Abstract
The main aim of this essay is to show that Wittgenstein’s general conception of logic, as expressed in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, and his later conception of philosophical grammar can be reconciled with each other, provided that his earlier and his later views are modified in the light of certain specific criticisms. These criticisms are based on two grounds. One is Wittgenstein’s early neglect of important differences between various philosophical activities and the methods employed in them, in particular between the roles of description and of reconstruction in philosophical analysis. The other is an incompleteness in his later description of ordinary language and of its connections with the specialist languages of mathematics and the sciences. An important example is his account of the nature of continuity, which Leibniz regarded as one of the two labyrinths of the human mind.
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Notes
For a more detailed treatment see my Fundamental Questions of Philosophy (Brighton, 1969) ch. 2 and Metaphysics: Its Structure and Function (Cambridge, 1984) Pt I and Pt II ch.12.
For a more detailed discussion see e.g. “Über Idealisierung im Theoretischen und Praktischen Denken” in Traditionen und Perspektiven der analytischen Philosophie,ed. by W.L. Gombocz et al. (Vienna, 1989) pp. 343–358.
e.g. De Docta Ignorantia ed. by R. Klibansky, ( Hamburg, 1977 ).
For such a comparison see e.g. P.M.S. Hacker Insight and Illusion 2nd edition (Oxford, 1986) ch. II.
See “Some Remarks on Logical Form” in Arist. Soc. Suppl. Vol. IX (London, 1929) and a letter in Mind vol XLII, (London, 1933) pp. 415, 16.
See book VI of Aristotle’s Physics and Brentano’s Raum, Zeit und Kontinuum (Hamburg, 1976).
For his later views on continuity see in particular “On Continuity: Wittgenstein’s Ideas 1938” in Discussions of Wittgenstein by Rush Rhees, (London, 1970)
For a more detailed discussion and comparison of Wittgenstein’s and the legal theorists’ approach to inexact concepts see my “Über Sprachspiele und rechtliche Institutionen” in Proc. of the 5th International Wittgenstein Symposium ed. by E. Morscher and R. Stranzinger (Vienna, 1981).
For more detailed discussions see my Experience and Theory (London, 1966) and J.P. Cleave, “Quasi-Boolean Algebras, Empirical Continuity and Three-Valued Logic” in Zeitschr. f. Math. Logik und Grundlagen der Mathematik vol 22 (1978) pp. 481–500.
See Rush Rhees op. cit. in note 7.
See the former’s discussion of c uvcxr1ó and the latter’s discussion of ’Grenze’ in the works quoted in note 6.
See the motto of Spengler’s Untergang des Abendlandes,which Wittgenstein much admired.
See e.g. A. Heyting, Intuitionism — An Introduction (Amsterdam, 1956).
For a discussion of this question see op. cit. in note 1, ch 5.
See e.g. ch. 5 of La Science et L’Hypothèse and ch. 3 of Science et Méthode.
See P. Bernays “Comments on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics in Ratio vol II (Frankfurt, 1959).
For details see e.g. my “On Scientific Information, Explanation and Progress” in Proc. of the VII. Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science ed. by Ruth Marcus et al. (Amsterdam, 1986).
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Körner, S. (1990). On Wittgenstein’s Conceptions of Logic and Philosophical Grammar. In: Haller, R., Brandl, J. (eds) Wittgenstein — Eine Neubewertung / Wittgenstein — Towards a Re-Evaluation. Schriftenreihe der Wittgenstein-Gesellschaft, vol 19/1. J.F. Bergmann-Verlag, Munich. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-30086-2_12
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