Seminar Paper on Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Ludwig Wittgenstein has been dubbed a ‘charismatic enigma’ because though he was largely respected and admired, he lived much of his life in seclusion. His life seems to have been dominated by striving for moral and philosophical perfection, as the detail of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, published in English in 1922 suggests. Wittgenstein is of Jewish descent, although he often would not admit the extent of this, and his family was large and wealthy. His father, Karl Wittgenstein, was a leader in the Austro-Hungarian iron and steel industries and was a very successful businessman. This meant that throughout his childhood, many people of culture visited the Wittgenstein’s house, including Johannes Brahms who instilled in Ludwig a love of music. The family was followed by tragedy though, as 3 of Ludwig’s 4 brothers committed suicide. He also had 3 sisters.

Ludwig began his career studying mechanical engineering in Berlin before moving to Manchester to research aeronautics in 1908. He soon became interested in mathematics and philosophical theories as to the foundations of mathematics, which then turned into work on philosophical logic when friend, philosopher and mathematician Frege recommended that Ludwig study in Cambridge with G.E. Moore and Bertrand Russell, who later helped Ludwig to publish the Tractatus in English. In 1913, Ludwig inherited his father’s fortune but soon gave it away and enlisted in the Austrian Army when war broke out in 1914. During his time serving, he was awarded several medals for bravery, before continuing his philosophical work and publishing the Tractatus. Having thus felt he had solved the problems of philosophy, he became a school teacher in Austria. In 1929 he realised that his work in philosophy was not done and went to Trinity College, Cambridge to teach and became professor of philosophy at Cambridge in 1939, before working as a hospital porter in London during World War 2 and then as a research technician in Newcastle. After the war he returned to Cambridge, although he resigned his professorship in 1947 so that he could concentrate on writing, which he did mostly in Ireland and by 1949 he had compiled what would be published posthumously as Philosophical Investigations. The last two years of his life he spent between Vienna, Cambridge and Oxford and worked on the material which would be published, again posthumously, as On Certainty. He died in 1951 in Cambridge of prostate cancer.

Considered by many to be his most profound work, and by some to be nonsense, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is a pondering on the reasons that philosophers try to solve problems and propositions. Wittgenstein is arguing that instead of solving these problems, we should be trying to dissolve them through analysis. Instead of thinking “we don’t know this, we must work it out” we should be thinking “we don’t know this”. By doing this he can definitely be seen to rock the boat of philosophy, and much of his work angered philosophers; however it was important in developing Logical positivism and making language a focus for philosophical thought.

Wittgenstein’s logical positivism was based on the Verification Principle, that if a proposition cannot be verified, it is meaningless. This was therefore saying that instead of trying endless theories to solve a problem caused by an unverifiable proposition, we should just let it go. However, this created a logical problem of its own in that this proposition itself could not be verified, and therefore must be meaningless. This was supplemented by Karl Popper with the Falsification Principle, leading to today’s system where propositions must be analysed as to both the verification and falsification principles before it can be accepted as true.

Wittgenstein’s work also raises questions as to our use of language and the role that it plays in philosophical thought. The Tractatus illustrates the fact that detail must be paid to the language and meanings that we use, and that our world is created by the language available to us. We cannot think or describe without the use of language and therefore if the language available were to be reduced, the scope of our mental and verbal lives would be limited. You need to have language to express ideas, and therefore language is everything. The Tractatus also contains a picture theory of language that 1) the world consists of facts and 2) a fact is a picture of the state of affairs. We therefore create the world around us using language and facts. If a proposition does not depict a picture of a state of affairs, then it is devoid of meaning. However, given that the entire Tractatus is a series of propositions, Wittgenstein is pulling the framework of his own work apart.

This theory of language in particular has been picked up by many a philosopher as well as culturally significant writers. George Orwell is the best example of this, as his novel 1984 demonstrates Wittgenstein’s theory of language by creating a world in which one political party controls the minds of the country by limiting the language available to them. He demonstrates that if you can control the ‘facts’, you can control the world and manipulate, even manufacture, reality through the use of language and facts. This is perfectly illustrated in the ‘weeding out’ of articles that go against the current state of affairs to make it seem as if what was said before, for instance about being at war with Eurasia, was never true. In this way the party manipulates history and allegiances. They also control language by creating NewSpeak, the dictionary of shortened language which becomes smaller and smaller and eventually ends up consisting of “I love big brother”. This corruption of language to suit political means frightened both Orwell and Wittgenstein, which is why Ludwig felt it so important that we understand the meaning of what we say. The language that features in 1984 is formed of jargon, cliché, metaphor and slogan, all types of language that are designed to prevent thought and inhibit freedom of thought and expression, as can be seen in the creation of the Thought Police. Not only do these go against human rights, but, Ludwig argued, they create a society in which no-one, except the leader, can reach their full potential, which I find terrifying. Similar ideas of controlling language for political means have been used in the USSR when the communists began a programme of linguistic reform where certain words and letters were taken out of the dictionaries and alphabets and banned from use. In this way, they created a Utopian politically correct language, trying to remove social discrimination by removing the means to be discriminating. This reflects Wittgenstein’s idea that language is plastic and controls thought.

Back to the Tractatus; it is made up of a series of propositions and comments on these propositions. Wittgenstein emphasised that these were not ‘profound statements’ trying to impart wisdom in the reader, he is simply trying to show that what we think are important philosophical problems, are not really problems at all, just things that we have to live with. He is therefore not rejecting philosophy, just trying to untie some of the knots in it that cause confusion.

Another part of the Tractatus that I found particularly interesting is Wittgenstein’s comments in the preface. He says that the purpose of the book will be achieved “if it gave pleasure to one person who read and understood it”. This, to me, sums up the whole reason that we have books and that we read; to understand, learn from them and enjoy them. However, it seems to me that the way that we look at learning is not so much with eagerness or with pleasure, but with dread. What causes this dread, I cannot say, only that it may be to do with the fact that education is forced upon us from an early age, and the necessity to be able to master these skills has put so much pressure on us that we no longer look forward to it, because we know that our jobs and our lives are always going to be challenging. This takes away the pleasure that can be felt when you understand a new theory or learn something that you never knew before. Books have become just another part of our hum-drum lives, and this is a saddening thought.

Wittgenstein also says “If this work has any value, it consists in two things: the first is that thoughts are expressed in it, and on this score the better the thoughts are expressed… the greater will be its value”. This seems to me to go without saying. Wittgenstein’s focus on language throughout the book is especially prominent here as he is pointing out the precise nature of his ponderings (because, really, that’s all this book is), and identifying the effect that this will have on his readers. He is therefore a very clever man, maybe even a genius, but he does not fit this bill in the simple fact that he thinks of the understanding of others, instead of talking down to them. This is extremely important in philosophy and makes a refreshing change from the dictator-like style of Karl Marx and more heavy-handed philosophers like Rousseau.

He describes philosophy as aiming at the “logical clarification of thoughts” and I think that this is very important. Too often, we take meanings and words for granted, without being careful or specific, and this emphasis on thinking through what we are saying is important, as my mother says ‘think before you speak’, so you should think before you preach in philosophy. This also makes the end of Wittgenstein’s preface particularly powerful; “the second thing in which the value of this work consists is that it shows how little is achieved when these problems are solved”.