, nº 13, 2009, pp. 13-23

Resumen

El Tractatus Logico-philosophicus es una obra filosófica de una enorme complejidad. Su estilo es... more Resumen

El Tractatus Logico-philosophicus es una obra filosófica de una enorme complejidad. Su estilo es sentencioso, por momentos oracular, otras veces casi telegráfico, de manera que en muchas ocasiones cuesta discernir los nexos entre las diversas proposiciones. Con todo, en el "Prólogo", en particular en sus observaciones sobre la cuestión del límite, Wittgenstein proporciona algunas indicaciones de las que conviene tomar debida nota para la interpretación de la obra. Este trabajo es fundamentalmente una propuesta de interpretación de estas observaciones, de su proyección sobre el Tractatus, de su relevancia para comprender la naturaleza, de la ruptura operada por Wittgenstein en las Investigaciones filosóficas.

Palabras clave
Wittgenstein, Tractatus, Límites, Investigaciones Filósoficas

Abstract

Tractatus Logico-philosophicus is a very complex philosophical work. It is writen by means of short phrases in a oracular style. Some parts are telegraphic, in such a way that it becomes difficult to elucidate the links among the different propostions. However, in the "preface", in particular in his remarks about the cuestion of the limit, Wittgenstein gives us some indications that we should consider carefully in order to interpret his work. This paper is basically a proposal to interpret the above mentioned remarks, of how they illuminate Tractatus, of how they are relevant to understand the nature of the profound change thatWittgenstein introduces in Philosophical Investigations.

Key words
Wittgenstein, Tractatus, limits, philosophical investigations.

More Making Sense of Nonsense: From Logical Forms to Forms of Life

by Daniel D. Hutto

2004. Post-Metaphysical Tractatus. Stocker, B (ed). Aldershot/Brookfield: Ashgate. 127–49.

Coming to terms with the nature of Wittgenstein’s message in the Tractatus is tricky. I defend the view that we must... more Coming to terms with the nature of Wittgenstein’s message in the Tractatus is tricky. I defend the view that we must distinguish the claim that the Tractatus is advancing some kind of ‘theory’ from the claim that it makes genuine assumptions about the nature of language, in a way that Diamond’s reading hold it does not. Put simply, I shall
argue that we ought to adopt an anti-metaphysical reading of the work, while firmly retaining the view that it does make assumptions about the nature of language that it ought not. This is necessary if we want to accept that the book has an internal tension and I will be arguing that it is only by abandoning the ironic reading and doing so that it is possible to make best interpretative sense of it.

Misreadings, Clarifications and Reminders: Reply to Read and Hutchinson

by Daniel D. Hutto

2006. International Journal of Philosophical Studies 14:4, 561–567 2006 (Reply to Hutchinson, P., Read. R. (2006) “An elucidatory interpretation of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: A critique of Daniel D. Hutto’s and Marie McGinn’s reading of Tractatus 6.54” IJPS. 14:1, 1–29. There was a further response from Hutchinson: “Unsinnig: A Reply to Hutto” IJPS. 14:4, 569–577.

It has been argued that my reading of the Tractatus has an Achilles’ heel. Its fatal flaw is that it does not... more It has been argued that my reading of the Tractatus has an Achilles’ heel. Its fatal flaw is that it does not adequately deal with the challenge posed by what Wittgenstein says in remark 6.54 (Hutchinson and Read, 2006: pp. 4, 9, 11). It seems that the sort of reading I propose fails to provide a satisfactory basis for attributing to Wittgenstein an adequate motive for his insisting that the Tractarian remarks must be ‘thrown away’. Certainly my critics hit the nail on the head in stating what I think Wittgenstein’s motive might have been: they write that ‘for Hutto, they [the so-called elucidations] are thought to be nonsense by Wittgenstein because they are not fact-stating’ (Hutchinson and Read, 2006: p. 9, italics in the original). For other complaints see Read (2004). This paper responds to my critics.