It is also my understanding we are using the Ogden translation? — Arne

The quotes I've posted are from Ogden & Ramsey. It might be simplest just to settle on this as the official version -- it's available free (and legally) from Gutenberg.

In chitchat I've freely alternated between their rendering of Sachverhalten as "atomic facts" and the Pears & McGuinness rendering as "states of affairs".

is the difference between "states of affairs" and "atomic facts" reconcilable? — Arne

Maybe? I honestly don't know how much is riding on whether W makes a consistent distinction between the two words and what that distinction is.

and if the facts in logical are the world, then there can be no other space within the world that is not subsumed by logical space? — Arne

Certainly.

What is logical space? — Arne

That's a good question. I've been using the phrase to designate the vasty realm of possibilities. You can define a subspace of those possibilities that obtain and that's the world, our world, reality, actuality -- however that works, might depend on what level you're defining from.

is the difference between "states of affairs" and "atomic facts" reconcilable? — Arne

Once more into the breach -- assuming "states of affairs" here is Sachlagen.

It jumps ahead a little but illustrates my trifle... — Posty McPostface

And Max Black notes that Sachverhalten and Sachlagen are really hard to distinguish.

Let's look at it this way. What can objects "do"? What sorts of things happen to objects?

Here's one way of thinking about this. Suppose your domain of discourse has two objects called a and b. (This is an analogy, using math.) You can make a set {a, b}. This possibility is intrinsic to a and b being in your domain. There might also be some relation R that holds between a and b: aRb is true. Part of the formalization of aRb might be something like {a, {a, b}}.

When we look at a, we could say it might find itself in something like {a, b}, or in something like {a, {a, b}}. In the first a is "combined" with another element; in the second it is "combined" with another element in a more particular way. If there are other relations possible between a and b, the latter may not be specific enough to distinguish R from any other relation or function. At least it's distinct from {b, {a, b}}.

Roughly speaking, I think of Sachlagen as the possibility of an object coming together, being combined, with other objects in some way, perhaps not precisely specified. But W says that in Sachverhalten, objects are combined in a definite way.

Of an object participating in a Sachverhalt, we could say: it is combined with other objects, it is combined with other objects in a particular way. We could also not look at the other objects and just say it is part of a Sachverhalt -- which implies other objects that are also parts. All of these different ways of looking at a Sachverhalt and an object combined in it will be true. I think of Sachlage as being a way of thinking about it in terms of other objects, coming together with them, maybe even coming together with them in a specific way -- looking at the whole thing with a focus on the elements. I think of Sachverhalt as the totality, like a set of objects together with a relation defined on that set. An object can be part of such a totality, and here we focus on the relation between the object-member of and the totality, not between the object and the other objects that are also there.

I think it's just a perspective switch, but it does leave room for applying Sachlage where the way the objects are combined is unspecified or less specified. Both can be possible or actual, but there is a natural way to take not specifying the "how" as leaving wider usage for Sachlage, more possibilities. Of course, given a set and a lot of different relations defined on that set (analogy again) there would be more specific set-with-a-relation things than just the set thing -- same way there are usually more permutations than combinations -- so a term for sets arranged in some specific way would have the wider usage.

I've probably not been clear -- too many words -- but this is my sense of how the terms are used, and it doesn't line up at all with actual and possible.

TL:DR:

In terms of a bunch of objects, and maybe even how exactly they're combined: Sachlagen. The thing objects are combined into: Sachverhalt.

(1) It is possible to form a picture of the world (true or false);
(2) Therefore whether a proposition has sense does not depend on whether another proposition is true.
(3) Therefore the world has substance. — Srap Tasmaner

I just want to call attention to the shape of this argument. There's metaphysics here, but it's a metaphysics implied by what we understand about representation.

What that last means can play out differently: is this metaphysics implied by the fact of representation, or by our ideas, possibly mistaken, about representation?

Also, when it comes to talking directly about representation, we'll have to be careful. We have derived our metaphysics from the fact of representation, let's say: this is how things must be for representation to be possible, for us to be doing what we think we're doing by forming representations of the world. We cannot then come to representation and say: given that the world is this way, here's how representation works, is possible, is the way we think. That would be patently circular. This is the metaphysics required by our ideas about representation; of course it will work out as the underpinnings of representation, if representation is what we think it is.

A little fill-in argumentation, cleaning up what I've posted so far.

That is to say, we can define a way of logically partitioning the world into units that are independent, the smallest unit of difference between one way the world might be, or is, and another. — Srap Tasmaner

If the actual world is partitioned into independent facts, then there can be no smaller unit of difference between this world and any other. If there could, then that difference would be independent of the rest of whatever partition it was included in. So they are the same.

2.0211 If the world had no substance, then whether a proposition ((Satz)) had sense ((Sinn)) would depend on whether another proposition is true.
2.0212 It would then be impossible to form a picture of the world (true or false).

We should be able to do some of this reasoning forward now.

Suppose the world has no substance -- no "substrate" that is the same no matter how things happen to be. Then for a proposition to have sense, it would presumably have to be about actual atomic facts -- is there an alternative? In which case a proposition asserting the actuality of what the proposition is about would have to be true.

Now why would we be unable to form a picture of the world if the sense of a proposition depended on the truth of another? That will have to wait until we get to the picture theory.

What is logical space? — Arne

https://www.quora.com/What-is-Wittgenstein-s-Logical-Space
http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=g9780631185376_chunk_g978063118537614_ss1-8
http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=g9781405106795_chunk_g978140510679513_ss1-104

@Srap Tasmaner, do you want me to post a question to the Quora community about this whole issue about obtaining or not in reality of Sachlagen vs Sachverhalten being the actual state of affairs upon which Sachlage depends on in the world? I don't want to spam this whole thread about that distinction between possible vs actual, as I think there might be bigger fish to fry although it seems important on face value.

I don't think there's a better place to post than Quora, as there's a lot of qualified individuals there.

Why are you asking me? Suit yourself.

Is there something in the text I've misread or overlooked? Wouldn't be a huge surprise. Just point me in the right direction. Or post what you think is the key passage and show me how I should be reading it.

Just out of courtesy. I'll get back with a more detailed post tomorrow or later today. Might take a while. But if you read the Max Black post I referenced Wittgenstein does talk about mögliche Sachlagen...

So, I think the gist of the whole issue resides in the following propositions:

2.012
In logic nothing is accidental: if a thing can occur in an atomic fact the possibility of that atomic fact must already be prejudged in the thing.
-------
2.0121
It would, so to speak, appear as an accident, when to a thing that could exist alone on its own account, subsequently a state of affairs could be made to fit.
If things can occur in atomic facts, this possibility must already lie in them.

(A logical entity cannot be merely possible. Logic treats of every possibility, and all possibilities are its facts.)

Just as we cannot think of spatial objects at all apart from space, or temporal objects apart from time, so we cannot think of any object apart from the possibility of its connexion with other things.

If I can think of an object in the context of an atomic fact, I cannot think of it apart from the possibility of this context.
--------
and jumping ahead a little:

2.202
The picture represents a possible state of affairs in logical space.
---------
2.203
The picture contains the possibility of the state of affairs which it represents.
----------

I'm going to refrain from interpretations at the moment and meditate over this a little.

Sorry if this isn't much of help, just trying to reread or bring up again what has been said in a new light.

Wittgenstein does talk about möglich Sachlage — Posty McPostface

Sure, and he also wrote this:

2.013 Jedes Ding ist, gleichsam, in einem Raume möglicher Sachverhalte. Diesen Raum kann ich mir leer denken, nicht aber das Ding ohne den Raum.

2.013 Every thing is, as it were, in a space of possible atomic facts. I can think of this space as empty, but not of the thing without the space.

Why don't we just table this until we finally move on to the picture theory.

2.013 Jedes Ding ist, gleichsam, in einem Raume möglicher Sachverhalte. Diesen Raum kann ich mir leer denken, nicht aber das Ding ohne den Raum.

2.013 Every thing is, as it were, in a space of possible atomic facts. I can think of this space as empty, but not of the thing without the space.

Yes, and those atomic facts and their relations are what make up the actual world. Me picturing them as possible states of affairs is what constitutes my reality (hinting at the Tractarian solipsism that we'll encounter).

Why don't we just table this until we finally move on to the picture theory. — Srap Tasmaner

Sure, although it seems it seems like its just us two at the moment. So, I hope someone else can chime in also... :confused:

EDIT: It's an insurmountable trap to talk about states of affairs independently of atomic facts, if you get the point.

I think the difference is, when speaking of objects, whether it's appropriate to call an object a "part".

If it is combined with other objects in a definite way, we have an atomic fact, and it is surely appropriate to call the object a "part" of this atomic fact. But what about all the possible atomic facts which it could be a part of, the possibility of being a part of which is prejudged in the object? Would you say it is a "part" of those? That seems wrong. So 2.013 has that little "gleichsam" in it.

So there's a distinction near the one you're talking about: an object isn't part of something that's only possible; that appellation we'd reserve for being so combined in something actual.

Where does that leave states of affairs? I read "state of affairs" as a way of looking at atomic facts, possible or actual, in which we still only consider the objects so combined as objects, rather than as parts. It's, as I've said before, a slightly more "external" view -- you have to take the "internal" view to see an object as a part. It can be two different ways of seeing the same thing: a grape can be a grape and at the same time a part of a bunch; a bunch of grapes is a thing, and it's partly made up of grapes, not "bunch-parts". (LEGOS would probably be a better analogy.)

Here's what really puzzles me about treating atomic facts themselves as always only actual and never possible: what about facts? There's all this business about facts being the existence, the obtaining, of atomic facts. The world is all the atomic facts that obtain. What's the point of all that if atomic facts are by definition actual? Doesn't that just make facts redundant? And how do we make sense of some atomic facts existing and some not? What could a non-obtaining atomic fact possibly be?

someone else — Posty McPostface

"If we build it, they will come"???

The plot thickens.

If it is combined with other objects in a definite way, we have an atomic fact, and it is surely appropriate to call the object a "part" of this atomic fact. But what about all the possible atomic facts which it could be a part of, the possibility of being a part of which is prejudged in the object? Would you say it is a "part" of those? That seems wrong. So 2.013 has that little "gleichsam" in it. — Srap Tasmaner

I'm going to refer to "gleichsam" analogically as "manner and form" here (jumping ahead a little): Yes, but it's one and the same to talk about atomic facts and states of affairs in some manner or form. I mean, we are limited by what we can think of to be true, and if we can't think illogically, then we're somewhat limited in our ability to talk about what is being said in manner and form. Or at least borrowing from Wittgenstein, a picture cannot depict its own form.

So there's a distinction near the one you're talking about: an object isn't part of something that's only possible; that appellation we'd reserve for being so combined in something actual. — Srap Tasmaner

It's a self referential ambiguity here, again made apparent with Sachlage and Sachverhalten.

Where does that leave states of affairs? I read "state of affairs" as a way of looking at atomic facts, possible or actual, in which we still only consider the objects so combined as objects, rather than as parts. — Srap Tasmaner

I tend to think, that what obtains is the actuality of a state of affairs although both can exist in possibilities, made apparent by atomic facts. (Yeah, we're talking past each other here, again.) Maybe, to drive the point home, is that atomic facts are tautologies or true in every circumstance, where states of affairs are truth apt.

Here's what really puzzles me about treating atomic facts themselves as always only actual and never possible: what about facts? — Srap Tasmaner

They can be both, I think; but, much like tautologies, it's redundant to assume that some obtain or not without superimposing states of affairs on them.

"If we build it, they will come"??? — Srap Tasmaner

Here's me hoping: :sweat:

So, this post might help a little more when thinking about the world and reality even deeper:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/190476

Edit (I'll just repost it again):

But, if you recall, Russell had a kind of convincing argument for the existence of
negative facts: suppose that we have a list of atomic facts f1 . . . fn. Now consider
some true sentence ‘not-S.’ Is the truth of ‘not-S’ determined by f1 . . . fn? It seems
not. For f1 . . . fn are atomic facts, and there is nothing to prevent a series of atomic
facts from being consistent both with the truth of S, the falsity of S, or even S lacking
a truth-value. Hence, Russell concluded, true negations of atomic propositions must
correspond to negative facts. How can Wittgenstein avoid this argument?
I think that his ideas about objects provide him a way out. Recall that, for Wittgenstein,
objects are not only what underlie change over time, but also what underlie
necessity and possibility: all possible changes to the world are just a matter of the
recombination of simple objects. As he puts it,
2.0124 If all objects are given, then at the same time all possible states of
affairs are also given.
If there are a fixed number of objects, then a list of all the states of affairs (i.e.,
atomic facts) will not be consistent with both the truth and falsity of a sentence S.
A worry about this view: the intuition that all objects exist only contingently.
Wittgenstein often discusses the world or reality. How are these two notions related?
(This question is made especially difficult by the fact that Wittgenstein seems to
say contradictory things in §§2.04, 2.06, 2.063.)I think that the basic idea can be
stated as follows: the world consists of all the existing states of affairs, whereas reality
consists of the world plus all possible but non-actual states of affairs. Wittgenstein’s
claim is then that the world determines reality: once we know everything about what
states of affairs exist, we know everything about what states of affairs could exist
as well. (Indeed, as Fogelin points out, this follows from the claims that the world
consists of states of affairs, that all objects must be in some state of affairs, and the
passage from §2.0124 cited above.) — Jeff Speaks

Edit #2: The author left out atomic facts, but, I think you get the point by now.

I tend to think, that what obtains is the actuality of a state of affairs although both can exist in possibilities, made apparent by atomic facts. — Posty McPostface

I just don't see how to square this with 2.04-2.06. Some atomic facts obtain and some don't. If "atomic fact" means "state of affairs that obtains", then an atomic fact that doesn't obtain is a state of affairs that obtains that doesn't obtain. So it's not that. Second try: an atomic fact is "the obtaining of a state of affairs", and the obtaining of something is now something that can obtain or not. I can have an obtaining that obtains or an obtaining that doesn't obtain.

Facts I can deal with. Even in ordinary usage we can distinguish between "The vase is on the table" and "That the vase is on the table", the former a proposition and the latter a fact it expresses. Now we're in the realm of possible facts (I think?!) and it just looks confused to me.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/190476 — Posty McPostface

I've read that quote, and it is not obvious to me that the underlined statement is true. I remain confused.

ADDED: Besides which, I think "states of affairs" there is Sachverhalten.

Well, he does use: "existent atomic facts", so I'm not sure what he means by "existent/bestehenden" or "nonexistent/Nichtbestehen". So, again the issue with actual vs possible or obtaining and not obtaining. So, again I would say that existent atomic facts are what obtain in reality from the world. Maybe a fancy way of saying 'a true states of affairs existent in reality', because it would be redundant to say 'a true atomic fact in the world existent in reality'; but, not 'an atomic fact obtaining in reality from the world'.

I'm probably wrong about all this for the matter.

Edit: Playing around with "a" and "an" here.
Edit#2: Sorry for using "obtaining" and "existent" and "not obtaining" and "non-existent" interchangeably here. Hope it doesn't muddy the waters.

So, I posted a question on Quora, and here's the link if anyone is interested:

https://www.quora.com/Wittgenstein-Tractatus-States-of-affairs-and-atomic-facts-What-s-the-difference-between-Sachverhalten-and-Sachlage-in-the-Tractatus-Does-one-obtain-from-the-other-and-is-one-actual-rather-than-possible-in-reality/

Maybe the question was ill phrased?

Maybe there will be other answers as well. I do worry sometimes about getting the German wrong, connotation, usage, and so on, do it's good to get input on that. Of course we'd need to know what was typical usage was asking Viennese elite about a hundred years ago for our baseline. More work than I'm willing to do.

I'm going to rethink my position in view of

2.11 Das Bild stellt die Sachlage im logischen Raume, das Bestehen und Nichtbestehen von Sachverhalten vor.

2.11 The picture presents the facts in logical space, the existence and non-existence of atomic facts. ((O&R))

2.11 A picture presents a situation in logical space, the existence and non-existence of states of affairs. ((P&M))

I think I've been wrong not to look harder at logical space, the world, and reality.

Wow, you stumbled on something worth publishing about. Honestly...

Now I'm totally confused about Sachlage and Sachverhalt.

Edit: I'm going to stick with the O&R translation due to the above. I'm pretty sure Sachverhalten is atomic facts and not a state of affairs.

Let's stick with this for just a bit, then I really think we need to go back.

One thing that's really noticeable is the parallelism between the descriptions of Sachverhalt and picture:

2.031 In the atomic fact the objects are combined in a definite way.
2.032 The way in which objects hang together in the atomic fact is the structure of the atomic fact.
2.033 The form is the possibility of the structure.

2.14 The picture consists in the fact that its elements are combined with one another in a definite way.
2.141 The picture is a fact.
2.15 That the elements of the picture are combined with one another in a definite way, represents that the things are so combined with one another.
This connexion of the elements of the picture is called its structure, and the possibility of this structure is called the form of representation of the picture.
2.151 The form of representation is the possibility that the things are combined with one another as are the elements of the picture.

(German below -- you can see the same phrases being used.)

So a picture is clearly a Sachverhalt, but what it pictures is presents is, near as I can tell, never a Sachverhalt, but a Sachlage. Now that's interesting.

There's something that seems vaguely to support what I was saying before:

2.173 The picture represents its object from without (its standpoint is its form of representation), therefore the picture represents its object rightly or falsely

That "from without" I could make go with my "external" view -- a picture will present atomic facts from the outside, thus as Sachlagen. It's not much.

What I was wondering about was whether the key to reading 2.11 was that the picture presents the obtaining and non-obtaining of atomic facts in logical space, emphasis there, and thus as Sachlagen, that seeing atomic facts as possibilities -- possibilities that are actualized, but no matter -- is seeing them as Sachlagen.

But I think that's wrong. "Situation", "how things stand", that's not bad here. What 2.11 says is simply that the picture shows you what the situation is in logical space, how things stand -- and how things stand is which atomic facts obtain and which don't. In other words. Sachlage seems to be used in just its ordinary sense in 2.11.

-----------------------------------------

2.031 Im Sachverhalt verhalten sich die Gegenstände in bestimmter Art und Weise zueinander.
2.032 Die Art und Weise, wie die Gegenstände im Sachverhalt zusammenhängen,ist die Struktur des Sachverhaltes.
2.033 Die Form ist die Möglichkeit der Struktur.

2.14 Das Bild besteht darin, dass sich seine Elemente in bestimmter Art und Weise zu einander verhalten.
2.141 Das Bild ist eine Tatsache.
2.15 Dass sich die Elemente des Bildes in bestimmter Art und Weise zu einander verhalten stellt vor, dass sich die Sachen so zu einander verhalten.
Dieser Zusammenhang der Elemente des Bildes heisse seine Struktur und ihre Möglichkeit seine Form der Abbildung.
2.151 Die Form der Abbildung ist die Möglichkeit, dass sich die Dinge so zu einander verhalten, wie die Elemente des Bildes

I really think we need to go back — Srap Tasmaner

Or we could just blunder on into the picture theory -- the main thing we skipped was the stuff about form, and we can pick that while doing the picture theory.

Yeah, I'm pretty much in agreement with everything you've said thus far as that's how I've been interpreting Sachlagen, which obtains from Sachverhalten in a picture in logical space.

I'm amazed at how distorted the other translation can lead to a whole different interpretation. Once we're finished with this reading group I strongly suggest we reach out to some scholar and have our ideas about this distortion in interpretation considered seriously as grounds for some kind of paper or some such matter.

I'm pretty much in agreement with everything you've said — Posty McPostface

Hopefully not this:

a picture is clearly a Sachverhalt — Srap Tasmaner

because this is obviously false. Sachervalten are combinations of objects, the primary simples of reality; pictures have elements but they're not objects -- presumably they'd be complexes.

What we can say is that there is an isomorphism between them -- that pictures have exactly the same kind of structure, the same kind of structure among their elements, that holds among the parts, the objects, in an atomic fact.

(And we can nod here at my question about how to deal with this isomorphism -- I argued that the metaphysics is specifically whatever representation needs, and so there's barely any sense in asking, say, how does W know these structures are the same?)

Also not this:

What 2.11 says is simply that the picture shows you what the situation is in logical space, how things stand -- and how things stand is which atomic facts obtain and which don't. — Srap Tasmaner

If the picture said of things that are, that they are, and of things that aren't, that they aren't, the picture would be an assertion. It doesn't and it isn't.

I had wanted to say that 2.11 is a little wrong -- that it should say that a picture shows how things might stand in logical space. But what 2.11 actually says is that the picture shows the obtaining and the not obtaining of atomic facts. We're at one remove from the atomic facts themselves. In this sense, the picture doesn't show, doesn't present the atomic facts themselves at all. So that bears looking at.

*

So we're doing the picture theory now. I make that 2.1-2.225. If you'd like to have a run at summarizing and interpreting, have at it. If not, I'll put something together over the next day or so.

Btw, I discovered something nice I hadn't noticed about the PDF available from Project Gutenberg. It presents the complete English text followed by the complete German text, and since it can't present them en face, there's a cool feature: you can click on the section numbers to jump from the English to German (or vice versa). Super handy.

Try this link:
http://www.kfs.org/jonathan/witt/ten.html

Super easy toggling between English and German, along with an easy tree format.

I'll get back to your previous message in due time.

Try this link:
http://www.kfs.org/jonathan/witt/ten.html — Posty McPostface

Interesting.