Representation and reality in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus

272 Pages·2019·2.99 MB·English

by  Ludwig / Wittgenstein, Zalabardo, José L.

Representation and Reality in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus

Representation
and Reality
in Wittgenstein’s
Tractatus
José L. Zalabardo
1
1
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Acknowledgements
I have benefited from conversations or correspondence with Don Berry, María
Cerezo, Kit Fine, Marcus Giaquinto, Peter Hanks, Colin Johnston, Mark Kalderon,
Michael Kremer, Mike Martin, Michael Morris, and Stephen Read. I am also grate-
ful to three anonymous referees for Oxford University Press for their tremen-
dously helpful comments.
I have presented some of this material at the following conferences and work-
shops: “Wittgenstein and the Transcendental,” Essex University and Institute of
Philosophy, London; “Reading Wittgenstein,” UCL and Institute of Philosophy,
London; “Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Perception,” King’s College, London;
“The Viability of Metaphysics,” Durham; “Inferentialism in Epistemology and the
Philosophy of Science,” UNED, Madrid, and “The World as I Found It,” University
of Fribourg. I have also presented these ideas in my Early Wittgenstein lectures at
UCL and in a postgraduate seminar at the University of Valencia. I am grateful to
all these audiences for their comments.
Chapter 3 and Appendix I use material from “Wittgenstein’s Nonsense
Objection to Russell’s Theory of Judgment,” in Michael Campbell and Michael
O’Sullivan (eds), Wittgenstein and Perception (Abingdon: Routledge, 2015).
Appendix II uses material from “Reference, Simplicity and Necessary Existence in
the Tractatus,” in José L. Zalabardo (ed.), Wittgenstein’s Early Philosophy (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2012). I am grateful to these publishers for permission to
reproduce this material.

Contents
Introduction  1
1. Russell’s Theories of Judgment  13
2. Wittgenstein and Forms  37
3. The Vanishing Subject  87
4. Propositions and Facts  108
5. The Limits of Representation  149
6. Logic and Analysis  185
Conclusion  228
Appendix I: Other Readings of the Nonsense Objection  233
Appendix II: The Empty-Name Reading of the Substance Passage  243
References  255
Index  261

Introduction
I.1. Wittgenstein’s Programme
A book is an act of communication. Its author intends to produce with it a certain
effect in the mind of her readers. The precise effect that that an author intends to
produce with her book varies widely from genre to genre. The authors of novels,
poetry volumes, self-help books, and scientific manuals, for example, seek to affect
their readers in very different ways.
Scientific manuals and other pieces of academic writing tend to follow a par-
ticularly straightforward pattern. These books present facts, theories, or expla-
nations that their authors believe to be correct. The authors’ goal is to get their
readers to accept their claims. Success will come about when the reader accepts the
claims expressed in the book. If the claims are correct, the reader will have learnt
something about the world from the book.
Many philosophy books follow this pattern. They present philosophical doc-
trines that their authors believe to be correct, with the intention of making their
readers accept these doctrines. The author succeeds when the reader accepts the
doctrines presented in the book. When this happens, if the doctrines are correct,
the reader will have learnt something about the world from the book.
Readers of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, especially those
who skip the preface, can easily get the impression that it is this kind of book.
For the most part, the Tractatus seems to be devoted to presenting philosophical
doctrines—about the structure of the world, linguistic and mental representation,
the nature of logic and mathematics, and other traditional philosophical subjects.
Readers then naturally assume that Wittgenstein believes these doctrines to be
correct, and that his goal is to get them to accept these doctrines—that, according
to Wittgenstein, we will learn something about the world from the Tractatus if we
accept the doctrines that are expressed in it.