The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics: Making Sense of Things (62 page)

56
Cf. McGinn (
1999
), pp. 502ff. On the power of the seduction, cf. Hacker (
1996
), pp. 112–113, and Diamond (
1991c
), pp. 106–107, both of which reference pertinent material elsewhere in Wittgenstein.

57
See n. 44.

58
For a much fuller discussion, see Moore (2003b), esp. §VIII. Cf. also the
Investigations
, §58, the paragraph straddling pp. 28–29.

59
Is
it clear? What about the following riposte? Somebody might say that Wittgenstein is using the word ‘world’ differently in these two contexts, in the former case to refer to the realm of the actual, and in the latter case to refer to the realm of the possible.

I incline to the view that he uses it to refer to the realm of the actual throughout the
Tractatus
, and that what enables him to refer to the realm of the possible in 5.61 is his use of other words and phrases, notably ‘in logic’ and ‘limits’. But even if I am wrong about that – even if Wittgenstein’s use of ‘world’ is ambiguous in the way mooted – what he says in 1.1, with its clearly implied application to any other possible world, is still surely offensive to the spirit of what he says in 5.61.

60
Cf. the problem to which I drew attention in the Introduction, §6, in connection with the Transcendence Question: anyone who thinks that we are limited to making sense of what is immanent is liable to register this thought by distinguishing between what is immanent and what is transcendent, and thereby either doing the very thing that they think is impossible or else ceasing to make sense. Cf. also Sullivan (
2003
), p. 219.

61
I.e. it must display the essential features of what can be thought.

62
This does not preclude its exposing some of the nonsense that results from bad philosophy: cf. 6.53, and cf. Sullivan (
2002
), p. 35.

63
Cf. Bernard Williams’ application of the same remark to Wittgenstein’s later philosophy in Williams (
2006n
), p. 208. Cf. also my earlier example of the sign reading ‘Mind the plinth’.

64
Cf. Sullivan (
2002
), pp. 42–43.

65
Two noteworthy attempts to portray the
Tractatus
as Kantian are Stenius (
1964
),
Ch. XI
, and Hacker (
1986
),
Ch. 4
. Not that Kant had much direct influence on Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein is said to have claimed ‘that he could get only occasional glimpses of understanding’ from Spinoza, Hume, and Kant (von Wright (
1958
), p. 20). Nevertheless, as both Erik Stenius and P.M.S. Hacker point out, Kant did have a significant indirect influence on Wittgenstein, through Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer made a strong impression on Wittgenstein (ibid., p. 9; see also Janik and Toulmin (
1973
), passim). The main conduit was a set of ideas concerning ethics and the will to which we shall turn in the next section.

66
But see again the material from Kant (
1998
), A129, quoted in
Ch. 6
, n. 18.

67
See e.g. Sullivan (
1996
).

68
Apart from anything else there is the complication that the transcendental idealism, here as in Kant, sustains an ‘empirical realism’ (a denial of empirical idealism, as defined in the Appendix to
Ch. 5
) to which, however, unlike in Kant, it eventually yields (5.64).

69
This is Peter Sullivan’s view: see Sullivan (
1996
), esp. §IV; (
2002
), pp. 59–60; and (
2003
), §IV.

70
This has been a matter of exegetical debate between Peter Sullivan and me: see Moore (2003b); Sullivan (
2003
); Moore (
forthcoming
); and Sullivan (
forthcoming
).

71
I talk about ineffable understanding, and about Wittgenstein’s attempts to express it in words. But what about the concept of showing, to which I have made hardly any appeal since first mentioning it in §5? In what sense, for example, are we ‘shown’ that the world is the totality of facts, not of things? In one sense, I suggest, and in one sense only: we have ineffable understanding such that, if an attempt were made to express it in words, the result would be: ‘The world is the totality of facts, not of things’ (see Moore (
1997a
), Chs 7–9). I.e. the appeal to the concept of showing does nothing, really, to advance the discussion beyond where it already is.

72
What follows draws on material in Moore (
forthcoming
) which is in turn taken from Moore (
2007b
). I am grateful to the editors and publisher of the volume in which the latter essay appears for permission to make use of this material.

73
See also material shortly before and shortly after the 6.4s: 6.373–6.374 and 6.52–6.522. Cf. n. 37 and the reference there to Sullivan (
1996
), n. 9.

74
I caution that this isomorphism is rough for all sorts of reasons. One is that the right-hand side of the Kantian distinction, which involves the bona fide exercise of concepts, does not purport to be anything that it is not. Another is that, whereas it is clear that the endorsement of transcendental idealism lies on the right-hand side of the Wittgensteinian distinction, it is altogether less clear on which side of the Kantian distinction it lies, if indeed it lies on either (
Ch. 5
, §9).

A further caveat: analytic knowledge occurs on both sides of the Kantian distinction (
Ch. 5
, §8) but on neither side of the Wittgensteinian distinction (4.461–4.4611 and 6.1–6.11; see further §3).

75
‘Perhaps’, because of the second point made in the previous note, which complicates matters in Kant’s case.

76
Mention was made of all but the penultimate of these in
Ch. 5
. For discussion of aesthetic judgment, see Kant (
2000
), Pt I.

77
Cf. also the letter to Bertrand Russell, dated 19 August 1919, in which he wrote, ‘The main point is the theory of what can be expressed by propositions … (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’ (
Letters
, p. 124, emphasis in original).

78
This is also, more explicitly, the main point of ‘Ethics’. Wittgenstein there gives two further examples of the kind of evaluation I have in mind: wonder at the existence of the world, and the feeling of absolute safety (p. 8). And he later remarks that ‘the verbal expression that we give to these experiences is nonsense!’ (ibid.). He concludes with some highly pertinent reflections on how, in ethics, we ‘run against the boundaries of language,’ adding, ‘[Ethics] is a document of a tendency in the human mind which I personally cannot help respecting deeply and I would not for my life ridicule it’ (pp. 11–12). The
Notebooks
also contain highly pertinent reflections: see e.g. pp. 76–89. (Particularly noteworthy is his comment on p. 80: ‘The thinking subject is mere illusion. But the willing subject exists.’) For discussion, see Janik and Toulmin (
1973
), esp.
Ch. 6
; Hacker (
1986
), esp.
Ch. 4
; Diamond (
2000
); Wiggins (
2004
); McManus (
2006
), Chs 13 and 14; and Mulhall (
2007
).

79
Robert Fogelin, commenting sceptically on the last sentence in this quotation, remarks, ‘A competing sage might say that the world of the happy man is no different from that of the unhappy man (and this too has a ring of profundity)’ (Fogelin (1987), p. 103). But if Wittgenstein’s sentence is an abortive attempt to put into words what cannot be put into words, then any unclarity about what makes it better suited to this role than its denial, indeed any intimation that it is no better suited to this role than its denial, need occasion neither suspicion nor surprise. Who knows but that both Wittgenstein’s sentence and Fogelin’s reversal of it, each in a suitable context, may be apt to engage our attention in broadly the same way and thereby to have the same broad effect? (It is worth thinking in this connection about the creative use of contradiction in mystical and religious writing. Examples abound. They can be found in the writings of Plato, the Psalmists, Lao Tze, Nicholas of Cusa, Kierkegaard, and countless others.)

80
Cf. Murdoch (
1993
), p. 1.

81
Cf.
Notebooks
, pp. 72–89 passim. Cf. also Costello (
2004
), pp. 114–116.

82
See esp. the entry for 13 August 1916 on p. 81 and the entry for 7 October 1916 on p. 83, the latter of which includes the comments that ‘each thing modifies the whole logical world,’ and that ‘the thing seen
sub specie
æternitatis
is the thing seen together with the whole logical space.’

83
What I am characterizing as ‘ethical understanding’ here is just Spinoza’s third kind of knowledge.

84
Cf. n. 19 and the accompanying text.

85
Different standards of effability may also be involved. In Spinoza’s case the understanding in question may be ineffable merely in that it cannot be put into finitely many words (
Ch. 2
, §6). In Wittgenstein’s case something more radical is afoot.

86
Cf. n. 45.

87
Unfortunately, I have been unable to find a reference. The remark is attributed to Wittgenstein by P.M.S. Hacker in Hacker (
1996
), p. 112.

88
Here a famous anecdote from Bertrand Russell’s autobiography is relevant: ‘[Wittgenstein] used to come to see me every evening at midnight, and pace up and down my room like a wild beast for three hours in agitated silence. Once I said to him: “Are you thinking about logic or about your sins?” “Both,” he replied, and continued his pacing’ (Russell (
1998
), p. 330). Cf. also Wittgenstein’s assertion, ‘For me … clarity, perspicuity are valuable in themselves’ (
Culture
, p. 7).

For more on Wittgenstein’s understanding of the relations between intellectual failure and moral failure, see McManus (
2006
),
Ch. 13
, esp. §13.1. For the influence of Karl Kraus on this understanding, see Janik and Toulmin (
1973
), esp. Chs 6 and 7.

89
In a letter to Wittgenstein dated 16 September 1919 (Frege (
2003
)), Frege suggested that the
Tractatus
was ‘more an artistic achievement than a scientific achievement,’ though he was alluding specifically to what followed from the idea, mooted in the very first sentence of the Preface, that ‘[the] book will be understood only by someone who has himself already had the thoughts that are expressed in it’ (p. 3). This sentence raises several awkward questions for any exegete of the
Tractatus
, not least of course the question of how uncomfortable we should be about the reference to ‘the thoughts that are expressed in it’. I shall not attempt to address these questions here.

Chapter 10 The Later Wittgenstein Bringing Words Back from Their Metaphysical to Their Everyday Use

1. Wittgenstein’s Conception of Philosophy: A Reprise

Sections 89–133 of Wittgenstein’s
Investigations
¹
present a conception of philosophy that is to all intents and purposes the same as that presented in the
Tractatus
(see §2 of the previous chapter
²
). Again philosophy is paraded as an activity, rather than a body of doctrine. Again its aim is said to be the promotion of clear thinking. Again this aim is conceived as a therapeutic one: philosophy is an antidote to unclear thinking, and specifically to the ill effects of our misunderstanding the logical syntax of our own language, or the ‘grammar’ of our own language as the later Wittgenstein is prone to call it (cf. §90). Notable among these effects, again, are reckoned to be various pseudo-questions posing as deep problems and tantalizing us with their unanswerability.
³
Again the example concerning the passage of time in §2 of the previous chapter could serve as a paradigm. Or consider the case of someone who is grappling with the following conundrum: ‘Why can nobody else know with the certainty I do that I have been hurt?’ If we attend to the way in which sentences like ‘I have been hurt’ are actually used, or at least if we do so under the direction of various suggestions that Wittgenstein
himself makes, then this will appear akin to someone’s grappling with the gibberish: ‘Why can nobody else know with the certainty I do that
ouch!
?’ (See e.g. §§244–246 and 317.) Philosophy can be used to show that there is no real problem here, relieving this person of the urge to find an answer.
⁴
In sum, then: here, as in the
Tractatus
, it is not the point of philosophy to discover and state truths about reality, but to get into sharp focus various concepts, in particular concepts that bemuse us in certain distinctive ways, which are themselves used in discovering and stating truths about reality. If, in the course of practising philosophy, we make any claims about reality, then this will typically be by way of demonstrating how the concepts in question work. The claims we make will as likely as not be platitudes, or items of common empirical knowledge, not contentions to be debated.
⁵