Wittgenstein's head
Wittgenstein's Leader - Reflections on the Tractatus is a book by Logi Gunnarsson . It deals with the work Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (short: Tractatus ) by the Austro-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein . In this book Logi Gunnarsson tries to find an answer to the extent to which and whether the sentences of the Tractatus can explain or explain where a limit can be drawn to the expression of thoughts, although Wittgenstein describes his sentences at the end of the Tractatus as nonsensical. The question is discussed whether the reader can be enabled by nonsensical sentences to distinguish meaningful from nonsensical sentences, and whether it is at all the aim of the Tractatus to convey such an ability to the reader.
construction
Based on Søren Kierkegaard's concluding unscientific postscript on the philosophical chunks , Gunnarsson lets two fictional authors have their say in his book: Johannes Philologus and his nephew Johannes Commentarius . Johannes Philologus comes into possession of two fragments of the Tractatus, but without knowing that these are fragments of the Tractatus.
“Analysis of a Fragment” by Johannes Philologus
The two fragments that Johannes Philologus analyzes are part of the preface and the last two sections of the Tractatus:
- Fragment 1
- This book may only be understood by those who have already thought about the thoughts expressed in it - or similar thoughts. - So it's not a textbook. - Its purpose would be achieved if it gave pleasure to one who reads it with understanding.
- The book deals with the philosophical problems and shows - I believe - that the questioning of these problems is based on the misunderstanding of the logic of our language. One could put the whole meaning of the book into the words:
- What can be said at all can be said clearly; and what one cannot talk about, one must be silent about it.
- So the book wants to draw a limit to thinking, or rather - not to thinking, but to the expression of thoughts: because in order to draw a limit to thinking, we would have to be able to think both sides of this limit (we would have to be able to think what is not makes you think).
- So the line can only be drawn in language and what lies beyond the line will just be nonsense.
- Fragment 2
- 6.54 My sentences explain by the fact that those who understand me will recognize them as nonsensical in the end, if through them - on them - he has risen above them. (He has to throw away the ladder, so to speak, after climbing it.)
- He must overcome these sentences, then he will see the world correctly.
- 7 What you can't talk about, you have to be silent about it.
Using these two fragments, Johannes Philologus begins to discuss the extent to which a work that is enclosed by these two fragments can succeed. For him, the work must be able to explain what the difference between sense and nonsense is, what we think and what cannot think. He assumes that the given fragments form the text frame of the work, and speculates about what type of text body must be and how it must be received by the reader in order to meet the requirements of the fragments and to give a satisfactory answer to his questions deliver.
Commentary on Johannes Philologus' “Analysis of a Fragment” by Johannes Commentarius
Johannes Commentarius is in the fortunate position of knowing that the fragments are passages from the Tractatus. In his commentary he compares Johannes Philologus' approaches with the secondary literature on the Tractatus. Furthermore, he examines Philologus' analysis critically and rejects his basic assumption that the Tractatus wants to provide a patent recipe for the distinction between sense and nonsense. Taking into account the - Philologus unknown - text passages in the body of the Tractatus, he developed an interpretation that explains what and how the Tractatus explains.
theses
Analysis of a fragment
Philologus develops three possible interpretations in which way the nonsensical sentences of the body of the text can be explained, how a limit can be drawn to the expression of thoughts:
- Mystical interpretation
- Anti-mystical interpretation
- Reductio interpretation
The mystical interpretation assumes that the sentences of the body of the text set rules for a properly formed language that can avoid nonsense, but violate these rules themselves. So they express something that cannot actually be expressed in language, but show the difference between sense and nonsense. According to Philologus, this interpretation fails because sentences cannot be based on something that is outside the language.
The anti-mystical interpretation assumes that the sentences are nonsensical but say nothing. It could, according to Philologus, show the reader that he recognizes the sentences in the body of the text as nonsense, but it fails because it does not guarantee that the reader is also able to recognize sentences other than those in the body of the text as nonsense .
The reductio interpretation finally assumes that the reader holds the first sentences of the text body initially useful, but gradually finds the absurdity of the following phrases in more. Since the sentences are related, he concludes that the first sentences must also be nonsensical. According to Philologus, this interpretation fails because, regardless of how the connection between the first and the later sentences is understood, i.e. narrow or loose, it cannot be concluded, it cannot be said which feeling the reader should trust: whether all, just a few or but none of the sentences in the body of the text are nonsensical.
Comment on the analysis of a fragment
Philologus wants to find answers to how a work that consists only of nonsense sentences can teach him to distinguish meaning from nonsense. Commentarius, on the other hand, would like to attest to Philologus that he is subject to a misunderstanding if he is looking for a description of such an ability at all. In Commentarius' opinion, the aim of the Tractatus is not to provide the reader with a recipe for distinguishing sense from nonsense; the Tractatus wants to show that this is not possible, because then one would have to take a position outside of language. Commentarius attaches great importance to the process of how we understand a sentence and see it as nonsensical or meaningful: in order to understand a sentence, we try to assign a meaning or meaning to its components, we first believe that the sentence can be given meaning. After one has established that one cannot assign meaning to a sentence, one has to correct oneself in this belief and determine the absurdity of the sentence.
Commentarius' thesis is that the text of the Tractatus is an attempt to draw a line between sense and nonsense. However, Wittgenstein would like to show that this attempt itself ends in nonsense and thus the idea that there is a boundary between sense and nonsense is itself nonsense.
criticism
In a certain sense, it seems that Wittgenstein actually advocated the logically positivistic theses and the theory of meaning set out in the body of the Tractatus , if one assumes that in his later work (e.g. in the Philosophical Investigations ) he expressed his original standpoints with a behavioristic theory of language wanted to revise. It is therefore not clear whether Gunnarsson's work is perhaps merely a “salvation of honor” for the Tractatus by weighting the last movements of the Tractatus, in which Wittgenstein describes his work as nonsensical, so heavily, but this was actually not intended by Wittgenstein. It could be that Wittgenstein actually wanted to convey that with natural language a perfect logical syntax can be constructed, with which nonsense can be avoided.
literature
- Logi Gunnarsson: Wittgenstein's leader, reflections on the Tractatus . Philo-Verlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-8257-0175-1 .
- Ludwig Wittgenstein: Logical-philosophical treatise, Tractatus logico-philosophicus . Critical Edition. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1998, ISBN 3-518-28959-4 .
- Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus logico-philosophicus, Logical-philosophical treatise . Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-518-10012-2 .