A History of Philosophy | 75 Ludwig Wittgenstein

England to study in 1912 and essentially spent his philosophical career in England although for a space of some 20 years he went back to Austria and staying there on a turn to vidcon Stein at this stage however in going back to what we were saying about Bertrand Russell Russell in continuity with the nineteenth-century empiricists particularly John Stuart Mill those empiricists and their attention to objective empirical scientific knowledge as expressed in the hypothetical deductive method that is to say scientific explanations have the structure of a deductive system based on for their premises are broad general hypotheses okay and so the hypothetical deductive method which in Russell comes through in his logical animism is attempt to analyze what we purportedly know into its logical constituents and to organize those logical constituents into a deductive system adducing what would ever would be the necessary premises as the hypotheses for that so the hypothetical deductive method and of course the universe soeul extension of this scientific method and we saw the way that was the case in Russell since he wants this method to be the method of all philosophy of all human knowledge of all science so in other words this movement of 19th century philosophy into the rustle of the early 20th century represents the kind of scientism as it's called which counts scientific method as the only acceptable method for giving us reliable knowledge that sort of scientism and it is this which then comes through in Vidkun stein and i have to add the early Vidkun stein the Wengen stein of the Tractatus logico-philosophicus the later Wittgenstein represented by his book philosophical investigations is different and we'll be looking at him next week but the early Vidkun stein follows Russell in this regard as does the logical positivism of the 1930s and 1940s the sort of position represented by AJ air though he moderates the appeal to science and hypothetical deductive method in in some ways okay so keep that that framework in mind and let me give to you an outline that I want to make some comments on of some stuff in his tracked anus the one of the interesting things and I'll refer you to it in a few moments is that Russell wrote the introduction to the track tales and whether or not this was VidCon Stein's intention Russell's introduction seems to seems to say that what victim Stein is doing is what Russell himself had held out for in his logical Addams what what actually Russell says in the preface is that the book starts with the relationship between words and things showing how traditional philosophy arises out of ignorance and the misuse of language now that's a theme that runs through the positivists runs through Vidkun Stein both early and late yes II and one which Russell certainly agrees with remember the title of that work of his mysticism and logic in which he was criticizing the idealists russell goes on to say that what we need because of the misuse of language what we need says Russell is an ideal language not an actual language not any ordinary language but an ideal language one in which every name every now refers to just one fact so that no word ever can be used to refer to two different things eliminate ambiguity eliminate double reference eliminate connotations that would be misleading okay a strictly logical language in which the atomic facts are destroyed simply by atomic propositions remember Russell's line in that regard now Russell says that this is what victim Stein is doing well let's let's see in his own preface to the book this is what Vidkun Stein says the book deals with the problems of philosophy you might have difficulty identifying what they are as you read it but he says it deals with the problems of philosophy and shows that the reason why these problems opposed is that the logic of our language is misunderstood the logic of our language now what's he mean by logic in the sense of the logic of language obviously he's not referring to deductive syllogisms that's not the logic of language he's not referring to inductive reasoning that's not the logic of language he's referring to the logical structure of language the logical form that it has subject predicate for particularly as such that subject predicate form of propositions asserts facts ok asserts facts words which are signs names don't assert anything so that if I were to come into the room and simply say Brown house few other isolated words you'd think I was wacky because I'm just not asserting anything I'm not stating facts all I'm doing but certainly not in this so he says the reason why the problems of philosophy a misunderstood opposed at all is that the logic of language the logical use of language is misunderstood and so the whole sense of this book can be summed up in the following words and he comes back to them on the last page of the book what could be said it all can be said clearly what we cannot talk about clearly we must pass over in silence in other words put up or shut up well the aim of the book then is to stake out the limitations of what language can say and show us how it says it it's a book about the logic of language okay now with that in mind I think you can make some sense of this outline that I've given you the numbers in the left column come from the numbering of paragraphs in the text so that his first statement is 1 the next is 1.1 the type is put 1-1 rather than 1.1 misunderstanding and not surprising since it's an unusual format ok now sometimes you get a whole paragraph by such a number sometimes just a sentence it seems to be a reflection the way the men not only wrote the taught it said that he would thin out the people who were registering for his courses so he'd have half a dozen people that he wanted and they would meet in his rooms there at Cambridge where the professor's have their own living accommodations meet there in his rooms and he habitually would sit astride a hardback chair with his arms on the front of the chair deep in thought and would utter some sentence and expect people in the seminar to further the discussion often with long pauses waiting for people like David to speak up yes all sorts of tales are told about the this mysterious character and the way he handled but notice notice what he's saying all that is the case the world is the totality of facts not of things now there's a distinction that's new between facts and things what does he mean a fact is the existence of a state of affairs okay so effect is likely to be complex there can be molecular facts that can be atomic facts there's Russell okay there can be molecular facts and be atomic facts a fact is the existence of states of affairs states of affairs are combinations of objects or things so things are simply constituents of states of affairs now notice what's happened his point is but words name things okay words name things good words our constituents are taking back things a constituents of states of affairs its facts that are states of affairs now the thing pertinent to the confusion of language is that one word can be used to name many different things one of his examples is green is green and he points out that the first green is a man calling William green the second green is a property he's envious okay now alternatively he might have said I suppose that that green is the name the green is the name of a quadrangle on the University campus or of the green meadows along the river cam at Cambridge the green and maybe in spring somebody's saying Green is green name of the place and a sense quality but this is simply his illustration of the fact that words can name different things the same word for different things and Bhagwati confusion arises philosophical problems arise from confused use of languages in that way now he goes on however we picture facts to ourselves yeah we picture green as green with envy we picture the green at Cambridge as green I remember walking a lot green very green lush right beside a river right after the end of World War two I was stationed at a base just outside Cambridge we used to go in there and our days off and wander through the university so all right we picture facts to ourselves we do in their minds we picture facts a picture that is the same mental state the picture the picture that mental state is a model of reality it's a mental model but in the picture there are elements of the picture that represent objects things so then what we have is things or objects represented by the elements in the picture by which we represent to ourselves the facts ok the mental picture of a fact which is a state of a things the mental picture is made up of elements and the mental picture which are referred to by words corresponding to the things which are the constituents of the states of affairs so you have to get these correlations you see Russell's atomic facts correspond atomic statements atomic propositions corresponding to atomic states of affairs and the one-to-one correspondence between the elements of one and the elements of the other all the way through but in addition to the picture being a mental model to one-for-one the picture itself is a state of affairs a fact yes its present state of affairs that I have that picture in my mouth the picture itself is a fact and there must then be something identical the picture and what it depicts in the picture and what it depicts yes there must be some correspondence between the two okay the mental picture may be made up of words but the state of affairs to which it refers is not made up of words what sort then of identity is there between the mental picture and the objective state of affairs you see it's not that they're both made up of words oh it's the logical form we need a logical form to language which can be identical to the logical form of the objective states of affairs okay so then number three a logical picture of facts yes a is a thought like a proposition a proposition expresses a thought as it can be perceived by the senses yes because the proposition can be heard could be read being a simple or a complex proposition referring to atomic or molecular facts as the case may be so two things about that first segment you see how he is making use of Russell's logical analysis logical animism that's the first second this is known as Vidkun Stein's picture theory of meaning his picture theory of meaning okay mental representations thoughts are pictures corresponding to states of affairs now if we reflect for a moment on the nature of Mead okay meaning can be simply denotational what in logic we call the extinction the logical extinction of a now what is it that it denotes what are the particulars one or many to which it refers to which it extends so what he is doing is emphasizing almost completely the denotational meaning the extensional meaning of language and in as much as the states of affairs seemed to me empirical objects this becomes an empiricist the theory of meaning an empiricist theory of meaning the antecedent of which is of course in John Stuart Mill what does the word matter refer to empirically permanent possibility of sensations what is the word mind refer to empirically permanent possibility of reflections empiricists theory of meaning the theory that was stated by David Hume about all matters of fact statements interesting seen word fact fact you see what is a fact a matter of fact the state of affairs well if you cannot then according to Hume a translate this philosophical language into the language of empirical facts matter of fact statements it's meaningless you remember at the end of his inquiry come in it to the flames let's have that big book burning of meaningless metaphysical Twala so what you get in victims dying then is the empiricist theory of meaning same as in Hume same as in male translated into Russell's language of logical animism and reasserted in the early victims life and it's precisely this same purist theory of meaning which in the logical positivism of a ax comes out as the verifiability principle that I wrote down there verifiability principle of meaning you ought to be reading a ax now some of you may have started the first chapter of a is language truth and logic is entitled the elimination of metaphysics on what basis the empiricist theory of meaning the empiricist theory of meaning thanks to Russell and some continental equivalents Vig and Stein yes they and the tradition of Neil and David Hume the elimination of metaphysics the endtime metaphysical strain of 19th century empiricism recurring in 20th century positivism ok does that much come through clearly okay the picture theory of meaning all right run through the the second half with me signs and symbols now maybe you've been accustomed to using the two interchangeably he doesn't and many cement assists do not a word is a sign okay a word is a sign one in the same sign can be common to two different symbols yes you see the word can symbolize the word can be used to symbolize different things the word green that sound could be used to symbolize bill green and I didn't make up the name bill green that happens to be a will green I know yes a it can symbolize the green it can be used to symbolize that state of affairs called envy and of course it can be used to symbolize cup so one on the same sign can be common to various different symbols in this way the most fundamental confusions are easily produced and philosophy he says in parentheses is full of it yeah when we get a little bit further we will be coming to the mind-body problem and and his book on the concept of mind in which he suggests that it's simply by means of misunderstanding about the logic of language that the word mind has come to be used to refer to an entity an immaterial part of a human being whereas the logic of language properly understood is such that mind refers simply the certain brain functions so in this way then confusions are easily produced now to avoid such errors we mustn't use the same sign for different symbols that's obvious what we need is a sign language that is governed by logical syntax Russell's ideal language yes what we need to do philosophy with precision is symbolic logic you'll say and it was this sort of thing which stirred the symbolic logic industry as it has become and then 4:03 most propositions and questions found in philosophical works are not false they're just nonsensical they have no sense no meaning you think what he means by sense is the referent of a word the word green can refer to various things so a nonsensical use of language is the use of language that has no empirical referent so when in logical positivism you find it stated that metaphysics metaphysical language is nonsensical okay or anything which doesn't pass approval but the verifiability criterion of meaning is nonsensical you're saying it has no referent it has no empirical referent nothing it refers to of an empirical nature so then if most of the propositions and questions found in philosophy are nonsensical what job is left for philosophy other than shutting up and the response is for double O three one philosophy is this critique of language analyzing uses of language in order to determine whether or not they have empirical meaning whether or not they have any sense if they do not then you label them as such forgettable if they do then whether they are true or false can be decided by the appropriate empirical sciences philosophy is not in the business of deciding the truth of anything if all meaning is empirical then the truth of propositions is a scientific matter not philosophical so philosophy becomes as it were the logic of language switchboard which accepts calls asking can you help me with this confused confusing sort of topic and shuttle's the calls plunge them into the different Sciences the function of philosophy is simply logic the logical language and then for one one it follows that the totality of totality of true propositions is the whole of natural science now remember that I used it introducing this the term scientism what scientism the view that only scientific knowledge is worthy only that which comes by scientific method could be verified by scientific method is worth is acceptable a scientific exclusivism which is obviously being touted in the 19th century empiricists here again in the early Vidkun stein and in the logical positivists okay but for one one one the philosophy is not one of the natural sciences it aims at the logical clarification of thoughts it's not a body of doctrine but an activity in that last sentence you can underscore and so forth so you should no longer according to vidcon Stein talk of somebody's philosophy yet as if it's a body of doctrine don't talk of Hegel's philosophy a body of doctrine you see you talk rather of people who are doing philosophy now that phrase is something written Stein introduced but it's caught on outside of those who agree with Vidkun Stein so that you probably hear us around in this department telling you come on do some philosophy don't just talk about it in secondhand fashion get inside the guy's thinking and do some philosophy Thea self you think the philosophy is an activity of analysis whatever else it be at least let well his point is then that philosophical propositions do not picture reality science does that science can only tell us about what and the thought and spoken in empirically verifiable ways so science cannot tell you metaphysical matters religious matters unless it be by purely empirical means and he says then everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly and what cannot be thought clearly on that we must keep silence okay let me add just a couple of things to show how he applies this in as much as he's advocating scientific empiricism he's obviously going to run into the problem of induction the uniformity of nature is the problem it's on the assertion of the uniformity of nature that all inductive reasoning hinges well here's what he says about this the so-called law of induction cannot possibly be a law of logic since it's obviously a proposition with sense proposition with sense is one that refers to empirical data the law of induction the uniformity of nature is referring to the uniformity of empirical data so it's not a law of logic okay well what about the law of causation which underlies the law of induction in traditional philosophy the law of causation is not a law but only the form of the law the law of causation czar generally in mechanics there are minimal principles causal laws in physics there are causal laws there is no the law of causation general it is simply the mt4 of which particular causal laws participate there so in stressing the logical structure of those laws let's see in a little bit further on the procedure of induction the procedure of induction has no logical justification now that's David Hume all over again but only a psychological justification Dame in whom all over again you say yeah the psychological justification in that psychologically grounded believe in causation by virtue of the constant conjunctions that conditioner expectations then this there is no compulsion making one thing happen because another thing happened there's no causal necessity the only necessity that exists is logical necessity that a cannot be non a for instance no such thing as causal necessity so the whole modern conception of the world is founded on the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are explanations of natural phenomena the laws of nature are not explanations of natural phenomena the laws of nature are not laws there's no necessity to the middle well what about values moral values okay is what he says about moral values in the world that is to say the world of facts empirical facts in the world everything is as it is everything happens as it happens in it no value exists because value is not an empirical fact it's not empirically observable if there is any value that does have value it must lie outside the whole sphere of what happens in the world okay value would have to be something extraneous it must lie outside of the world so it is impossible for there to be propositions of ethics what is a proposition statement about states of affairs facts empirical facts so there are no propositions of ethics no ethical propositions propositions can express nothing that is higher than facts so it's clear that ethics cannot be put into words what is an ethical law of the form thou shalt when such a law is laid down one's first thought is this and what if I do not thou shalt and what if I do not it's clear that ethics is nothing to do with punishment and reward in the usual sense of the terms so our question is about the consequences of an action and it's unimportant those consequences shouldn't be events but there must be something about the question we posed there must be some kind of ethical reward and Punishment that reside in the action itself nothing no what then is the function of ethical language well Vidkun Stein doesn't come out and tell us the logical positivists will say that ethical language is purely emotive to say thou shalt not steal is simply emoting about some people's behavior venting feeling not stating facts there are no ethical facts to be recorded in propositions so this leads then to the emotivist theory of ethics which we're going to be meeting in vilkin stein you'll notice he has a chapter on ethics and aesthetics yeah then one one or two final things death death he says is not an event in life we don't live to experience death okay so there is no empirical knowledge of death our life has no end in just the way in which our visual field has no limits but there's no guarantee of temporal immortality of the human soul survival after death it's always been intended there is some riddle solved by my surviving the solution of the riddle of life in that case would lie outside of life itself outside of space and time the incongruities okay no but rather the solution of the problem is the solution of the problem of life and its meaning is seen in the vanishing of the problem because with death it vanishes no life no problem all right then finally this this is the final the correct method in philosophy must really be the following to say nothing except what can be said that is propositions of natural science and then whatever someone else wanted to say to demonstrate that someone had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in his language what we cannot speak about in empirical propositions we must pass over in silence end of book well do you follow the line of thought okay it's very much the same as Russell at this stage very much the same yeah except that it moves I think in the way it stated several steps closer to logical positivism itself several steps closer questions comment John No yeah what he's really saying I think underneath all of this is that the problem of the meaning of life is an empirically meaningless problem a meaningful problem is one which is asking factual questions this is not asking factual questions what is the meaning of life and if you say the meaning of life is the fact that there is a life hereafter in which it all comes clear or something of that sort then you are saying that the meaning of life phears outside of life so how could that be answered in empirical ways it's interesting to note what other empiricists have done with that question that he raised there was a debate between two individuals both logical positivists Rudolf Carnap and Moritz Schlick and I think this was a debate in the British Journal of philosophy of science back in the twenties as I recall in which I think it was slick argued that discussion of immortality of a future state is empirically meaningless Carnap argued no it might be empirically meaningful if it turns out that we have empirical data thereafter Hereafter yes he and John hick the British philosopher of religion at one stage in his thinking and he's gone through various stages he's now in a very different one but at one stage when he was discussing the meaning of religious language in empiricists tones a talked of eschatological verification you see Carnap seem to say that belief in immortality would be capable of eschatological verification so it's empirically meaningful well hick wanted to say that the Christian faith as such is capable of eschatological verification so that on the last day John you can say to somebody hey I told you so yeah so if you get an extended definition of the empirical then the future experience could in principle account yes he does but I don't know what he does say about aesthetics is there anybody here who took the VidCon Stein seminar got into the aesthetics you ventured into it and you what does he say about aesthetics can you help there is a recent collection of fragments from him that include comments on aesthetics I haven't read it it would be in his later work when he's coming at ordinary language in less than scientific terms yeah words not really new ok yeah yeah let me let me say this thing about his later work what he does in the earlier work he has second question second thoughts about later on the Tractatus was published in 1921 in 1929 he left Cambridge and dropped out of philosophy not coming back until the forties and in 1945 he published philosophical investigations in that book he tells us that the picture' theory of meaning has no clear meaning and that comment of his gave rise to the self referentiality criticism of the verifiability theorem namely that is to be verifiable a proposition has to be empirically accessible well the verifiability theory of meaning is not empirically accessible so it's not verifiable so that was one of the things which led to the downfall of logical positivism he also suggested that Russell's dream of atomic propositions indivisible units of thought is to vae there is no clear criterion for an atomic proposition and the notion of an ideal language is too artificial he says things like logical language and symbolic language alike parade-ground foot rebels or soldiers fine for teaching logical discipline but you don't use them on the battlefield yes he and it was with that that he abandoned this scientism trying to narrow all meaningful discourse to scientific discourse and started talking about language games that is to say their own variety of different language functions of which scientific type language is only what and I take it that Ryan is saying that aesthetic language might be understandable in those ways are we doing it's like time okay Monday we'll get into logical positivism as such and that means aja what I'm planning to do is

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Published: Tue Jun 16 2015