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Citations From Tractatus

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Citations From Tractatus
ManiacJack
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Posted 11/25/08 - 12:22 PM:
Subject: Citations From Tratatus 		quote post
#1
EDIT: I've done some additional analysis where it seems my responses are not adequate in length to be considered a decent notation.

Here are some citations from Tratatus Logico Philosophicus I found quite interesting while reading through it earlier this semester. His 'perfect language' has been left aside, for the most part, as is the early-on philosophical assertions; the collection here I found pertinent in modern times to a degree... a degree of which I wish to discuss.

Lovely damn book, too. I dunno if I should move on to PI or reread This Masterpiece. I got a lot of quotes...

2.027 Objects, the unalterable, and the subsistent are one and the same.


Objectivity is absoluteness. But in the way of the realist or the idealist? Is this Spinoza's substance or Aristotle's first cause?

2.182 Every picture is at the same time a logical one. (On the other hand,
not every picture is, for example, a spatial one.)

3.032 It is as impossible to represent in language anything that
'contradicts logic' as it is in geometry to represent by its coordinates a
figure that contradicts the laws of space, or to give the coordinates of a
point that does not exist.


These seem to go hand in hand [well, the whole book does for that matter]: I think it goes to show that what is in view and what is in mind are not congruent, despite congruences. I mostly think he means 'rationality' when he speaks of 'logicality,' tho. At least, it makes a little more sense to me. Why does he make a distinction between logic and Logic [uppercase his emphasis]?

Here he obviously makes reference to the reference system; performing meta-analysis. The understanding is the limit. You cannot go beyond geometry within geometry, so something else is required.

3.14 What constitutes a propositional sign is that in its elements (the
words) stand in a determinate relation to one another. A propositional sign
is a fact.

3.1432 Instead of, 'The complex sign "aRb" says that a stands to b in the
relation R' we ought to put, 'That "a" stands to "b" in a certain relation
says that aRb.'

3.144 Situations can be described but not given names.


Here he appears to get into types of relationships, noting that a word cannot represent a total type of relationship to the fullest extent. Here is a great assertion that reality correlates with language... which I guess He ultimately rejects after finding out everyone misinterpreted his work? He also notes THE LIMIT of our languages with 3.144

We pull our understanding from the way things are, and so that is how we understand them. "we ought to put, 'That "a" stands to "b" in a certain relation says that aRb". That would be THE LIMIT. Realism? I think [imo] the Idealist says everything is right and the realist says it's all wrong.

3.25 A proposition cannot be dissected any further by means of a
definition: it is a primitive sign.

3.261 Every sign that has a definition signifies via the signs that serve
to define it; and the definitions point the way. Two signs cannot signify
in the same manner if one is primitive and the other is defined by means of
primitive signs. Names cannot be anatomized by means of definitions. (Nor
can any sign that has a meaning independently and on its own.)

3.262 What signs fail to express, their application shows. What signs slur
over, their application says clearly.

3.263 The meanings of primitive signs can be explained by means of
elucidations. Elucidations are propositions that stood if the meanings of
those signs are already known.


Does this not posit the thought behind the words?

3.261 seems to argue for emergence in language. Why else would the props not signify in the same manner? Indeed they are similar. 3.262 is an argument for fallibility in everything... nod And 3.263 is an argument for induction.

3.3421 A particular mode of signifying may be unimportant but it is always
important that it is a possible mode of signifying. And that is generally
so in philosophy: again and again the individual case turns out to be
unimportant, but the possibility of each individual case discloses
something about the essence of the world.


I again take this to be representative of types of relationships. The 'unimportant' mode is the identity function, I believe.

He seems to make a case for what it is a philosopher does: think about stuff in many ways to know forms.

3.4 A proposition determines a place in logical space. The existence
of this logical place is guaranteed by the mere existence of the
constituents--by the existence of the proposition with a sense.

3.41 The propositional sign with logical coordinates--that is the logical
place.

3.411 In geometry and logic alike a place is a possibility: something can
exist in it.

3.42 A proposition can determine only one place in logical space:
nevertheless the whole of logical space must already be given by it.
(Otherwise negation, logical sum, logical product, etc., would introduce
more and more new elements in co-ordination.) (The logical scaffolding
surrounding a picture determines logical space. The force of a proposition
reaches through the whole of logical space.)

3.5 A propositional sign, applied and thought out, is a thought.


So something is there, even when there is nothing!

First, he says language guarantees other minds. Then, he definitely makes the case that logic and geometry are sleeping together, but so what?

He notes that while the proposition is circumferential of logical space [it breaks through], it also posits a singular local or loci in reference to possibility. I think this reinforces the Absoluteness found in much mathematics and Logic, and I think, though am not certain, that this is what he ultimately rejects down the line. Is that so?

4.003 Most of the propositions and questions to be found in philosophical
works are not false but nonsensical. Consequently we cannot give any answer
to questions of this kind, but can only point out that they are
nonsensical. Most of the propositions and questions of philosophers arise
from our failure to understand the logic of our language. (They belong to
the same class as the question whether the good is more or less identical
than the beautiful.) And it is not surprising that the deepest problems are
in fact not problems at all.

4.0031 All philosophy is a 'critique of language' (though not in Mauthner's
sense). It was Russell who performed the service of showing that the
apparent logical form of a proposition need not be its real one.

4.01 A proposition is a picture of reality. A proposition is a model of
reality as we imagine it.


And Logic, although a necessary interpretation [see 2.182] is not the real one!

But I am also stumped a bit here: He says the Good vs Beautiful problem is no problem, but then language is to be critiqued elaborately. Is this a slip in thought? I can't tell what he is saying of the relation of the Good and Beautiful.

I now think this [good v beauty] may be a current[?] limit to our language.[?]

4.021 A proposition is a picture of reality: for if I understand a
proposition, I know the situation that it represents. And I understand the
proposition without having had its sense explained to me.


Seems backwards. This is what he rejects, surely, in PI.

Our language is a picture of reality. I only found it backwards because of 3.1432.

4.1212 What can be shown, cannot be said.


And he makes this distinction but a few lines down!!! WTF?

4.122 In a certain sense we can talk about formal properties of objects and
states of affairs, or, in the case of facts, about structural properties:
and in the same sense about formal relations and structural relations.
(Instead of 'structural property' I also say 'internal property'; instead
of 'structural relation', 'internal relation'. I introduce these
expressions in order to indicate the source of the confusion between
internal relations and relations proper (external relations), which is very
widespread among philosophers.) It is impossible, however, to assert by
means of propositions that such internal properties and relations obtain:
rather, this makes itself manifest in the propositions that represent the
relevant states of affairs and are concerned with the relevant objects.


An appeal to experience? How does one know the internal/structural?

I stand by my former words: how does he say that we cannot speak of what cannot be shown and then proceed to talk about how we express 'internal structures' and 'properties of objects'?... maybe his use of 'shown' is broader than I think.

4.21 The simplest kind of proposition, an elementary proposition, asserts the
existence of a state of affairs.

4.211 It is a sign of a proposition's being elementary that there can be no
elementary proposition contradicting it.

4.22 An elementary proposition consists of names. It is a nexus, a
concatenation, of names.


Nominal Order in my Stats Class; Identity Function is getting the highlight. It being a nexus of names, however, relates to the Correlation function. But that's me putting words in his mouth.

5.135 There is no possible way of making an inference form the existence of
one situation to the existence of another, entirely different situation.

5.136 There is no causal nexus to justify such an inference.

5.1361 We cannot infer the events of the future from those of the present.
Belief in the causal nexus is superstition.

5.1362 The freedom of the will consists in the impossibility of knowing
actions that still lie in the future. We could know them only if causality
were an inner necessity like that of logical inference.--The connexion
between knowledge and what is known is that of logical necessity. ('A knows
that p is the case', has no sense if p is a tautology.)


HE just keeps going on at this point, assuming the identity of Hume. wink

[/b]He might think correlation to be more simple than identity. While true, it also trumps causality- in a cyclical model, that is.[/b]

Is he decrying against correlation or for it, though? He states against Causality, but one could extract correlation from those words. A truly troubling piece for Me.

5.251 A function cannot be its own argument, whereas an operation can take
one of its own results as its base.

5.252 It is only in this way that the step from one term of a series of
forms to another is possible (from one type to another in the hierarchies
of Russell and Whitehead). (Russell and Whitehead did not admit the
possibility of such steps, but repeatedly availed themselves of it.)


Is operation meant as type of relation, seeing as how a function is a causal relation?

relation --> causation --> correlation --> relation --> etc. ???

5.4711 To give the essence of a proposition means to give the essence of
all description, and thus the essence of the world.


Wittgenstein FTW, y'all. However, does he capture it?

Language and psychology, sitting in a tree, ...

5.4541 The solutions of the problems of logic must be simple, since they
set the standard of simplicity. Men have always had a presentiment that
there must be a realm in which the answers to questions are symmetrically
combined--a priori--to form a self-contained system. A realm subject to the
law: Simplex sigillum veri.


Does he not say here that what we find complex should be made simple? I find it so. 'The world is all there is.'

One ought understand what one finds irrational.

5.515 It must be manifest in our symbols that it can only be propositions
that are combined with one another by 'C', '.', etc. And this is indeed the
case, since the symbol in 'p' and 'q' itself presupposes 'C', 'P', etc. If
the sign 'p' in 'p C q' does not stand for a complex sign, then it cannot
have sense by itself: but in that case the signs 'p C p', 'p . p', etc.,
which have the same sense as p, must also lack sense. But if 'p C p' has no
sense, then 'p C q' cannot have a sense either.


He seems to be revealing the importance of context, here, found in the sign. The argument for Gods' existence is regardless of it?

5.501 When a bracketed expression has propositions as its terms--and the
order of the terms inside the brackets is indifferent--then I indicate it
by a sign of the form '(E)'. '(E)' is a variable whose values are terms of
the bracketed expression and the bar over the variable indicates that it is
the representative of all its values in the brackets. (E.g. if E has the
three values P,Q, R, then (E) = (P, Q, R). ) What the values of the
variable are is something that is stipulated. The stipulation is a
description of the propositions that have the variable as their
representative. How the description of the terms of the bracketed
expression is produced is not essential. We can distinguish three kinds of
description: 1. Direct enumeration, in which case we can simply substitute
for the variable the constants that are its values; 2. Giving a function fx
whose values for all values of x are the propositions to be described; 3.
Giving a formal law that governs the construction of the propositions, in
which case the bracketed expression has as its members all the terms of a
series of forms.


'we can distinguish three kinds of description' with description being relation:
1. direct enumeration... direct relation?
2. functional, logical, absolute, objective, blah blah blah...
3. Law is correlation!

However, I might add that I think Law becomes Identity [direct enumeration] as it is digested into Mankind.

nod

6.001 What this says is just that every proposition is a result of
successive applications to elementary propositions of the operation N(E)


I think he just says that here.

6.422 When an ethical law of the form, 'Thou shalt ...' is laid down, one's
first thought is, 'And what if I do, not do it?' It is clear, however, that
ethics has nothing to do with punishment and reward in the usual sense of
the terms. So our question about the consequences of an action must be
unimportant.--At least those consequences should not be events. For there
must be something right about the question we posed. There must indeed be
some kind of ethical reward and ethical punishment, but they must reside in
the action itself. (And it is also clear that the reward must be something
pleasant and the punishment something unpleasant.)


nod
Natural Law, then?

6.32 The law of causality is not a law but the form of a law.

Again: Type of relationship.

Thoughts? I know it's a long post, but I think it follows a thought train rather closely without divulging into symbolic logic [ie a particular form].

I cut it short, for now...

Edited by ManiacJack on 06/08/09 - 09:49 AM
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ManiacJack
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Posted 04/09/09 - 03:54 PM:
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Boy oh boy, I wish to hear what others think about The Dude.
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ManiacJack
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Posted 06/08/09 - 10:03 AM:
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I quote Wittgenstein on the 'trinity' and get no response?

Can we not bring Witty back into the PF manifold?
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Posted 06/12/09 - 04:38 AM:
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7. What we cannot speak of we must pass over in silence.


 


Your OP is simply too long.


 


 
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Posted 06/12/09 - 06:12 AM:
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#5
Agreed, that's one long post. Perhaps if you would have included less quotes from the Tractacus and simply added more of your own (concise) commentary, it might be more easily digested.

 I mean, I like the Trac, but Witty ain't comin' back! grin

Edited by Mako on 06/12/09 - 06:21 AM
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ManiacJack
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Posted 06/12/09 - 11:20 PM:
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Mako wrote:
I mean, I like the Trac, but Witty ain't comin' back! grin


wink

1 The world is everything that is the case.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2 What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts.

Now the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the deep, and God's spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters.

3 The logical picture of the facts is the thought.

And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

4 The thought is the significant proposition.

And God saw that light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness.

5 Propositions are truth-functions of elementary propositions.
(An elementary proposition is a truth-function of itself.)

And God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And evening was and morning was: the first day.

6 The general form of truth-function is: [ p-bar , xi-bar , N( xi-bar )].
This is the general form of proposition.

And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters separating the waters from the waters."

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

And so God made the expanse, and he separated the waters beneath the expanse from the waters above the expanse. And it was so.
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Posted 06/13/09 - 04:01 AM:
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Objectivity is absoluteness. But in the way of the realist or the idealist? Is this Spinoza's substance or Aristotle's first cause?


Since he uses objects, I feel he takes a realist stands. Objects are things thrown before us. The idealist route would lay emphasis on subjectivity. That which lies under all appearances or grounds them.


These seem to go hand in hand [well, the whole book does for that matter]: I think it goes to show that what is in view and what is in mind are not congruent, despite congruences. I mostly think he means 'rationality' when he speaks of 'logicality,' tho. At least, it makes a little more sense to me. Why does he make a distinction between logic and Logic [uppercase his emphasis]?



Here he obviously makes reference to the reference system; performing meta-analysis. The understanding is the limit. You cannot go beyond geometry within geometry, so something else is required.


I wouldn't read him like that. I think he feels that what is in view and what is in mind are congruent. Like objects cannot contradict the laws of space, so our representation of them cannot contradict the laws of logic. I think. Logic is the way we can make clear how objects relate and how they function vis a vis othe robjects. To be a object means to be aprt of a state of affairs no?


Here he appears to get into types of relationships, noting that a word cannot represent a total type of relationship to the fullest extent. Here is a great assertion that reality correlates with language... which I guess He ultimately rejects after finding out everyone misinterpreted his work? He also notes THE LIMIT of our languages with 3.144



We pull our understanding from the way things are, and so that is how we understand them. "we ought to put, 'That "a" stands to "b" in a certain relation says that aRb". That would be THE LIMIT. Realism? I think [imo] the Idealist says everything is right and the realist says it's all wrong.


I don't understand 3.144. We can denote relations with words and do not have to describe it. If I tell you my son is playing football you know that at that point he relates to a ball, a pitch, two goals and his team mates nad the opposing team. (team itself is a word to denote relations)


thing is there, even when there is nothing!



First, he says language guarantees other minds. Then, he definitely makes the case that logic and geometry are sleeping together, but so what?



He notes that while the proposition is circumferential of logical space [it breaks through], it also posits a singular local or loci in reference to possibility. I think this reinforces the Absoluteness found in much mathematics and Logic, and I think, though am not certain, that this is what he ultimately rejects down the line. Is that so?


He seems to be reifying logic or quantifying or spatialising or whatever. He constucts a network of logical senttences or propositions which mirrors the network of objects. In that he does give some hints that what constitutes an object must be able to be framed logically so the proposition seems prior to the object.  If he is however still a realist it means he needs to hold some form of logical platonism in which propositions are the atomic building blocks.


The funny thing is that in words, logic, he sketches an outine between the relationship or words to objects. The equalition can be made to fit logically, but never objectively, unless logic is prior to the object, but I don't know if W. wants to go that far.


I will come back to your other points later, not that I am an expert but it is a good dsicussion, great post Manic.


 


 


 


 


 


 
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Posted 06/13/09 - 06:52 AM:
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"2.027 Objects, the unalterable, and the subsistent are one and the same.


Objectivity is absoluteness. But in the way of the realist or the idealist? Is this Spinoza's substance or Aristotle's first cause?"

Wow, I do not read Witt. this way. Actually, I read him as saying practically the exact opposite of the present interpretation. There are no 'objects' simpliciter, nor 'unalterable' simpliciter...and subsistence (as we know from the unfortunately overlooked Berkeley) is nonsense...which is what 'objects' and 'unalterables' are as well. These are the 'same' because they are all empty names with no reference. There are no 'objects'...only this apple, this computer, that tree. The only legitimate use of the term 'object' is as a formal logical function that takes a variable whos content is a particular something or another. In which case, ontologically, what we have is not an 'object'...no more than we have a 'set' or a 'conjunction' or anything of the like...we have whatever the content of the variable is...assuming the name that the variable takes is not empty.

Not saying that is the 'correct' interpretation of Witt, but it is how I understand him (which is of course through the lens of my own philosophical perspective).
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Posted 06/13/09 - 11:16 AM:
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I appreciate it, treysuttle. Very nice interpretation.

It seems that Wittgenstein's point of the Tractatus was to leave behind the immense mythology in religious scripture for a more practical, universally understood analysis of what it means to be human. And he did this so entirely with normal words that take on new meaning through their use within the confines of the Tractatus.

That is, I wrote it backwards earlier. The Tractatus is not better interpreted against Geneis; Genesis is better interpreted against The Tractatus. shocked

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
1 The world is everything that is the case.

Now the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the deep, and God's spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters.
2 What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts.

And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
3 The logical picture of the facts is the thought.

And God saw that light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness.
4 The thought is the significant proposition.

And God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And evening was and morning was: the first day.
5 Propositions are truth-functions of elementary propositions.
(An elementary proposition is a truth-function of itself.)

And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters separating the waters from the waters."
6 The general form of truth-function is: [ p-bar , xi-bar , N( xi-bar )].
This is the general form of proposition.

And so God made the expanse, and he separated the waters beneath the expanse from the waters above the expanse. And it was so.
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

Wittgenstein is Divinity.
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