Wittgenstein's statement, "The limits of my language are the limits of my world" is in a certain sense a repetition of the starting point of the Tractatus: "The world is all that is the case." This starting point is enriched by the findings of section 5, in such a way that the world interpreted in section 1 as a free indirect discourse now shows itself to be identical with a world that I call "my" world. This enrichment comes about by way of what is original in the treatment of truth-functions.
It is a condition of complex truth-functions that the arguments which are to be comprised by the range of the function should be of the same type. They could not otherwise indifferently determine the sense of the function. If we are to reach the result that a truth-function says something, it must also be a condition that the arguments are either elementary propositions or can be analyzed into elementary propositions. It follows from these conditions that elementary propositions are of the same type as the complex propositions which are supposed to have been constructed out of them by the addition of 'logical constants.' Elementary propositions are already truth-functions of themselves. This claim is easy to overlook and hard to swallow, but it is the heart of Wittgenstein's logic.
If all propositions are of the same type, then there is in fact only one type: what is the case, that is, the parts of the world. It is necessary that the world which is the totality of these facts (not a whole greater than them but "divid[ing] into" them) would itself be constituted of the same type as that of the arguments of truth-functions. The world is not something 'about which' propositions are formed. If it were something beyond language then it would also be beyond language to say anything about the world.
It is characteristic of free indirect discourse not to present itself as such. Likewise the world does not come with quotation marks around it. Yet, we "picture facts to ourselves." In other words, we say the world to ourselves. The self thus simultaneously disappears from the world (realism) and becomes its limit (solipsism).
Obviously lots of stuff to talk about here, but I am a man who relishes in confinement. I, for one, would like to know more about Wittgenstein's apparently crucial concept of totality ---so little have things changed in this regard from our last, prematurely abandoned, discussion on Wittgenstein. Perhaps you could educate an analytic neophyte by clarifying for me the following:
ReplyDelete"It is necessary that the world which is the totality of these facts (not a whole greater than them but "divid[ing] into" them) would itself be constituted of the same type as that of the arguments of truth-functions. The world is not something 'about which' propositions are formed. If it were something beyond language then it would also be beyond language to say anything about the world."
For one thing, does the concept of totality and that of world differ? That aside, however, my more direct question is: How can a whole be MERELY that which divides into parts? Are we not somehow obliged to account for this prior unity as such? And if, at bottom, propositions are (or even merely signify ---feel free to clarify which--) "what is the case, that is, parts of the world", then what are we to call that "language" which refers to the world and which would otherwise SEEM identical in form to the proposition? Or in other words, how are we to define a proposition if the assertion "The world is not something 'about which' propositions are formed" is not a proposition. And finally, what accounts for its SEMBLANCE as a proposition?
If, on the other hand, my questions betray a fundamentally mis-conceived fore-conception of the matters at hand, I enthusiastically invite any dialectical guidance (obviously in the sense not of Hegel, but Plato)...
Tractarian logic is a tricky matter (if you don't mind some kibbutzing). We should recall that Wittgenstein does not allow induction, really (in that sense, he's slightly Humean). His propositional logic is all truth functional: it concerns formality. Technically speaking he's really discussing validity (I believe), not the truth of premises, unless the premises are themselves tautological. Modus ponens is the basic and valid form, of course--but in most ordinary uses, however quotidian we would need to confirm the premises (Witt. doesn't want to dirty his hands with that issue--verification in a sense).
ReplyDeleteHe's doing other things (like discussing language, etc) but in terms of formal logic qua formal logic, the TLP has limitations--he does get to predicate logic, I suppose, but it's ...well Wittgensteinian, and with the mystic overtones. Later figures (like Goedel, Church, Turing, Quine,etc) took off from those Tractarian (and Russellian) foundations...
When the Vienna Circle first read the TLP the gents supposedly gave a thumbs up, OR thumbs down for each section (or apothegm, really) of the TLP. I've read it was generally favorable, but not an overwhelming approval (Popper for one thought St Ludwig an over-hyped, precocious dilettante, if not...mad).
The late Witt. ---well--not to sum up a complex book such as the PI in a few sentence-barks--but it's fairly obvious he went jungle for the most part, made the change from logician to anthropological linguist (of a sort).
That said, I'm not PMS Hacker (and prefer to read Wittgenstein--TLP, and PI-- via Hacker). LW may have been a genius of sorts, but I don't think that was due strictly to his logical analysis. Yet...there were dissenting voices (including Popper...and the aged Russell for that matter--however glib or pedantic or unhip they seem now, not exactly Peoria state undergrads))
ReplyDeleteI like, I like - will send this to a few people, hopefully we can get you some more comments.
ReplyDeleteJ,
ReplyDeleteMy point here is that the division between Wittgenstein's logical analysis and the "mystical overtones" is not tenable. There's nothing ingenious about the statement, "Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt," taken in itself. Without the logical analysis this statement is rhetorical puff. Not that it follows by induction from that analysis. Rather, it is an attempt to say the spirit of the analysis.
"The late Witt. ---well--not to sum up a complex book such as the PI in a few sentence-barks--but it's fairly obvious he went jungle for the most part, made the change from logician to anthropological linguist (of a sort)."
You've made this claim or a similar one a couple of times now, and I don't think it's one that can go without justification and clarification. Do you mean that the late Wittgenstein makes language the object of an empirical science? Like marine biology? Why?