Notes on Truth, Beauty, and Goodness -- Phil A231

William Jamison - Instructor

On reading Wittgenstein

Since there is a significant difference from the early to the late "Wittgenstein" the book gives a set of selections that follow his progress.

According to Anthony Kenny, in his book, Wittgenstein, (A Harvard Paperback, $2.95 -- actually, I think it is still available, but no longer $2.95. Hey! That was two hours of work back then!) Wittgenstein was in military service during W.W.I while he wrote the only book he published in his lifetime. He wrote this in a notebook he carried in his rucksack. It represents the notes he considered the best of them. There are many different theories about the reason for the numbering sequence, but Wittgenstein himself considered them logically related to one another in a way that there are 7 main statements -- each numbered 1 through 7. All of these, except 7, have statements that clarify them, such as 1.1 and 1.2 clarify 1. Statements with more digits work the same way, such as 1.11 which clarifies 1.1, or 5.122 which clarifies 5.12 for example.

But look how Ray Monk describes Frege's reaction to his first reading of the Tractatus: (please note this is a scanned excerpt of  copyright material)

AT THE FRONT . 163

Grundgesetze der Arithmetik, which Wittgenstein had asked him to send.

There are some indications that it was Frege's response to the book that Wittgenstein most eagerly awaited. If so, the disappointment must have been all the more great when he received Frege's reactions.

Frege's first impressions are contained in a letter written on 28 June. He begins by apologizing for the late response, and for the fact that, as

he had had much to do, he had had little time to read Wittgenstein's  manuscript and could therefore offer no firm judgement on it. Almost

the whole of his letter is concerned with doubts about the precision of Wittgenstein's language:

Right at the beginning I come across the expressions 'is the case' and 'fact' and I suspect that is the case and is a fact are the same. The world is everything that is the case and the world is the collection of facts. Is not every fact the case and is not that which is the case a fact? Is it not the same if I say, A is a fact, as if I say, A is the case? Why then this double expression? . . Now comes a third expression: 'What is the case, a fact, is the existence of Sachverhalte.' I take this to mean that every fact is the existence of a Sachverhalt, so that another fact is the existence of another Sachverhalt. Couldn't one delete the words 'existence of' and say 'Every fact is a Sachverhalt, every other fact is another Sachverhalt'. Could one perhaps also say 'Every Sachverhalt is the existence of a fact?'

'You see', Frege wrote, 'from the very beginning I find myself entangled in doubt as to what you want to say, and so make no proper headway.' He was unsure what Wittgenstein meant by the terms Tatsache, Sachverhalt and Sachlage, and would need, he said, examples to clarify the terminology. Are there Sachverhalte that do not exist? Is every collection of objects a Sachverhalt?* Frege's letter must have been a bitter disappointment to Wittgenstein. There is nothing in it to indicate that Frege got past the first page; his questions all relate to the

*1 have kept the German words here, because for the English reader Frege's confusion is compounded by differences of translation. Ogden translates Sachverhalt as 'atomic fact', and Sachlage as 'state of affairs'; Pears and McGuinness have 'state of affairs' for Sachverhalt and 'situation' for Sachlage. Ogden's translation has the merit, at least, of making it clear - as Wittgenstein had to explain to both Frege and Russell - that Sachverhalte are what correspond to (true) atomic propositions, and are therefore the constituent parts of T atsachen (facts).

Notice that this is significant because Wittgenstein had Frege's work in mind as he worked on this book. So if Frege could not follow it, how should we? The answer is a key to one way that philosophy can be read: there is no correct interpretation. There is no right way to understand the book. What the book does is stimulate thinking and each reader may have very different thoughts as a result of reading the book.

This book is significant because of the impact it had on what would become the analytic tradition.

But the Kenny Wittgenstein Reader (Blackwell Readers) goes on to include selections from many of his later writings and these are arranged in a relatively progressive sequence so we can see Wittgenstein ask the questions that would gradually evolve into the basis for Ordinary Language Analysis.

Enjoy these statements as thought provoking ideas that give us a glimpse of how one person demonstrates a stage of reflective thinking. Which stage would you say it is?

Something I have learned from using this book in class so far: the writings of Wittgenstein are difficult! Other philosophers mentioned in class are also difficult but there seems to be a difference. Folks like Habermas and Rorty are difficult because they discuss theory. Wittgenstein is difficult because he asks thought provoking questions -- many of which he does not answer. Habermas and Rorty are writing philosophy and telling us about it. Wittgenstein is doing philosophy right in front of us and making us do philosophy with him. It is not that Wittgenstein himself is difficult -- but the questions he asks us that are difficult. The questions are hard! But by asking them and getting us to puzzle out the answers for ourselves we are transformed and come to a different understanding of the way language works. This is well worth the experience and the headache. I hope you agree.

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