Wittgenstein

[Zanthorus]

So, since a few on here seem to have a thing for Wittgenstein, I thought I'd see what all the hubbub was about. I found a copy of the Tractatus in my local bookstore, but frankly, it's pretty difficult to get through. Not exactly the most thrilling read in history.

In my college's library I found "Wittgenstein and the End of Philosophy: Neither Theory nor Therapy" by Daniel D. Hutto. Just wondering if anyone's read this and what people thought of this before I actually go and check it out.

As an aside, in what I've been reading on Hegel, and in the parts of the above mentioned book which I've already read, I've found references to similarities/connections between the two:


...he [Hegel] put logic back into the very fabric of the world in direct contrast to Kant. In the final analysis, he allowed no separation of thought and being: no division between thought and reality. Working out what is inherent in our concepts is understood as the dynamic engagement with what must be with reality by itself and for itself. This last point is important if only as a means of comparing how post-Hegelian thinkers variously understood logic to be 'in' the world, for it is the key to understanding much of what Wittgenstein objected to in the accounts of Russell and Frege. As we shall see, in some important respects, Wittgenstein's position was closer to Hegel's in this regard.


Hegel's initial mode of consciousness... [is called] 'sense-certainty,' and it... thinks that its sensory experience of the world is exhaustive, authoritative, and the richest and most immediate source of knowledge of the world. This naive empiricism establishes criteria for knowledge of the world that supposedly can be satisfied exclusively through the senses. But whenever the naive empiricist attempts to point to an object of which he or she supposedly has knowledge, it turns out to be quite difficult to show convincingly that this is really knowledge. Hegel's argument here is actually an anticipation of what Ludwig Wittgenstein was to argue much later, namely, that it is impossible to state what is simple of complex in any object without consideration of context (and talking about the context would introduce concepts that did not come from sense-experience); naive empiricism must learn that no 'thing' can ever be pointed out and known without the use of universals that constitute the requisite context.

[JazzRemington]

To be honest, you might have a better experience with Philosophical Investigations, which was a reaction to the Tractatus (which sounds odd, but it's the case). In fact, Wittgenstein commented that he wished to have Tractatus as a preface to Philosophical Investigations. Tractatus, and the ideas it discusses, are really just misunderstandings of how language works and how one uses it. For instance, when Wittgenstein writes "the world is all that is the case" and that the world is composed of facts and not things, it seems he means that when you use language you are talking about the world, but this is demonstrably NOT the case when talking about, say, creatures in Middle Earth or what have you. By Tractatus' logic, talking about these things shouldn't make sense - but it does.

You can see the first 100 remarks of Philosophical Investigations below, although I can't vouch for the comments.

http://users.rcn.com/rathbone/lwtocc.htm

Also, not sure if you're aware but you can read the Tractatus in its entirety online for free.

[Zanthorus]

For instance, when Wittgenstein writes "the world is all that is the case" and that the world is composed of facts and not things, it seems he means that when you use language you are talking about the world, but this is demonstrably NOT the case when talking about, say, creatures in Middle Earth or what have you.

I'm not sure how exactly we get from the idea that world is composed of facts to the idea that when you use language you are talking about the world.


Also, not sure if you're aware but you can read the Tractatus in its entirety online for free.

Yeah, I found it through a quick google search. But honestly, I much prefer to have a physical copy of the book if I can find/afford it.

[JazzRemington]

I'm not sure how exactly we get from the idea that world is composed of facts to the idea that when you use language you are talking about the world.

If anything, this would show that the Tractatus' ideas are vague and mystical. The phrase "the world is the totality of facts - not things" doesn't make any literal sense. What it means exactly is anyone's guess. But in general, and if I'm not mistaken, logical positivists (to which the "young Wittgenstein" who wrote the Tractatus belonged) think that when you use language it only makes sense to talk about things that exist in the real world. In other words, every word names a definite thing and the meaning of the word is correlated with the thing. As pointed out in Philosophical Investigations, if one thinks this then he or she is thinking about nouns primarily or in the least that all words are like proper nouns.

[black magick hustla]

I don´t think when he means that the world is made of "facts not of things" implies that you cannot speak sensibly about middle earth, because the world is made of what is the case and not the case. So middle earth exists is not the case but it can be sensibly said. I always imagined it as sort of switches, as in, you can switch a fact on and off but regardless the totality of on and offs make the things. I always thought that the usefulness of the argument resided in the fact that if something cannot be the case or not the case it is nonsense. For example, God is Love cannot either be true or false so its nonsensical.

[black magick hustla]

I don´t think when he means that the world is made of "facts not of things" implies that you cannot speak sensibly about middle earth, because the world is made of what is the case and not the case. So middle earth exists is not the case but it can be sensibly said. I always imagined it as sort of switches, as in, you can switch a fact on and off but regardless the totality of on and offs make the things. I always thought that the usefulness of the argument resided in the fact that if something cannot be the case or not the case it is nonsense. For example, God is Love cannot either be true or false so its nonsensical.

[Meridian]

"The world is the totality of facts" is a statement about language, that everything that is the case (true propositions) takes part of "the world".

Anyway, you don't think Tractatus is an interesting read? I was very interested when I first read it, if you understand the implications of it it's very deep. I think it shows that language is misused in metaphysical contexts, including that of realism.

[Zanthorus]

I think my main problem is with the point by point style, I don't think it's very conducive to the flow of the thing.

[JazzRemington]

I think my main problem is with the point by point style, I don't think it's very conducive to the flow of the thing.

It somewhat consistent with what logical positivists believe. You have a statement, which is then divided into iterations that are supposed to be the meaning of the previous statement (1.0 is the main statement, 1.1 is an explanation of 1.0, 1.11 is an explanation of 1.1, etc.). Also, the electronic edition of the work is probably more conducive to what you seem to want:

http://www.kfs.org/~jonathan/witt/ten.html

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Z:


So, since a few on here seem to have a thing for Wittgenstein, I thought I'd see what all the hubbub was about. I found a copy of the Tractatus in my local bookstore, but frankly, it's pretty difficult to get through. Not exactly the most thrilling read in history.

In my college's library I found "Wittgenstein and the End of Philosophy: Neither Theory nor Therapy" by Daniel D. Hutto. Just wondering if anyone's read this and what people thought of this before I actually go and check it out.

As an aside, in what I've been reading on Hegel, and in the parts of the above mentioned book which I've already read, I've found references to similarities/connections between the two:

Hutto's book is OK as far as it goes, but he, like many others who comment on Wittgenstein's work, think he is advancing a theory of some sort. The main aim of the Tractatus and the Philosophical Investigations is to show that such theories are non-sensical, except they approach this from entirely different angles.

You'd be far better off reading the following:

Roger White, Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Continuum, 2006).

Which is by far and away the best introduction to the Tractatus there is; nothing even gets close.

The Tractatus was written for those who are already familiar with Bertrand Russell's early work and the work of Frege. If you aren't it's not going to make much sense to you (without the help of books like the above).

And Hutto's comment about Hegel is a joke. As Wittgenstein's method shows, his work is just confused hot air.

Also check out:

O. Kuusela, The Struggle Against Dogmatism. Wittgenstein And The Concept Of Philosophy (Harvard University Press, 2008).

This explains my comments above in some detail.

I have outlined my own (Wittgensteinian) objections to the sort of 'high theory' one finds in traditional philosophy here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1718346&postcount=61

But in extensive detail here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2012_01.htm

[ZeroNowhere]

If you're interested in Wittgenstein, and especially the connection between him and Marx, I'd generally advise reading the Philosophical Investigations first. Other than being more accessible (while it still has 'points', now most numbers are accompanied with paragraphs, sometimes taking up a page or so per number), it also places a greater focus on the role of language as a means of communication, and manifestation of life, and its basis in social intercourse ('forms of life'). If you've read 'The German Ideology', the parallels between the two works should generally be quite clear. Another great work is Wittgenstein's 'On Certainty', which would also perhaps clarify the ideas in PI, inasmuch as it deals directly with a popular philosophical 'problem', and quite brilliantly so. It's also a pretty short read, although PI is hardly long.

Also, here's an interesting comment:

"And so, too, a corpse seems to us quite inaccessible to pain. — Our attitude to what is alive and to what is dead, is not the same. All our reactions are different. — If anyone says: “That cannot simply come from the fact that a living thing moves about in such-and-such a way and dead one not”, then I want to intimate to him that this is a case of transition ‘from quantity to quality.’" (PI, comment 284)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Z:


If you're interested in Wittgenstein, and especially the connection between him and Marx,

I agree with what you say, but then, obtain a copy of this book:

Kitching, G., and Pleasants, N. (eds.), Marx And Wittgenstein. Knowledge, Morality And Politics (Routledge, 2002).

[ChrisK]

Well I was just about to post a thread with this question, but it seems to fit here. In some research that I've been doing, I've run into a group of philosophers called New Wittgensteinians. They seem to go against the belief that the Tractatus and PI are opposed to one another. Is there any validity to their claim? If so, what arguments do they have to support this claim?

[ChrisK]

Z:
The Tractatus was written for those who are already familiar with Bertrand Russell's early work and the work of Frege. If you aren't it's not going to make much sense to you (without the help of books like the above).


Which works of theirs would you recommend for understanding the Tractatus?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Chris:


Which works of theirs would you recommend for understanding the Tractatus?

Well, if you leave out the Grudgeztse, and the Begriffsshrift, Frege's work is rather short. The best place to start is his Grundlagen (translated as the Foundations of Arithmetic by John Austin), then Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, translated by Peter Geach and Max Black.

For the Tractatus, other than Roger White's book mentioned above, see if you can get hold of this:

A Wittgenstein Workbook, by Chris Coope, Peter Geach, Timothy Potts and Roger White (Blackwell, 1971). [These were my teachers many years ago!]

This will give you a good idea of what to read (of Russell's work, and others) in order to come to grips with the Tractatus, and the Investigations.

Concerning Russell, perhaps the biggest influence on Wittgenstein's work was his Principles of Mathematics -- don't be put off, there is little actual mathematics in the book! -- and his 'On Denoting' (to be found in Logic And Knowledge).

The best place to start with the 'New Wittgensteinians' (some of whose arguments I had anticiapted in my PhD thesis) is the following:

Crary, A., and Read, R. (2000) (eds.), The New Wittgenstein (Routledge).

But more particularly:

Cora Diamond, The Realistic Spirit (MIT Press, 1991).

You will find sharp criticism of some of their ideas near the end of Roger White's book, mentioned in a previous post.

And yes, they are right about the Tractatus and the Investigations. In fact, Wittgenstein wanted to publish the two books together. He said the Tractatus was rather like a stopped clock -- it told the right time twice a day. So, he didn't completely disown it, as many imagine.

In fact, the two books illustrate the only two ways he thought it viable to analyse language. The earlier work treated language as if it were a representational system, and that's partly why it failed. His later work pictured it as a means of communication -- he had learnt to treat language 'anthropologically' (as he later said), an idea it is reasonable to assume he got from Pierro Sraffa (Gramsci's friend). This makes his later work more conducive to Marxism.

However, there are many themes from his earlier wortk that carry over to his later writing, but approached from an entirely different angle.

Hope that helps!

[Meridian]

I've bought a book called "Wittgenstein - A Guide for the Perplexed" by Mark Addis. I bought it because I didn't find any of the books that are recommended here in my local bookstore. For me, it didn't really function as a guide, if anything it made me more perplexed. Now that I understand slightly more, maybe it would offer me more. Just a note if anyone considers buying it.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Well, most books on Wittgenstein are pretty useless; you should be able to purchase the ones I suggested second hand on-line.

The best overall book on him is Anthony Kenny's 'Wittgenstein' -- for example, here for under $6:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0713903457/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&qid=1286151221&sr=1-7&condition=used

Roger White's book is a little more expensive at $19.95:

http://www.amazon.com/Wittgensteins-Tractatus-Logico-Philosophicus-Readers-Guides/dp/0826486185/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1286151340&sr=1-1

[Meridian]

Well, most books on Wittgenstein are pretty useless; you should be able to purchase the ones I suggested second hand on-line.

The best overall book on him is Anthony Kenny's 'Wittgenstein' -- for example, here for under $6:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0713903457/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&qid=1286151221&sr=1-7&condition=used

Roger White's book is a little more expensive at $19.95:

http://www.amazon.com/Wittgensteins-Tractatus-Logico-Philosophicus-Readers-Guides/dp/0826486185/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1286151340&sr=1-1
Thanks for that. I usually fall for the temptations of the bookstore when I can afford it. Stupid of me not to look for books at that website.

[ChrisK]

Chris:



Well, if you leave out the Grudgeztse, and the Begriffsshrift, Frege's work is rather short. The best place to start is his Grundlagen (translated as the Foundations of Arithmetic by John Austin), then Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, translated by Peter Geach and Max Black.

For the Tractatus, other than Roger White's book mentioned above, see if you can get hold of this:

A Wittgenstein Workbook, by Chris Coope, Peter Geach, Timothy Potts and Roger White (Blackwell, 1971). [These were my teachers many years ago!]

This will give you a good idea of what to read (of Russell's work, and others) in order to come to grips with the Tractatus, and the Investigations.

Concerning Russell, perhaps the biggest influence on Wittgenstein's work was his Principles of Mathematics -- don't be put off, there is little actual mathematics in the book! -- and his 'On Denoting' (to be found in Logic And Knowledge).

Excellent, thank you!


The best place to start with the 'New Wittgensteinians' (some of whose arguments I had anticiapted in my PhD thesis) is the following:

Crary, A., and Read, R. (2000) (eds.), The New Wittgenstein (Routledge).

But more particularly:

Cora Diamond, The Realistic Spirit (MIT Press, 1991).

You will find sharp criticism of some of their ideas near the end of Roger White's book, mentioned in a previous post.

And yes, they are right about the Tractatus and the Investigations. In fact, Wittgenstein wanted to publish the two books together. He said the Tractatus was rather like a stopped clock -- it told the right time twice a day. So, he didn't completely disown it, as many imagine.

In fact, the two books illustrate the only two ways he thought it viable to analyse language. The earlier work treated language as if it were a representational system, and that's partly why it failed. His later work pictured it as a means of communication -- he had learnt to treat language 'anthropologically' (as he later said), an idea it is reasonable to assume he got from Pierro Sraffa (Gramsci's friend). This makes his later work more conducive to Marxism.

However, there are many themes from his earlier wortk that carry over to his later writing, but approached from an entirely different angle.

Hope that helps!

Just out of curiosity, what was your dissertation specifically about? I know it was on Wittgenstein, but not anything else.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

It was 'Themes from Wittgenstein's philosophy of language'.