This is the first part of the Tractus.
The Mothert thread is here:
https://forum.freecapitalists.org/t/wittgenstein-tractus-discussion-group/23147
1.1The world is the totality of facts, not of things.
1.11 The world is determined by the facts, and by their being all the facts.
1.12 For the totality of facts determines what is the case, and also whatever is not the case.
1.13 The facts in logical space are the world.
1.2 The world divides into facts.
1.21 Each item can be the case or not the case while everything else remains the same.
Notes:
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“The World” is done after only seven propositions. Kind of funny
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Wittgenstein, Russel, Leibniz, Frege, Aristotle and Metaphysics
a) Russel contra Leibniz: L could not escape Ari, because he divided propositions by objects and properties - while ignoring relations
b) Witt contra Russell: I’ll address this later when I have time - to be continued
Also we can call props 1.1-1.21:
The World
On first glance, it seems to me that he’s using “facts” in the same sense as Kant uses “phenomena”.
Witt is NOT saying that the world is made up of ideas, he isn’t an idealist.
The world (reality, existence) is made up of facts because anything that is must also be a fact.
So something like “vanilla is delicious” isn’t a thing at all, because it isn’t a fact. It is “outside” of the world.
1.21 basically says that the relationships between all facts (things) are external. That is, whatever the case is for A, it could be otherwise without changing the case for B, C, D, etc. This is in opposition to the view that the relationships between facts are internal – that facts are just parts of the whole and not able to stand on their own logically. Essentially, Witt is putting forth the main thesis of logical atomism.
Are you responding to me, Mikachusetts? If so, then I don’t think Kant uses “phenomena” to refer to ideas at all.
I was just making a general statement about the passages. Just happened to fall after you brought up Kant.
So something like “vanilla is delicious” isn’t a thing at all, because it isn’t a fact. It is “outside” of the world
This is why I’m not so sre there is as great a gulf between early and lat Witt as people say- they work in tandem.
I think it was intepreting him as a Vienna school positivist is where the confusion comes in.
I think its incredibly tough to put early and late Witt in their right place, considering even people like Russell misread the Tractatus. I’m much more familiar with the later works, so i’m not sure if what I’m saying in this thread is orthodox or not, just how I’m reading it.
I think I may be in the same boat. I’m probably inerpreting Tractus through his later works (which I read 1st).
On first glance, it seems to me that he’s using “facts” in the same sense as Kant uses “phenomena”
That’s probably a pretty heavy duty topic - I think (?) that stuff leads to Heidegerrian / Husserl “phenomonolgy”, which may be interesting to show how these “German” thinkers (including Witt, or even Mises) tend to differ from the Anglo-American tradition…but that’s all I think I can say about that for now.
I read both Critique’s 1 1/2 times each, and that has been enough Kant for me for the moment. Not that he isn’t important (he is, especially for Miseans) - it’s just tough reading and learning
2) Wittgenstein, Russel, Leibniz, Frege, Aristotle and Metaphysics
a) Russel contra Leibniz: L could not escape Ari, because he divided propositions by objects and properties - while ignoringrelations
b) Witt contra Russell: I’ll address this later when I have time - to be continuedR
b) Witt wold still cal Russel’s argument “nonsense” as the relationships, objects, and proporties mst be shown (picture theory) and not stated
- the fact that or language has words for different properties, objects, and relations shows what Russel is trying to say when Rssel disagrees with Leibniz.
- Witt’s 1st 2 propositions are abot the futility of picturing the world in a way as things(such as objects, relations, etc) - but facts.
a) facts corrospond to propositions (the “meat” of the book) -the world is the totality of facts, can’t be understood until one knows what is meant by a propositiob)
b) words refer to objects (which are simple, but not articulate - i.e. something clearly expressed, fluid, with parts like an articlated vehicle), bt they mean something only when part of a proposition.
- the smallest unit of meaning is not the word, but the proposition. So language isn’t so much as made up of words, but propositions (hence why Witt, as Mika pointed out, is no idealist)
I haven’t even finished Critique of Pure Reason yet, so I definitely agree with you that it’s tough reading and learning.
Can someone help me out here?
What is “logical space”?
What are “facts”?
Simple layman language, please.
EDIT: I am reading Russell’s intro now, spells it all out.
@dave
From Mika’s Stanford link:
“Starting with a seeming metaphysics, Wittgenstein sees the world as consisting of facts (1), rather than the traditional, atomistic conception of a world made up of objects. Facts are existent states of affairs (2) and states of affairs, in turn, are combinations of objects. Objects can fit together in various determinate ways. They may have various properties and may hold diverse relations to one another. Objects combine with one another according to their logical, internal properties. That is to say, an object’s internal properties determine the possibilities of its combination with other objects; this is its logical form. Thus, states of affairs, being comprised of objects in combination, are inherently complex. The states of affairs which do exist could have been otherwise. This means that states of affairs are either actual (existent) or possible. It is the totality of states of affairs—actual and possible—that makes up the whole of reality. The world is precisely those states of affairs which do exist.”
there is a sentence in Russell’s intro I don’t understand.
He writes:
In certain elementary ways this is, of course, obvious. It is impossible, for example, to make a statement about two men (assuming for the moment that the men may be treated as simples), without employing two names, and if you are going to assert a relation between the two men it will be necessary that the sentence in which you make the assertion shall establish a relation between the two names. If we say “Plato loves Socrates”, the word “loves” which occurs between the word “Plato” and the word “Socrates” establishes a certain relation between these two words, and it is owing to this fact that our sentence is able to assert a relation between the persons named by the words “Plato” and “Socrates”. “We must not say, the complex sign ‘aRb’ says that ‘a stands in a certain relation R to b’; but we must say, that ‘a’ stands in a certain relation to ‘b’ says that aRb” (3.1432).
Why must we not say the part in bold?
Also, he writes:
In accordance with this principle the things that have to be said in leading the reader to understand Mr. Wittgenstein’s theory are all of them things which that theory itself condemns as meaningless.
Doesn’t this make one smell a rat? By which I mean, are not the things that have to be said to lead the reader to understand Witt. counterexamples to his theory?
oops. perhaps I better read more.
Not really counterexamples in the sense that they disprove anything, its more like a paradox. The problem is, in order to talk about the world, we need to act as if we can stand outside of it. But since the world is all that there is, there is no “outside” to stand on. What we end up doing then, is what Witt would call talking nonsense - the things we are saying have no literal sense.
So his solution to this, is to just be aware. He says something along the lines of using the book as a ladder to climb up over our thoughts, and then discard it once we make sense of things. I don’t know if there is a truly satisfactory answer that can be found in this text, but this shouldn’t trouble us anymore than Godel’s Theorem troubles mathematicians.