Wittgenstein

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Ludwig Wittgenstein
– conflicted genius or inconsistent nincompoop?

Bio (1889-1951)
• Born in Vienna 1889 to one of Austria’s richest families
• ¾ Jewish
• Gave his wealth away to his siblings and in patronage to artists
• ‘Home-schooled’ for years, learning Classics. Then went to a
Realschule – and was a contemporary of Adolf Hitler
• Frontline officer during WWI
• Studied under Bertrand Russell at Cambridge but never graduated
• Worked as a teacher but unsuccessfully (apparently he used to have a
bit of a temper!
• Eventually awarded PhD in 1929 by Cambridge University largely for
his early work, the Tractatus.
• Became professor of Philosophy at Cambridge. Used to teach “by
thinking aloud in front of his students”
• Rejected his early work in later life; also developed some religious faith
• Became a British national
• Died of prostate cancer, aged 62
• Philosophical Investigations published posthumously in 1953

“Wittgenstein’s writings are numerous,
complicated, and obscure.” - AC Grayling
• Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1913-1921)
• 75 pages long
• Series of numbered Propositions (1-7 with subordinate levels)
• 1.114 for example
• Thought that understanding the functions (and solving the
problems) of language would solve the problems of
Philosophy
• The proper task of philosophy is to make our thought and
speech clear.
The main point [of the Tractatus] is the theory of what can be expressed by propositions – i.e. by
language – (and, which comes to the same thing, what can be thought), and what cannot be
expressed by propositions, but only shown; which, I believe, is the cardinal problem of philosophy
– Wittgenstein to Russell

PREFACE of the
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
“This book will perhaps only be understood by those who
have themselves already thought the thoughts which are
expressed in it—or similar thoughts. It is therefore not a
text-book. Its object would be attained if there were one
person who read it with understanding and to whom it
afforded pleasure.”

Logic
• As an analytic philosopher, Wittgenstein sought to
analyse what exactly is being said by a proposition.
(Remind you of anyone?)
• He found the most efficient way was to get rid of the
particulars and re-write out propositions in the
language of logic.
• Hence John is a bachelor
• becomes There is a J and this J is B
• becomes p&q
(Where p represents proposition 1
q represents proposition 2
& represents a conditional whereby p&q are proposed as
being true).
• How do we test the veracity of p&q?

In Plain English:
• Either “There is a John” (p) is true, or false
• Either “…who is a bachelor” (q) is true, or false
• If there is no John, he can’t be a bachelor
• But this John might exist and not be a bachelor, in
which case the second proposition (q) is false, but (p) is
true.
• So that “John is a bachelor” (p&q) is either true or false

Truth Table
p q
T T
T F
F T
F F
P&Q
T
F
F
F

The ‘or’ Argument
1. “Either Harry Bird ate the biscuit or Matthew Bird did.”
2. “Harry didn’t eat the biscuit, so Matthew must have.”
3. “Either way, I blame a Bird.”
• Rewrite 1 and 2 as general propositions
‘v’ is the logical symbol for ‘or’
1. pvq (either p or q; not p, therefore q)
2. -p q
3. pvq b (OR ‘pvq’)
‘-’ is the logical symbol for
‘not’
is the logical symbol for
‘therefore’

Put this back into Plain English for
propositions of your choice
1.p v q v r
2.-q & -p
3.p v –q
4.p -p
5.P & (-p&q) & (-p&-
q&r)
1. It’s Monday, or Wednesday
or Tuesday
2. It’s neither Monday nor
Wednesday
3. Either my pet is a capybara
or it’s not a giraffe.
4. I love Marmite, therefore I
don’t love Marmite
5. I don’t believe in God. He’s
dead. He’s in the sky!

All
• A term in parenthesis denotes “all”. Hence (x) = all

The useless ladder
• Wittgenstein realised that much of his Tractatus was
written in plain [really?!] German, in propositions that
made no logical sense. He realised this was necessary
– and called the work a ladder which, once you’ve
climbed up, you dispense with.

Picture Theory
• 2.1 We make to ourselves
pictures of facts.
• 2.12 The picture is a model of
reality.
• 2.13 To the objects correspond in
the picture the elements of the
picture.
• 2.131 The elements of the picture
stand, in the picture, for the
objects.
• 2.14 The picture consists in the
fact that its elements are
combined with one another in a
definite way.

In other words…
• A picture, or image [German: bild] is a re-presentation
of a state of affairs. It must have a correspondence
with the reality it is re-presenting. (It might be a poor
picture). If you have a painting of a carrot and say it
represents a donkey, then…well, it doesn’t.
≠

Forms of pictures
• However, not all pictures are spatial (photographs,
drawings, paintings etc) they take different forms.
Some pictures have colour, some pictures are sounds,
some, smells etc.
• 2.171 - The picture can represent every reality whose
form it has. The spatial picture, everything spatial, the
coloured, everything coloured, etc.
• Thus a musical performance that emulates whale song will be
a picture of the whale song.
• Language presents a logical picture of the state of
affairs.

Where does this leave metaphysics?
• Since metaphysical statements cannot be stated, they
must be shown
• They are mysterious

Later Wittgenstein
• The Blue Book (published 1933)
• Rejected the notion of “a single calculus of language.”
• Language is plural
“If we had to name anything as
the life of the sign, we should have
to say that it was its use.”

Language Games
• One can learn the rules of chess but
this doesn’t make one into a grand
chess master
• The only way to really understand is to
play the game
• This is the difference between
knowing what checkmate is and how
to checkmate
• Language is, similarly a game we learn
to play by using it.

• A word can change its meaning depending on its use.
• Slang is an obvious example. We know when someone
says “that’s a cool bag” they are signaling their
approval of the bag, not mistaking our satchel for a
cool-bag
“The meaning of a word is its use in the
language” - Philosophical Investigations, 43

Implications for Religious Language
• This means that religious or metaphysical
language has sense because it is used by
people to convey ideas.
• E.g. “The Lord is my shepherd” makes sense
within the language game of Judaism and
Christianity.
• So when St. Paul writes, ”For the message
about the cross is foolishness to those who are
perishing, but to us who are being saved it is
the power of God.” we might consider that

Wittgenstein

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