Abstract
I would like to discuss a particular version of realism about logic which, some philosophers have recently claimed, characterizes the Tractatus and contrasts it with the later thoughts of Wittgenstein. My aim is not to argue whether there are two Wittgensteins, the earlier realist and the later, or whether there is one continuous Wittgenstein with common philosophical interests and with some fixed and some gradually evolving views. Although it will become clear that I maintain the latter view, it seems to me that there has been enough Wittgensteinian exegesis done before, and during, this centennial year and there is therefore no need for me to add to it.1 What I want to discuss is rather, whether the versions of realism about logic described by these commentators is coherent or clear at all, and, therefore whether it is clear what it is that one is ascribing to early Wittgenstein. I will suggest a different reading of his view about logic and the world.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Perhaps I should say that of the exegetic works on the Tractatus recently published, it is Peter Carruther’s Semantics of the Tractatus which defends a reading of the relevant passages of the Tractatus closest to my own. Naturally there are some interpretations of Dr. Carruthers with which I find myself in disagreement, the most important one being his introduction of the concept of `ideolect’ to characterize both Frege’s and Wittgenstein’s semantics.
They have, of course, meaningful use, (sinnvollen Gebrauch) 3.326 i.e., they have a use to make sentences with sense, but use in the Tractatus is not by itself sense: sense is something that a sentence has in virtue of its saying something.
I should perhaps mention here that as I have argued in “Die Beziehung zwischen Welt and Sprache” in Wittgenstein in Focus, ed. McGuinness and Haller,1989, I believe it is important to understand that Wittgenstein has inherited Frege’s distinction of “Sinn” and “Bedeutung” in his early works. We cannot otherwise understand the systematic distinction he makes of the use of the two words. We would also fail to understand completely what his disagreement with Frege is, when he says against him that only sentences [and not constituent words] have sense (3.3), and also that sentences do not have reference. The relation of the extension and intension of words is a complex one. But surely the fact that two people disagree about the extension of a word does not by itself prove that they understand different things by the word. Two people may understand exactly the same thing by “reliable” and may disagree as to who is reliable and who is not.
What Wittgenstein says here implies something very close to what Gareth Evans was to develope half a century later as “Interpretational Semantics” in his Variety of Reference Chapt. I.
Philosophical Grammar, Appendix 2 “Concept and Object, Property and Substrate”.
Frege, “Über Begriff and Gegenstand”, in Nachgelassene Schriften, Bd.I.
As I have argued in “Die Beziehung zwischen Welt und Sprache’ in Wittgenstein in Focus edit. by R. Haller and J. Schulte, Amsterdam, 1989, this means that in the proposition ”This colour is darker than that colour“, the colours, i.e., the properties one is talking about, are objects, but the relational property of one being darker than the other which is ascribed to the colours is not an object in the context of this proposition. Whereas in the proposition ”One being darker than the other is a transitive relation“ the relation of being darker than is an object, but the relational property of being a transitive relation is not.
This is well documented and discussed in Chapter I of Henrik Visser, Logical Analysis and Ontological Reconstruction, Doctorat thesis presented to the Catholic University of Brabant, April 1987,which I was shown in this Kirchberg conference. See especially p. 22.
Urbild“ which is usually translated ”prototype“, surely is used here in the mathematical sense of ”inverse image“. I was helped in clarifying my reading of this passage by discussions with Professor Scheibe.
David Pears, The False Prison, Vol. I, p. 28.
This combination is called “Noumenalism” by Graham Bird in his Kant’s Theory of Knowledge, 1962.
Malcolm suggests this in p. 23–24 of his work quoted above.
J. Hintikka has constructed in 1959 a logic corresponding to this demand of the Tractatus.
David Pears, The False Prison, p. 30.
I would like to thank Leigh Cauman of Columbia University for helping me clarify my English. I would also like to share with readers some remarks on this paper made by Norman Malcolm of whose death on August 5th., 1990, I have learnt with great sadness. I had sent a copy of this to him late last year. I received a reply dated Feb. 1, 1990, in which he responds to some of the things I have said. I feel that I should make some of the relevant passages public, since Norman Malcolm is no longer here to rebut me with his pensive expression and occasional grin.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1990 Springer-Verlag Wien
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ishiguro, H. (1990). Can the World Impose Logical Structure on Language?. 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_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-30086-2_2
Publisher Name: J.F. Bergmann-Verlag, Munich
Print ISBN: 978-3-209-01122-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-662-30086-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive