We have now worked our way through the three key theories of the TLP: his ontology (logical atomism), his semantics (the picture metaphor of sense), and his logic (which is summed up in the idea that all logical propositions are senseless propositions (meaning that they are properly formed but are either always true or always false and so have no sense, i.e., depict no possible fact). We are now ready to turn to the more interesting aspects of the TLP, which make no sense without understanding this initial material. The interesting stuff can be summed up as everything that is unsayable, and so it is to the unsayable that we now turn. What follows is my own introduction to the distinction, and this retreads some of what Schroeder introduced in section 2.1, such that some of it might seem familiar. After this I will turn to Schroeder’s section 2.6 in a separate blog post.
For most who read – and especially for those who work on – the TLP, the most interesting, vexing, and central idea is the distinction between saying and showing (i.e., between what can be said and what cannot be said but only shown). It’s centrality is stressed by Wittgenstein in the Preface: “The whole sense of the book might be summed up in the following words: what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence” (and, of course, the idea of a book that is nonsense (cf. TLP 6.54) having a sense that is summed up in words that are themselves nonsense is, to say the least, vexing). This distinction between what can be said and what cannot be said stems from the principle of bipolarity: a proposition has sense and as such it has two possible values, true and false. (The ‘bi-’ is due to the two values, and the polarity is due to their being opposed (like positive and negative or north and south). A proposition is bipolar because, insofar as it has a sense, it pictures a possible state of affairs in the world, and that state may either obtain or not obtain. When Wittgenstein speaks of ‘what can be said,’ he is referring to those possible facts that can be pictured in a proposition with sense. However, it seems that some of what cannot be said – what is not a possible fact – can be “shown.” Furthermore, we do not show what can be shown; such pseudo-things “show themselves.” Propositions that attempt to say or talk about what can be shown have no sense, since they picture nothing, and Wittgenstein calls such propositions “pseudo-propositions” insofar as they appear to be propositions (with sense) but are not. There is currently a contentious debate over whether these pseudo-propositions can be distinguished from other kinds of nonsense, such that some nonsense is useful in that it shows what cannot be said while other nonsense is just pure gibberish.
The idea of the say/show distinction is developed in the comments that elucidate the first comment on proposition 4, which announces that a thought is a proposition with a sense. And keep in mind here that thoughts are propositions (with sense), such that the distinction between what can be said and what cannot be said is also a distinction between what can be thought and what cannot be thought. Thus, in the Preface, right after summing up the “whole sense of the book” as the say/show distinction, Wittgenstein then describes the aim of the book as follows: “the aim of the book is to draw a limit to thought, or rather – not to thought, but to the expression of thoughts: for in order to be able to draw a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of the limit thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought). It will therefore only be in language that the limit can be drawn, and what lies on the other side of the limit will simply be nonsense.” Let’s stress what he says here: the aim of the book is to draw a limit to what can be said and so to what can be thought, and what lies outside that limit is nonsense.
Setting aside the implicit argument for why this limit must be drawn in language (and not in thought), we might wonder at the implications here. If the propositions of the TLP are indeed nonsense, as he claims in 6.54, then there are no thoughts in the TLP (contrary to the explicit claims of the Preface that there are thoughts expressed here, that another can understand them, and that their truth is unassailable). If we take the say/show distinction seriously, however, we might conclude that just as there are things that cannot be said but can be shown, so there might also be things that cannot be thought but that can be intuitively grasped, especially if what can be said is presented in the right way (meaning a way that makes the logical relations among signs perfectly clear). (Also, keep in mind that he will later call the sense of the book an ethical one, such that, if the sense of the book is summed up by the say/show distinction, then this distinction is the key to the ethical sense of the book.)
But back to proposition 4 and the 4.11s. First, read the propositions that we wish to consider:
4 A thought is a proposition with a sense.
4.1 Propositions represent the existence and non-existence of states of affairs.
4.11 The totality of true propositions is the whole of natural science (or the whole corpus of the natural sciences).
4.111 Philosophy is not one of the natural sciences. (The word 'philosophy' must mean something whose place is above or below the natural sciences, not beside them.)
4.112 Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations. Philosophy does not result in 'philosophical propositions', but rather in the clarification of propositions. Without philosophy thoughts are, as it were, cloudy and indistinct: its task is to make them clear and to give them sharp boundaries.
4.1121 Psychology is no more closely related to philosophy than any other natural science. Theory of knowledge is the philosophy of psychology. Does not my study of sign-language correspond to the study of thought-processes, which philosophers used to consider so essential to the philosophy of logic? Only in most cases they got entangled in unessential psychological investigations, and with my method too there is an analogous risk.
4.1122 Darwin's theory has no more to do with philosophy than any other hypothesis in natural science.
4.113 Philosophy sets limits to the much disputed sphere of natural science.
4.114 It must set limits to what can be thought; and, in doing so, to what cannot be thought. It must set limits to what cannot be thought by working outwards through what can be thought.
4.115 It will signify what cannot be said, by presenting clearly what can be said.
4.116 Everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly. Everything that can be put into words can be put clearly.
The first comment on 4 states the bipolarity principle, and it also implies that the world (as it now stands – as all that is the case, meaning all the existing states of affairs) does not exhaust reality, which also includes possible but non-existing states of affairs (as we already know from TLP 2.06, although note that TLP 2.063 states that the sum-total of reality is the world, meaning that the world can only be determined if we know of every possible fact that it does in fact exist or not exist). The first comment on 4.1 then states that the sum-total of true propositions is nothing other than “the whole of natural science” (4.11). This then implicitly raises the question, ‘Is the way that philosophy deals with propositions the same as the way that science deals with them?’ 4.111 then infers from this that philosophy, insofar as it does not deal with which propositions are true but rather with the essence of propositions, is not a natural science.
This then raises a further question: ‘What is philosophy?’ If it is not concerned with determining which propositions are true, as science is, then it must be concerned with clarifying propositions – determining, so to speak, what exactly they say and entail, and separating out those sentences that appear to be but are in fact not propositions. Philosophy does not verify truth or how the world works; it elucidates the language with which we attempt to think the world, and in doing so it sets limits to what we can think and, by extension, to the sphere of science. It will show what cannot be said insofar as it makes clear what can be said (4.115), and everything that can be said can be said clearly (4.116). This leads to a clear inference – but one that is never stated: If philosophy can make clear everything that can be said, and if making clear everything that can be said will show what cannot be said, then philosophy can show what cannot be said. Or rather, to be more precise: since what can be shown shows itself – and it can only show itself; it cannot be shown by another – then what philosophy does is simply clear up propositions and clear out pseudo-propositions so that we have the right conditions under which what can be shown can indeed show itself.
Our next chunk of Schroeder reading takes us through his (Schroeder’s) final section on the TLP, which is on the unsayable. He divides the unsayable – “whereof one cannot speak” (TLP 7) – into five parts: (a) syntax and properties, (b) logical form, (c) solipsism, (d) ethical and aesethic value judgments, and (e) the propositions of the TLP. It is worth noting two interesting things about this division. First, Schroeder leaves out mathematics and causality. In particular, Wittgenstein claims that mathematical necessity can only be shown (not said) and that there is no causal nexus (meaning either that there is no causal necessity or that such necessity can also only be shown). This is crucial, because if one tries to find everything that connects (a)-(d) with mathematics and causality, one will find that they all deal with what is necessary. (Wittgenstein will claim that ethical value is necessary, not contingent, and ultimately that is why it cannot be said.) What is necessary cannot be said; we can only say the contingent (we can only picture possible facts that may or may not exist and need not ever exist and can, if they do exist, always change and so be otherwise). If this is so – if (a)-(d), mathematics, and causality all cannot be said because they deal with necessity and not contingency – then the implication is the TLP is showing what is necessary, and it does this by elucidating what can in fact be said and how it can be said clearly. Furthermore, the TLP thus generates the conditions under which one can properly understand and so attend to ethical value.
But let’s begin our investigation of the various ‘unsayables’ by following Schroeder and beginning with syntax and properites. That will be the next blog post.
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