I thought I would give my first impressions on Tractatus, some comments on his ideas (from a beginners perspective) with some verging on criticism and some questions. Considering that Wittgenstein repudiated Tractatus in his later philosophy, this is hardly revolutionary. Some aspects where carried over to his later works and although I have only a vague understand of that, I will probably take a few pot shots via Tractatus. :) I apart from T, as I will abbreviate Tractatus, I have also read Wittgenstein: A Very Short Introduction by A. C. Grayling – good read by the way. You don’t need to point out that you embrace Philosophical Investigations rather that Tractatus – or at least I expect you do!

Wittgenstein had a background in mathematics and logic. His early works seems to have been based on the application of logic on language and descriptions (or “propositions”) of the world. “Wittgenstein himself concluded that with the Tractatus he had resolved all philosophical problems”. He later realized that propositions of reality was not the only way language could be used. He thought that he had distorted language to fit his logical model.

The style of his writing is compressed, aphoristic and abstract. Personally, I like someone who comes to the point quickly. He does move on quickly but the abstraction makes it difficult to determine falsifiability i.e. we can’t see if he is correct or not because his terms are left undefined and intuitively expressed. For example “2.02 Objects are simple” but what is an object?

I found T to be a hard read because he provides an analysis of language. The book is obviously written in a language. We as the reader are left like a snake swallowing its own tail. I am not blaming Wittgenstein because it is probably unavoidable. ok I blame him a little bit :)

Separation and Clarification

“1. The world is everything that is the case.” Since we can define the world as that – no problem! lol. These days, it might be the Multiverse is everything that is the case but the argument is the same.

“4.11 The totality of true propositions is the whole of natural science (or the whole corpus of the natural sciences).”

“4.111 Philosophy is not one of the natural sciences.”

“4.112 Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts.” Note: he said thoughts not language.

“6.111 All theories that make a proposition of logic appear to have content are false.” Bye bye rationalism! (except A priori knowledge i.e. logic as defined by Wittgenstein.)

“6.421 It is clear that ethics cannot be put into words…” and “7 What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence”. Interesting…

“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.” Also interesting… apparently he was discrete on his own religious beliefs. He seems to have a custom version of Ignosticism in the T era.

His view for T appears to be logic/philosophy, natural sciences and metaphysics/ethics are separate. You probably could foresee that I would quote this one:

“6.53″… “The correct method in philosophy would really by the following: to say nothing except what can be said i.e. propositions of natural science.” … “whenever someone else wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in his propositions.”

Foreshadowing of later work

“4 A thought is a proposition with a sense.” Later he would ask if that sense applies only to a particular “form of life” (or a set of agreed language ground rules).

“4.002″… “Language disguises thought.” I could not agree more.

It seems to me, in light of his later work, W would accept T is true in a single “form of life” i.e. the word game of matching our internal metal picture with the world (as he called “all that there is”).

Disagreements

“4.0031 All philosophy is a ‘critique of language.” Noooooooooo! lol! Language is not fundamental to inquiry or thought or to explaining our experiences. W exaggerates the role of language. Remember “Language disguises thought” and “Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts“.

I would agree that language has a role in cognition but its not the whole story. Even a dog pictures reality in thought. Other primates seem to get along without language. It is trivial for an animal to consider causality – for example a sudden noise will cause most animals to look to see what caused the sound. They are almost conditioned to ask “what caused that sound?”. That implies a mental model of reality similar to Wittgenstein’s picturing theory.

An idea I have been developing is based on the over-anthropocentric view of Wittgenstein when he speaks of language. A human is unusual in mammals in that a baby needs years of parental care before they can fend for themselves. This may be an important factor in why parental and social support is important to humans. What if we could function without any parent or social guidance?

“Part of being a human is being brought up by humans. If you’re not brought up by humans, are you completely human?” James Law

If we are cut adrift from parental, social and language norms, what will be think then? It is rare for humans to be raised by animals but apparently it happens (there are also many hoaxes). In one case of a child raised by dogs, “her doctors stated that it is unlikely that she will ever be properly rehabilitated into ‘normal’ society” and interestingly “found it difficult to master language”.

Anyway, my point is that a feral human has a mental picture of the world without language. Therefore a theory of truth or cognition based entirely on language is incomplete. There are bits of W that do not build on language and are exempt from this argument.

Just as, as he admitted, he distorted language to fit his logical system, I suspect he distorts it again to make language become the foundation of understanding, thought and cognition. I don’t think I could stomach Philosophical Investigations. We shall see.

Picture Theory

“2.12 A picture is a model of reality.”

“3 A logical picture of facts is a thought”. I have some illogical pictures personally but moving on…. :)

“3.1 In a proposition a thought finds an expression that can be perceived by the senses.”

“4 A thought is a proposition with a sense.”

“4.001 The totality of propositions is language”

Cute theory. I like it. Not sure if its right but I like it. Note that he directly bridges from thoughts to language propositions in chapter 4, which he later rejected. My view currently is this has some value. I want to avoid addressing “forms of life” and “language games” until I have read some more. Call it divide and conquer if you will (although that is an exaggeration).

Disconnection from Names to Elementary Propositions

One thing that struck me in T was the point that propositions can be analyzed in terms of their elementary propositions, but what is the point if we cannot agree on any elementary propositions? For example, Pascals wager: we should believe in God if X, Y and Z (i.e. the various assumptions) or the ontological argument: God exists if A, B and C. We can’t agree on the elementary propositions and we can’t reduce them further. (I am aware W would say “we must pass over in silence” but its an interesting example.)

Questions

Is there support for the mystical in Tractatus? There are some bits of jargon that I could not grasp (he later might say I did employ the right language game lol). “6.522 There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.” and “6.44 It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists”. Is that glad acceptance of the mystical, grudging acceptance or even priming the idea to be shot down by “What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence”?