Wittgenstein – Page 2 – Maverick Philosopher

Wittgenstein and Butchvarov on the Self

This entry supplements the earlier entry on what Wittgenstein in the Tractatus calls the metaphysical subject. (5.633)

Wittgenstein

As I read him, Wittgenstein accepts Hume's famous rejection of the self as an object of experience or as a part of the world. "There is no such thing as the subject that thinks or entertains ideas." (5.631) The reason Wittgenstein gives is that, if he were to write a book called The World as I Found it in which he inventories the objects of experience, he would make mention of his body and its parts, but not of the subject of experience: "for it alone could not be mentioned in that book." The argument is similar to the one we find in Hume: the subject that thinks is not encountered as an object of experience.

But why not? Because it doesn't exist, or because the subject of experience, by its very nature as subject, cannot be an actual or possible object of experience? It has to be the latter for Wittgenstein since he goes on to say at 5.632 that "The subject does not belong to the world: rather, it is a limit of the world." So he is not denying that there is a subject; he is telling us what it is, namely, the limit of the world. His thesis is not eliminativist, but identitarian.

From the fact that the metaphysical subject is nowhere in the world, it does not follow that it does not exist. If, however, you think that this is a valid inference, then you would also have to think that from the non-appearance of one's eyes in one's visual field one could validly infer the nonexistence of one's eyes.

As 5.6331 asserts, one's eyes are not in one's visual field. If you say that they can be brought into one's visual field by the use of a mirror, I will point out that seen eyes are not the same as seeing eyes, a point on which I 'dilate' in detail in the earlier entry.

The analogy is clear to me. Just as one's eyes are not in one's visual field, visual consciousness of objects in the world is not itself in the world. Visual consciousness, and consciousness generally, is of the world, not in it, to reverse the New Testament verse in which we are enjoined to be in the world, but not of it. (Needless to say, I am reversing the words, not the sense of the NT saying. And note that the first 'of' is a genitivus objectivus while the second is a genitivus subjectivus.)

Of course, this is not to say that there is a substantial self, a Cartesian res cogitans outside the world. "The world is all that is the case." There is nothing outside it. And of course Wittgenstein is not saying that there are soul substances or substantial selves in the world. Nor is he saying that there is a substantial self at the limit of the world. He is saying that there is a metaphysical (better: transcendental) self and that it is the limit of world. He is stretching the notion of self about as far as it can be stretched, in the direction of a radically externalist, anti-substantialist notion of consciousness, which is later developed by Sartre and Butchvarov.

What we have here is the hyper-attenuation of the Kantian transcendental ego, which is itself an attenuation of substantialist notions of the ego. The Tractarian Wittgenstein is a transcendental philosopher. He may not have read much or any Kant, but he knew the works of the Kantian, Schopenhauer, and was much influenced by them. According to P. M. S. Hacker,

Of the five main philosophical influences on Wittgenstein, Hertz, Frege, Russell, Schopenhauer, and perhaps Brouwer, at least three were deeply indebted to Kant. It is therefore not surprising that Wittgenstein's philosophy bears deepest affinities to Kant's, despite the fact he never studied Kant . . . ." (Insight and Illusion, 139)

Spot on.

Butchvarov

Now to Butchvarov. He writes that his picture and Wittgenstein's share "the rejection of the metaphysical self and thus of subjectivism in all its forms." (Anthropocentrism in Philosophy, Walter de Gruyter, 2015, p. 235) A few pages earlier we read, "Hume in effect denied that there is what Wittgenstein was to call 'the philosophical self' or 'the metaphysical subject'." (226)

Here is where I disagree. While it is certainly true that both Hume and Wittgenstein reject the substantial self of Descartes and of the pre-Critical rational psychologists, Wittgenstein does not reject the metaphysical/transcendental subject. Nor should he, even if he accepts Hume's argument from the non-appearance of the self. For the metaphysical self, as the limit of the world, is not an object in the world and so cannot be expected to appear in the world. Its non-appearance is no argument against it.

That Wittgenstein does not reject the metaphysical/transcendental subject is also clear from Wittgenstein's claim at 5.641 that "there is a sense in which philosophy can talk about the self in a non-psychological way" without, I may add, lapsing into a physiological or naturalistic way of talking about it. He goes on to reiterate that the "philosophical self" is not the human body or the human soul, and therefore no part of the world. It is the "metaphysical subject," the limit of the world.

What I am maintaining, then, in apparent contradiction to Butchvarov, is that, while Wittgenstein rejects the substantial ego of Descartes, he does not reject "the metaphysical subject" or "the philosophical self."

A Dilemma?

There is a serious substantive issue here, however, one that may tell against Butchvarov's solution to the Paradox of Antirealism. (See article referenced below.)

Why call this philosophical self or metaphysical subject a self if it only a limit? Can a limit be conscious of anything? Why should the self be a philosophical as opposed to a psychological or neurophysiological topic? How does the self get into philosophy? Must the self get into philosophy for antirealism to get off the ground? "What brings the self into philosophy is the fact that 'the world is my world'." (5.641) This harks back to the opening antirealist sentence of Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation: "The world is my representation." Die Welt ist meine Vorstellung. The world is my world because, tautologically, the only world for me is my world. The only world for me as subject is the world as object. As Butchvarov puts it, though without reference to Schopenhauer, "The tautology is that the only world we perceive, understand, and describe is the world perceived, understood, and described by us." (231) This is the gist of what the great pessimist says on the first page of WWR. (Whether it is indeed a tautology needs to be carefully thought through. Or rather, whether it can be both a tautology and a statement of antirealism needs to be thought through. I don't think it can be both as I will argue in a moment.)

Now the possessive pronoun 'my' is parasitic upon the the first-person pronoun 'I' which refers to the self. So my world is the the world thinkable and cognizable by me, by the I which is no more in the 'consciousness field,' the world of objects, than the seeing eye is in the visual field. How can my world be mine without this transcendental I? And if you send the transcendental I packing, what is left of antirealism?

Are we headed for a dilemma? It seems we are.

1. Either (a) antirealism boils down to the tautological thesis that "the only world we perceive, understand, and describe is the world perceived, understood, and described by us" (231) or (b) it does not. Please note that the quoted thesis is indeed a tautology. But it is a further question whether it can be identified with a nonvacuous thesis of antirealism. (And surely antirealism must be nonvacuous to be worthy of discussion.) While it is a tautology that the only cats I see are the cats I see, this is consistent with both the realist thesis that cats exist independently of anyone's seeing and the antirealist thesis that their existence is just the indefinite identifiability of cat-noemata by a perceiver.

2. If (a), then antirealism 'says nothing' and does not exclude realism. It is a vacuous thesis. For example, it does not exclude a representational realism according to which there is a world that exists in itself, a world that includes beings like us who represent the world in various ways more or less adequately and whose representations are representations of what, in itself, is not a representation.

3. If (b), and antirealism is to have any non-tautological 'bite,' it must imply that the world is in some respect dependent on a self or selves other than it. But then the "philosophical self" or "metaphysical subject" cannot be either a mere limit of the world as Wittgenstein says or nonexistent as Butchvarov implies. It must be a part of the world. But this leaves us with the Paradox of Antirealism. For it conflicts with what Butchvarov considers "self-evident," namely, that in the context of the realism-antirealism debate, "we cannot coherently regard ourselves as a part, mental (an ego, a colony of egos) or material (a brain, a collection of brains), of that world." (231)

Therefore

4. Antirealism is either vacuous or incoherent. It is vacuous if a tautology. For then it cannot exclude realism. It is incoherent if not a tautology. For then it succumbs to the Paradox of Antirealism.

What Butchvarov wants is a "metaphysics that is antirealist but not anthropocentric." (231) It is not clear to me that he can have both antirealism and non-anthropocentrism. Antirealism cannot get off the ground as a substantive, non-tautological thesis in metaphysics without a self or selves on which the world depends (in some respects, not necessarily all). But the price for that is anthropocentrism in Butchvarov's broad use of that term. He opposes (rightly!) making the world dependent on physical proper parts thereof, but also making it dependent on purely mental/spiritual proper parts and presumably also a divine proper part

One can of course attenuate the subject, retreating from brain to psyche, to transcendental ego, to limit of the world, to a self that shrinks to a point without extension (5.64), to a Sartrean wind blowing towards objects which is, as Sartre says, nothing — but at the limit of this attenuation one arrives at something so thin and next-to-nothing as to be incapable of supporting a robust antirealism.

Questions for Professor Butchvarov

1. Do you agree with me that, while Wittgenstein rejects the Cartesian-type ego that Hume rejects, he does not reject what he calls "the metaphysical subject" and "the philosophical self"?

2. Do you agree with me that, for Wittgenstein, the metaphysical subject construed as limit of the world, exists, is not nothing?

3. Do you agree with me that, while "the only world we perceive, understand, and describe is the world perceived, understood, and described by us" (231) is plainly a tautology, it is a further question whether this tautology is the thesis of antirealism that is debated by philosophers? (As opposed to a thesis of antirealism that you have arbitrarily stipulated.)

4. Do you agree with me that the above quoted tautology is logically consistent with both realism and antirealism?

5. Do you agree that rather than solving the Paradox of Antirealism, you dissolve it by eliminating the subject of consciousness entirely?

6. Suppose I grant you that there are no egos, no acts, and that consciousness-of is non-relational along the lines of Sartre's radically externalist, anti-substantialist theory of consciousness. Will you grant me that the distinction — the 'Transcendental Difference' if you will — between subjectless consciousness-of and objects is ineliminable and undeniable?

7. If you grant me that, will you grant me that the non-relational appearing of objects does not itself appear?

8. If you grant what I want you to grant in (7) will you grant that something can be real without appearing, without 'showing up' phenomenologically?

9. If you grant me what I want you to grant in (8) will you grant that, if something can be real without appearing, that the transcendental ego and acts can also be real without appearing?

To put it another way, if you hold that there are no egos and acts on the ground that they do not appear, must you not also maintain that there is no nonrelational consciousness-of on the ground that it does not appear?

The Metaphysical Subject :Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 5.63

I take Wittgenstein to be saying at 5.63 that the seeing eye is not in the visual field. I can of course see my eyes via a mirror. But these are seen eyes, not seeing eyes. The eyes I see in the mirror are objects of visual consciousness; they are not what do the seeing.

That is not to say that the eyes I see in my visual field, whether the eyes of another person or my own eyes seen in a mirror, are dead eyes or non-functioning eyes. They are living eyes functioning as they should, supplied with blood, properly connected via the neural pathways to the visual cortex, etc. The point is that they are not seeing eyes, subjects of visual consciousness.

If you insist that seeing eyes are indeed objects of outer perception and empirical study, then I will challenge you to show me where the seeing occurs in the eye or where in the entire visual apparatus, which includes eyeglasses, contact lenses, the neural pathways leading from the optic nerve to the visual cortex — the whole system which serves as the causal basis of vision. Where is the seeing? In the pupil? In the retina? In the optic nerve? Somewhere between the optic nerve and the brain? In the visual cortex?Where exactly? Will you say that it is in no particular place but in the whole system? But this is a very big system including as it does such instruments of vision as sunglasses and night goggles. And let's not leave out the external physical things that are causing certain wavelengths of light to impinge on the eye. And the light itself, and its source whether natural or artificial. Will you tell me that the SEEING is spread out in space over and through all of these items? But then how do you explain the unity of visual consciousness over time or at a time? And how do you explain the intentionality of visual consciousness? Does it make any sense to say that a state of the eyeball is of or about anything? If you say that the SEEING is in the eye or in the brain, then I will demand to know its electro-chemical properties.

I could go on, but perhaps you get the point: the seeing, the visual consciousness-of, is not itself seen or see-able. It is not an object of actual or possible experience. It is not in the world. It is not a part of the eye, or a state of the eye, or a property of the eye or a relation in which the eye stands or an activity of the eye. The same goes for the whole visual system. And yet there is seeing. There is visual consciousness, consciousness of visual objects.

Who or what does the seeing? What is the subject of visual consciousness? Should we posit a self or I or ego that uses the eye as an instrument of vision, so that it is the I that sees and not the eye? No one will say that his eyeglasses do the seeing when he sees something. No one says, "My eyeglasses saw a beautiful sunset last night." We no more say that than we say, "My optic nerve registered a beautiful sunset last night," or "My visual cortex saw a beautiful sunset last night."* We say, "I saw a beautiful sunset last night."

But then who or what is this I? It is no more in the world than the seeing eye is in the visual field. Wittgenstein's little balloon above depicts the visual field. Imagine a Big Balloon that depicts the 'consciousness field,' the totality of objects of consciousness. It does not matter if we think of it as a totality of facts or a totality of things. The I is not in it any more than the eye qua seeing is in the visual field.

So far I am agreeing with Wittgenstein. There is a subject, but it is not in the world. So it is somewhat appropriate to call it a metaphysical subject, although 'transcendental subject' would be a better choice of terms, especially since Wittgenstein says that it is the limit of the world. 'Transcendental' is here being used in roughly the Kantian way. 'Transcendental' does not mean transcendent in the phenomenological sense deriving from Husserl, nor does it mean transcendent in the absolute sense of classical metaphysics as when we say that God is a transcendent being. (That is why you should never say that God is a transcendental being.)

But Wittgenstein also maintains that the transcendental subject is the limit of the world. This implies, first, that it is not nothing, and second, that it is no thing or fact in the world. "The world is all that is the case." (1) "The world is the totality of facts, not of things." (1.1) It follows that the subject is not a thing or fact outside the world. So all the self can be is the limit of the world.

We have to distinguish the world from worldly things/facts. The world is a totality of things or facts, and a totality is distinct from its members both distributively and collectively. So we shouldn't conflate the world-as-totality with its membership (the world taken in extension). So if the metaphysical or rather transcendental subject is the limit of the world as per 5.632, then what this means is that the subject is the limit of worldly things/facts, and as such is the world-as-totality.

This is why Wittgenstein says "I am my world." (5.63)

I take it that Tractatus 5.63 is the central inspiration behind Butchvarov's solution to the Paradox of Antirealism which, in an earlier entry, I formulated as follows:

PA: On the one hand, we cannot know the world as it is in itself, but only the world as it is for us, as it is “shaped by our cognitive faculties, our senses and our concepts.” (189) This Kantian insight implies a certain “humanization of metaphysics.” (7) On the other hand, knowable physical reality cannot depend for its existence or intelligibility on beings that are miniscule parts of this reality. The whole world of space-time-matter cannot depend on certain of its fauna. (7)

The world cannot depend on me if I am a (proper) part of the world. But if "I am my world," then the problem would seem to dissolve. That, very roughly, is Butchvarov's solution.

The solution implies that the philosophical as opposed to the ordinary indexical uses of the first-person singular pronoun, those uses that figure into the Augustinian Si fallor sum, the Cartesian Cogito ergo sum, the Kantian Das 'ich denke' muss alle meine Vortsellungen begleiten koennen, the Cartesian Meditations of Husserl, and the debate about realism and antirealism are really impersonal, despite what Augustine, Descartes, Kant, and Husserl think. For then the philosophical uses of 'I' refer to the world-as-totality and not to a person or to something at the metaphysical core of a person such as a noumenal self.

This notion that the philosophical uses of the personal pronoun 'I' are really impersonal is highly problematic, a point I will come back to.

_____________________

*People do say things like: "My brain said, 'Stay away from her,' but my little head said, 'Go for it, man!'" Such talk is of course nonsense if taken literally.

“He Who Hesitates is Lost”

As you know, Yogi Berra, master of the malapropism, died in September. In the Berra spirit, I cooked up the following during last night's troubled sleep:

Said by me to Berra in the presence of Peter: He who hesitates is lost.

Berra: You mean Peter?

What is Berra failing to understand?

(I would continue with this, but I am presently under assault by some nasty flu bug. And last night's whisky cure did no good at all.

If I said to Wittgenstein, "I feel like shit warmed-over," he would shoot back: "You have no idea what shit feels like, fresh-cooked or warmed-over."

He was one serious dude.

Happy Super π Day!

π day is 3/14. But today is super π day: 3/14/15. To celebrate it properly you must do so at 9:26 A.M. or P. M. Years ago, as a student of electrical engineering, I memorized π this far out: 3.14159.

The decimal expansion is non-terminating. But that is not what makes it an irrational number. What makes it irrational is that it cannot be expressed as a fraction the numerator and denominator of which are integers. Compare 1/3. Its decimal expansion is also non-terminating: .3333333 . . . . But it is a rational number because it can be expressed as a fraction the numerator and denominator of which are integers (whole numbers).

An irrational (rational) number is so-called because it cannot (can) be expressed as a ratio of two integers. Thus any puzzlement as to how a number, as opposed to a person, could be rational or irrational calls for therapeutic dissolution, not solution (he said with a sidelong glance in the direction of Wittgenstein).

Yes, there are pseudo-questions. Sometimes we succumb to the bewitchment of our understanding by language. But, pace Wittgestein, it is not the case that all the questions of philosophy are pseudo-questions sired by linguistic bewitchment. I say almost none of them are. So it cannot be the case that philosophy just is the struggle against such bewitchment. (PU #109: Die Philosophie ist ein Kampf gegen die Verhexung unsres Verstandes durch die Mittel unserer Sprache.) What a miserable conception of philosophy! As bad as that of a benighted logical positivist.

Many people don't understand that certain words and phrases are terms of art, technical terms, whose meanings are, or are determined by, their uses in specialized contexts. I once foolishly allowed myself to be suckered into a conversation with an old man. I had occasion to bring up imaginary (complex) numbers in support of some point I was making. He snorted derisively, "How can a number be imaginary?!" The same old fool — and I was a fool too for talking to him twice — once balked incredulously at the imago dei. "You mean to tell me that God has an intestinal tract!"

Finally a quick question about infinity. The decimal expansion of π is non-terminating. It thus continues infinitely. The number of digits is infinite. Potentially or actually? I wonder: can the definiteness of π — its being the ratio of diameter to circumference in a circle — be taken to show that the number of digits in the decimal expansion is actually infinite?

I'm just asking.

Now go ye forth and celebrate π day in some appropriate and inoffensive way. Eat some pie. Calculate the area of some circle. A = πr^2.

Dream about π in the sky. Mock a leftist for wanting π in the future. 'The philosophers have variously interpreted π; the point is to change it!'

UPDATE: Ingvar writes,

Of course the ne plus ultra pi day was 3-14-1592 and whatever happened that day
at 6:53 in the morning.
So we have one yearly, one every millennium, and one
once.

Is Gardeners’ Question Time Racist?

"An academic claims the Radio 4 programme’s regular discussions on soil purity and non-native species promote racial stereotypes." More proof of the willful stupidity of liberals and the alacrity with which they play the race card. (HT: London Karl)

Gardening puts me in mind of spades, as in Wittgenstein's remark, "My spade is turned." Did old Ludwig have a black servant who executed a turn? A linguistic turn perhaps, or perhaps a transcendental one?

My erudite readers will of course know that to which I allude, namely, paragraph 217 of Philosophical Investigations:

217. “How am I able to obey a rule?” – if this is not a question about causes, then it is about the justification for my following the rule in the way I do.

If I have exhausted the justifications I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: “This is simply what I do.”

I am coming reluctantly to the view that the onus probandi rests on liberals. If you self-identify as a liberal, then the burden is on you to show that you are not willfully stupid and morally obtuse.

Fly Bottle Blues

Ludwig Wittgenstein, PI 309:

Was ist dein Ziel in der Philosophie? Der Fliege den Ausweg aus dem Fliegenglas zeigen.

What is your goal in philosophy? To show the fly the way out of the fly glass.

Why does the bug need to be shown the way out? Pop the cork and he's gone.

Why did Wittgenstein feel the need to philosophize his way out of philosophy? He should have known that metaphilosophy and anti-philosophy are just more philosophy with all that that entails: inconclusiveness, endlessness . . . . He should have just walked away from philosophy.

If the room is too smoky, there is no necessity that you remain in it. You are free to go, the door is unlocked. This figure's from Epictetus and he had the quitting of life in view. But the same holds for the quitting of philosophy. Just do it, if that's what you want. It can be done. I'm not saying it should be done. On the contrary.

What cannot be done, however, is to justify one's exit. (That would be like copulating your way to chastity.) For any justification proffered, perforce and willy-nilly, will be just more philosophy, and you will remain stuck within the bottle You cannot have it both ways. You either walk away or stay.

Just walk away, Rene.*

_____________

*Typo Man sez: 'Rene' is not a typographical error!

Death Limits Our Immorality: Death as the Muse of Morality

How much more immoral we would be if we didn't have to die! Two thoughts.

1. Death sobers us and conduces to reflection on how we are living and how we ought to live. We fear the judgment that may come, and not primarily that of history or that of our circle of acquaintances. We sense that life is a serious 'business' and that all the seriousness would be drained from it were there no Last Judgment. Some of us, like Wittgenstein, strive to make amends and put things to right before it is too late. (Do not scruple over his scrupulosity but take the message of his example.) We apply ourselves to the task of finally becoming morally 'decent' (anstaendig). The end approaches swiftly, and it will make a difference in the end how we comport ourselves here and now. One feels this to be especially so when the here and now becomes the hora mortis.

DRURY: I had been reading Origen before. Origen taught that at the end of time here would be a final restitution of all things. That even Satan and the fallen angels would be restored to their former glory. This was a conception that appealed to me — but it was at once condemned as heretical.

WITTGENSTEIN: Of course it was rejected. It would make nonsense of everything else. If what we do now is to make no difference in the end, then all the seriousness of life is done away with. Your religious ideas have always seemed to me more Greek than biblical. Whereas my thoughts are one hundred per cent Hebraic.

(Recollections of Wittgenstein, ed. Rhees, Oxford 1984, p. 161.)

Death has been recognized from the beginning as the muse of philosophy. I supplement, or perhaps merely unpack, the Platonic thought by writing that death is the muse of morality.

2. Lives without limit here below would afford more time for more crime. Death spells a welcome end to homo homini lupus, at least in individual cases.

If Everyone Goes Straight to Heaven . . .

. . . then heaven is a joke, and so is this life, and there is no ultimate justice, hence no God.

Mobster Frank Calabrese Sr. has died in prison. Good riddance. I read the book by his son, Frank Jr. and came away impressed by him for courageously 'ratting out' his father: family loyalty is a value, but there are higher loyalties.

Unfortunately:

Frank Calabrese Jr. told the Sun-Times on Wednesday that that violent history made his father's death especially emotional.

"I believe he was taken on Christmas Day for a reason," he said. "I hope he made peace. I hope he's up above looking down on us. … He's not suffering anymore. The people on the street aren't suffering anymore."

With all due respect to Frank Jr., this is just morally obtuse. For it implies that how we live here below makes no difference to the ultimate outcome. It makes no difference whether one lives the life of a brutal murderer or the life of an Edith Stein or a Simone Weil. But then there is no justice, and this life is even more absurd than it would be were there no God or afterlife at all. The reality of the moral point of view cannot have the divine underpinning it needs unless God is the guarantor of justice. The following exchange between Drury and Wittgenstein is apropos:

DRURY: I had been reading Origen before. Origen taught that at the end of time here would be a final restitution of all things. That even Satan and the fallen angels would be restored to their former glory. This was a conception that appealed to me — but it was at once condemned as heretical.

WITTGENSTEIN: Of course it was rejected. It would make nonsense of everything else. If what we do now is to make no difference in the end, then all the seriousness of life is done away with. Your religious ideas have always seemed to me more Greek than biblical. Whereas my thoughts are one hundred per cent Hebraic.

(Recollections of Wittgenstein, ed. Rhees, Oxford 1984, p. 161.)

What I like about Wittgenstein is that he was one serious man.

A Wittgenstein Paradox

Ludwig Wittgenstein had no respect for academic philosophy and steered his students away from academic careers. For example, he advised Norman Malcolm to become a rancher, a piece of advice Malcolm wisely ignored. And yet it stung his vanity to find his ideas recycled and discussed in the philosophy journals. Wittgenstein felt that when the academic hacks weren't plagiarizing his ideas they were misrepresenting them.

The paradox is that his writing can speak only to professional philosophers, the very people he despised. Ordinary folk, even educated ordinary folk, find the stuff gibberish. When people ask me what of Wittgenstein they should read, I tell them to read first a good biography like that of Ray Monk, and then, if they are still interested, read the aphorisms and observations contained in Culture and Value (Vermischte Bemerkungen).

Only professional philosophers take seriously the puzzles that Wittgenstein was concerned to dissolve. And only a professional philosopher will be exercised by the meta-problem of the origin and status of philosophical problems. So we have the paradox of a man who wrote for an audience he despised.

"There is less of a paradox that you think. Wittgenstein was writing mainly for himself; his was a therapeutic conception of philosophy. His writing was a form of self-therapy. He was tormented by the problems. His writing was mainly in exorcism of his demons."

This connects with the fly and fly bottle remark in the Philosophical Investigations.

Why does the bug need to be shown the way out? Pop the cork and he's gone.

What cannot be done, however, is to justify one's exit. (That would be like copulating your way to chastity.) For any justification proffered, perforce and willy-nilly, will be just more philosophy. You cannot have it both ways. You either walk away or stay.

On Translating ‘Some Individual Exists’ Fressellianly

An astute reader comments:

You write:

2. But can this presupposition be expressed (said) in this logic? Here is a little challenge for you Fressellians: translate 'Something exists' into standard logical notion. You will discover that it cannot be done. Briefly, if existence is instantiation, which property is it whose instantiation is the existence of something? Same problem with 'Nothing exists.' If existence is instantiation, which property is it whose non-instantiation is the nonexistence of anything? Similarly with 'Everthing exists' and 'Something does not exist.'

But couldn't we translate those expressions this way (assuming we have only two properties: a, b)?
1. "something exists" -> "there is an x that instantiates either a or b or ab"
2. "everything exists" -> "there is an x that instantiates a and there is a y that instantiates b and there is a z that instantiates ab"
3. "nothing exists" -> 1 is false
4. "something doesn't exist" -> 2 is false

I am afraid that doesn't work. We need focus only on on 'Some individual exists.' The reader's proposal could be put as follows. Given the properties F-ness and G-ness,

What 'Some individual exists' says is exactly what 'Either F-ness is instantiated or G-ness is instantiated' says.

I would insist however that they do not say the same thing, i.e., do not have the same meaning. The expression on the left says that some individual or other, nature unspecified, exists. The expression on the right, however, makes specific reference to the 'natures' F-ness and G-ness. Surely, 'Some individual exists' could be true even if there are are no individuals that are either Fs or Gs.

Note that it is not a matter of logic what properties there are. This is an extralogical question.

On the Frege-Russell treatment of existence, 'exist(s)' is a second-level predicate, a predicate of concepts, properties, propositional functions and cognate items. It is never an admissible predicate of individuals. Thus in this logic every affirmation of existence must say of some specified concept or property that it is instantiated, and every denial of existence must say of some specified concept or property that it fails of instantiation.

This approach runs into trouble when it comes to the perfectly meaningful and true 'Something exists' and 'Some individual exists.' For in these instances no concept or property can be specified whose instantiation is the existence of things or the existence of individuals. To head off an objection: self-identity won't work.

That there are individuals is a necessary presupposition of the Frege-Russell logic in that without it one cannot validly move from 'F-ness is instantiated' to 'Fs exist.' But it is a necessary presupposition that cannot be stated in the terms of the system. This fact, I believe, is one of the motivations for Wittgenstein's distinction between the sayable and the showable. What cannot be said, e.g., that there are individuals, is shown by the use of such individual variables as 'x.'

The paradox, I take it, is obvious. One cannot say that 'There are individuals' is inexpressible without saying 'There are individuals.' When Wittgenstein assures us that there is the Inexpressible, das Unaussprechliche, he leaves himself open to the retort: What is inexpressible? If he replies, 'That there are individuals,' then he is hoist by his own petard.

Surely it is true that there are individuals and therefore expressible, because just now expressed.

"The suicide of a thesis," says Peter Geach (Logic Matters, p. 265), "might be called Ludwig's self-mate . . . . " Here we may have an instance of it.

Wittgenstein and Rejectionism

I characterized Rejectionism with respect to the question why there is anything at all as follows: "The rejectionist rejects the question as ill-formed, as senseless." London Ed suggests that Wittgenstein may be lumped in with the rejectionists. He has a point, though I do insist on the distinction between taking 'Why is there anything at all?' as an explanation-seeking why-question and taking it as a mere expression of wonder at the sheer existence of things. We know that Wittgenstein was struck with wonder at the sheer existence of things. What is now to be discussed is whether Wittgenstein can be read as making a rejectionist response to the ultimate explanation-seeking why-question.

Ed quotes from Anthony Kenny's book, Wittgenstein:

Logic depends on there being something in existence and there being facts; it is independent of what the facts are, of things being thus and so. That there are facts is not something which can be expressed in a proposition. If one wants to call there being facts a matter of experience, then one can say logic is empirical. But when we say something is empirical we mean that it can be imagined otherwise; in this sense every proposition with sense is a contingent proposition. And in this sense the existence of the world is not an empirical fact, because we cannot think it otherwise.

This passage cries out for commentary.

1. Does logic depend on there being something in existence? Yes, if we are talking about the Frege-Russell logic that young Ludwig cut his teeth on. In 'Fressellian' logic, existence is instantiation. To say that cats exist is to say that something is a cat. (The concept cat is instantiated.) To say that dragons do not exist is to say that nothing is a dragon. (The concept dragon is not instantiated.) This works nicely – but only on the assumption that individuals exist. So Kenny is surely right that (Frege-Russell) logic requires that something exists, in particular that individuals exist.

3. I surmise that this is one of the motivations for Wittgenstein's infamous and paradoxical saying/showing distinction. What can be said can be said clearly. But not everything can be said. It cannot be said that there are beings or that there are objects or that there are individuals. For again, how does one express (say) that there are beings (existents) in Frege-Russell logic? This system of logic rests on presuppositions that cannot be expressed within the system. The presuppositions cannot be said but thay can be shown by the use of variables such as the individual variable 'x.' That is the Tractarian line.

4. Kenny also says that logic depends on there being facts. That's not clear. Near the beginning of the Tractatus, LW affirms the existence of facts. He tells us that the world is the totality of facts (Tatsachen) not of things (Dinge). But does the Frege-Russell logic require that there be facts? Not as far as I can see. The mature Frege certainly did not posit facts. Be that as it may.

5. Is Wittgenstein a rejectionist? Does he reject the question 'Why is there anything at all?' as senseless or ill-formed? The case can be made that he does or at least could within his framework.

When I raise the question why anything at all exists, I begin with the seemingly empirical fact that things exist: me, my cat, mountains, clouds . . . . I then entertain the thought that there might have been nothing at all. I then demand an explanation as to why there is something given (a) that there is something and (b) that there might not have been anything.

A Wittgensteinian rejection of the question might take the following form. "First of all, your starting point is inexpressible: it cannot be said that things exist. That is a nonsensical pseudo-proposition. You can say, sensibly, that cats exist, but not that things exist. That things exist is an unsayable presupposition of all thinking. As such, we cannot think it away. And so one cannot ask why anything exists."

6. This form of rejectionism is as dubious as what it rests upon, namely, the Frege-Russell theory of existence and the saying/showing distinction.

Good Friday Meditation: Wittgenstein on Christianity

From Culture and Value, p. 32e, tr. Peter Winch:

Christianity is not based on a historical truth; rather, it offers us a (historical) narrative and says: now believe! But not, believe this narrative with the belief that is appropriate to a historical narrative, rather: believe, through thick and thin, which you can do only as the result of a life. Here you have a narrative!–don’t treat it as you would another historical narrative! Make a quite different place for it in your life.– There is nothing paradoxical about that!

The "nothing paradoxical" may be an allusion to Kierkegaard who is discussed in nearby 1937 entries. For Kierkegaard, it is is absurd that God should become man and die the death of a criminal, but this absurdity or paradox is precisely what the Christian believer must embrace. Wittgenstein appears to be rejecting this view, but also the view that S. K. also rejects, namely, that Christianity is grounded in verifiable historical facts such as that Jesus Christ was crucified by the Romans, died, was buried, and on the third day rose from the dead.

I interpret Wittgenstein to be saying that Christianity is neither an absurd belief nor an historically grounded one. It is a groundless belief, but not groundless in the sense that it needs, but lacks, a ground, but in the sense that it is a framework belief that cannot, because it is a framework belief, have a ground and so cannot need one either. Christianity is a form of life, a language-game, self-contained, incommensurable with other language-games, under no threat from them, and to that extent insulated from logical, historical, and scientific objections, as well as from objections emanating from competing religious language-games.

But is it true?

When Jesus told Pontius Pilate that he had come into the world to bear witness to the truth, Pilate dismissed his claim with the cynical, "What is truth?" Presumably, the Wittgensteinian fideist cannot likewise dismiss the question of the truth of Christianity. If it is true, it is objectively true; it corresponds to the way things are; it is not merely a set of beliefs that a certain group of people internalize and live by, but has an objective reference beyond itself.

Here is where the Wittgensteinian approach stops making sense for me. No doubt a religion practiced is a form of life; but is it a reality-based form of life? And no doubt religions can be usefully viewed as language games. But Schachspiel is also a Sprachspiel. What then is the difference between Christianity and chess? Chess does not, and does not purport to, refer to anything beyond itself. Christianity does so purport.

Here is an extended post on Wittgensteinian fideism.

Saying and Showing

Again, show what? 'There are objects' is nonsense. One cannot say that there are objects. This is shown by the use of variables. But what is shown if not that there are objects? There, I've said it!

Ray Monk reports on a discussion between Wittgenstein and Russell. L. W. balked at Russell's 'There are at least three things in the world.' So Russell took a sheet of white paper and made three ink spots on it. 'There are three ink spots on this sheet.' L. W. refused to budge. He granted 'There are three ink spots on the sheet' but balked at the inference to 'There are at least three things in the world.'

W's perspective is broadly Kantian. The transcendental conditions of possible experience are not themselves objects of possible experience. They cannot be on pain of infinite regress. But he goes Kant one better: it is not just that the transcendental conditions cannot be experienced or known; they cannot be sensibly talked about. Among them is the world as the ultimate context of all experiencing and naming and predicating and counting. As transcendental, the world cannot be sensibly talked about as if it were just another thing in the world like the piece of paper with its three spots. And so, given that what cannot be said clearly cannot be said at all but must be passed over in silence, one cannot say that the world is such that it has at least three things it it. So W. balked and went silent when R. tried to get him to negotiate the above inference.

What goes for 'world' also goes for 'thing.' You can't count things. How many things on my desk? The question has no clear sense. It is not like asking how many pens are on my desk. So Wittgenstein is on to something. His nonsense is deep and important.

The Inexpressible

The Tractarian Wittgenstein says that there is the Inexpressible. But what is inexpressible? Presumably, if there is the Inexpressible then there must be a quid answering to the est. Could there be truths that cannot be expressed? A truth is a true truth-bearer, a true sentence, proposition, judgment, statement, assertion, belief, asseveration, belief, claim, etc. But these all — different as they are among themselves — involve expression, articulation, objectification. An inexpressible truth amounts to an inexpressible expression. More precisely: an inexpressible truth is something that is both expressible inasmuch as it is a truth but also inexpressible inasmuch as it is — inexpressible.

And therein lies a problem for our mystical positivist. In this connection Theodor Adorno speaks of Wittgenstein's indescribable spiritual vulgarity.

Wittgenstein on Darwin

One thing I definitely applaud in Wittgenstein is his opposition to scientism. M. O'C. Drury in Conversations with Wittgenstein, ed. Rush Rhees (Oxford, 1984), pp. 160-161:

     One day, walking in the Zoological Gardens, we admired the immense
     variety of flowers, shrubs, trees, and the similar multiplicity of
     birds, reptiles, animals.

     WITTGENSTEIN: I have always thought that Darwin was wrong: his
     theory does not account for all the variety of species. It hasn't
     the necessary multiplicity. Nowadays some people are fond of saying
     that at last evolution has produced a species that is able to
     understand the whole process which gave it birth. Now that you
     can't say.

     DRURY: You could say that now there has evolved a strange animal
     that collects other animals and puts them in gardens. But you can't
     bring the concepts of knowledge and understanding into this series.
     They are different categories entirely.

WITTGENSTEIN: Yes, you could put it that way.

To imagine that evolutionary theory could cast light on the concepts of knowledge and understanding involves a massive metabasis eis allo genos, to use a a favorite Greek phrase of Kierkegaard.