LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN

1. LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN Betül AksuDuygu Ekim

2. Brief Biography • 1889: Bornin Vienna. • 1906-1908: Studies engineering at the ‘Technische Hochschule’ in Berlin. • 1908: Research student at the University of Manchester. • 1912: Starts to study philosophy in Cambridge. • 1914-1918: Involved in World War I at the Austrian-Hungarian side. • 1920-1926: Teacher at a primary school.

3. 1926: Gardener at a monastery. • 1926-1928: Builds a house for his sister Margarete. • 1927: Contact with the so-called ‘Wiener Kreis’ (Moritz Schlick, Rudolf Carnap and Friedrich Waismann). • 1929: Back to Cambridge. • 1939: Becomes a professor. • 1951: Died in Cambridge.

4. The Two Wittgensteins • Because Wittgenstein criticizes in his later work explicitly his early work, scholars speak in terms of Wittgenstein I & II. -The early Wittgenstein is captured in the only book he published in his life-time, his doctoral thesis, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. -The late Wittgenstein is captured in his most famous book, Philosophical Investigations, an collection of his writings that was put together after his death. He changed his mind almost completely between these two books, in ways and for reasons that we will see.

5. Wittgenstein I: Tractatus Logico- Philosophicus • Latin for ‘Logical-Philosophical Treatise’ • The title echoes Spinoza‘s TractatusTheologico-Politicus • Within a span of some 80 pages the whole range of philosophy is dealt with. • The book deals with the problems of philosophy andshowsthat the formulation of questions aboutthese problems is due tomisunderstanding the logic of ourlanguage. One could put the whole sense of the bookperhapsin these words:

6. ‘’ What can be said at all, can be said clearly;and whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.’’ • The book would thus draw a limit to thinking, or rather –not to thinking, but rather to the expression of thoughts: Because in order to draw a limit to thinking, we would have to be able to think both sides of this limit (we would thus have to be able to think what cannot be thought).So the limit can only be drawn in language and what lieson the other side of the limit will simply be nonsense. • Let’s go on with the preface of Tractatus Logico- Philosophicus.

7. Main Theses There are seven main propositions in the text. These are: • The world is everything that is the case. • What is the case (a fact) is the existence of states of affairs. • A logical picture of facts is a thought. • A thought is a proposition with a sense. • A proposition is a truth-function of elementary propositions. (An elementary proposition is a truth-function of itself.)

8. The general form of a proposition is the general form of a truth function, which is:  This is the general form of a proposition. • Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

9. The Structure The Tractatus is structured around 8 related topics: • Ontology (TLP 1 – 2.063) important because the relation between thought/language and reality is isomorphic. • Picture (TLP 2.1 – 3.5) exploration of a subset of all that is:sentences, i.e. facts that represent other facts. • Philosophy (TLP 4 - 4.2) in contrast to science it expresses thelogical form that language and reality share. • Theory of logic (TLP 4.2 – 5.641, 6.1 – 6.13) shows thatlogical sentences are tautological.

10. Mathematics (TLP 6 – 6.031, 6.2 – 6.241) is an aspect oflogical operations. • Science (TLP 6.3 – 6.372) provides concepts to describe the world. • Mysticism (TLP 6.373 – 6.522) ethical and aesthetical values cannot be expressed. • Throw away the ladder (TLP 6.53 – 7) the Tractatus tries to show the limits of language.

11. Logic, Language and the World Diagram II is the ‘mirror-image’’ of diagram I

12. We can say things with sense only within the limits of language. Attempts to say anything about the limit of language result in senseless propositions, and attempts to say anything about what lies on the other side of the limit end in nonsense. ‘Sense’, ‘senseless’ and ‘nonsense’ are primarily logical categories, but they are also used in the ordinary sense with evaluative connotation.

13. The world consists of facts, i.e. existent states of affairs. • States of affairs are combinations of objects. • The object’s internal properties determine the possibilities of its combinations with other objects, i.e. its logical form. • The totality of states of affairs (actual and possible) makes up the whole of reality. • The logical structure of the picture (made up of elements combined in a specific way) represents the logical structure of the state of affairs which it pictures. • Every proposition is either true or false.

14. The Picture Theory Propositions can "picture" the world, and thus accurately represent it. If someone thinks the proposition, "There is a tree in the yard," then that proposition accurately pictures the world if and only if there is a tree in the yard. If there is no tree in the yard, the proposition does not accurately picture the world. Although something need not be a proposition to represent something in the world, Wittgenstein was largely concerned with the way propositions function as representations.

15. Any ordinary propositions can be analysed into a set of elementary propositions which consist of nothing but simple terms (or names). • There must be simple things – i.e., objects – which correspond to the names. • The meaning of a name is the object it denotes. ‘A name refers to an object. The object is its referance’ (T.3.203) • The linguistic counterparts of object, atomic fact and fact are name, elementary proposition and proposition.

16. The Truth-Function Theory • If we can use the language to talk about the world there must be some propositions directly connected with the world, so that their truth or falsity are not determined by other propositions but by the world: these he called ‘elementary propositions’. • All non-elementary propositions are truth-functional compounds of elementary propositions. • Since elementary propositions have sense in so far as they can be compared to reality, all propositions must be so accordingly; i.e. They must be capable of being true or false. If a certain set of elementary propositions constitutes the complete analysis of a proposition, the truth-value of that proposition must

17. be completely determined by the truth-values of those elementary propositions. In other words, all propositions are truth-functions of elementary propositions.‘’A proposition is a truth function of elementary propositions’’(T.5)

18. Quotes from Tractatus • The limits of my language means the limits of my world • Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. • Our life is endless in the way that our visual field is without limit. • Roughly speaking: objects are colourless. • Language disguises thought. • The agreement or disagreement or its sense with reality constitutes its truth or falsity.

19. We cannot therefore say in logic: This and this there is in the world, that there is not.For that would apparently presuppose that we exclude certain possibilities, and this cannot be the case since otherwise logic must get outside the limits of the world: that is, if it could consider these limits from the other side also. • I give no sources, because it is indifferent to mewhether what I have thought has already beenthought before me by another.

20. Wittgenstein II: Philosophical Investigations • The aposteriori method of investigationing the actual phenomena of language. • The way in which language signifies is mirrored in its use. • Discussions and lectures in Socratic method was employed. • Investigations takes the form of a dialogue. • In Investigations, he not only critizesthe basic assumptions of Tractatus but also discusses the sort of considerations. • Social nature feature of language. • Language-games (pragmatic nature of language)

21. What is Criticized in Philosophical Investigations? • Wittgenstein criticizes in Philosophical Investigations the ideal of exactness. • The ideal of exactness is senseless, because no statement we might analyze actually possesses such precision (PI 70). • No conceivable purpose requires it (PI 80). • Ordinary language is in order as it is, not because wonderful precision and constancy lie beneath its surface, but because such ideal qualities are irrelevant to the actual purposes of speech. • Logic had any natural claim to Truth, and (therefore) meaning (Instead, he argued that logic (and meaning) was rooted in social agreement, defined by grammars arising from forms of life)

22. Language-Games and Forms of Life • Wittgenstein compares language with games. Whenever he speaks of and constructs different ‘langauge-games’. • To understand what a piece in chess is one must understand the whole game, the rules defining it, and the role of the piece in the game. • Similarly, we might say, the meaning of a word is its place in a language-game.

23. Linguistic signs don’t have meaning in virtue of being a picture (as Augustine suggests), but in virtue of the way they are used within a specific language-game. • Language-games are rule-bound ways of using linguistic signs. • They are based upon rules with a conventional and public character. (social nature of language)

24. In order to grasp the meaning of linguistic signs one should not look for objects they refer to, but should study the diversity of their use in language-games. • Wittgenstein presents language as a tool bag > like a hammer, square and gluepot words have a multiplicity of different uses. (pragmatic nature of language) • Wittgenstein conceives language as a game to stress its rule-bound character, its embeddings in communities and the connection between linguistic and non-linguistic activities > it is a form of life.

25. Wittgenstein says that instruments are usually made for some purposes. And, he lists a few of these purposes in the Investigations. • Giving orders and obeying them, • Reporting an event, • Making up a story and reading it, • Play-acting, • Making a joke, • Asking, thanking, greeting, praying. (P.I. 23)

26. Quotes from Philosophical Investigations • ‘Don’t ask for the meaning, ask for the use. “Use” cannot be understood merely by looking at the word, it can only be understood in contexts. (P.I. §120) • The meaning of a word is its use in the language. (P.I. §43) • Set a relationship between tools in a tool-box and words in language. The functions of words are as diverse as the functions of these objects. (P.I. §11) • Language is an instrument. Its concepts are instrument. (P.I. §569)

27. Is what we call ‘following a rule’ something that it would be possible for only one man to do and to do only once in his life? (P.I. §199) (social nature feature of language) • Following a rule, making a promise, giving an order, and so on, are customs, uses, practices, or institutions. (P.I. §199) (social nature feature of language) • Here the term ‘language game’ is meant to bring into prominence the fact that speaking a language is part of an activity, or of a form of life. (P.I.§ 23)

28. A priori method (self evident) Picture-theory and truth-functionally structured Langauge is a mirror-image of the world. Referential theory Ideal langauge A posteriori method (experiences) Social nature of language and pragmatic nature of language The way in which language signifies is mirrored in its use. Contextual theory Ordinary language Tractatus versus Philosophical Investigations

29. References • Altınörs, A. (2003). Dilbilim Felsefesine Giriş. Inkılap Kitabevi • Black, M. (1949). Language and Philosophy. Greenwood Press. • Fann, K. T. (1969). Wittgenstein’s Conception of Philosophy. University of California Press • Hadot, P. (2004). Wittgenstein ve Dilin Sınırları. Doğubatı yayınları. • Lycan, William G. (2000). Philosophy of Language. London: Routledge

30. Magee, B. (2001). Büyük Filozoflar Platon'dan Wittgenstein'a Batı Felsefesi. Paradigma. • Rhees, R. (1970). Discussions of Wittgenstein. Schocken Books New York