@MetaphysicsNow, @mcdoodle, @John Doe, @Arne, @JimRoo, @Sam26

Posty and I are still here, just about to work on the picture theory for real.

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. — Srap Tasmaner

Oh yeah, we got this earlier:

2.201 The picture depicts reality by representing a possibility of the existence and non-existence of atomic facts.
2.202 The picture represents a possible <situation> in logical space.

((Wasn't ready to be doing this.))

I haven't gone back to the text, but here's my new thought:

There's the logical space of possible atomic facts. That's all of them, with no thought at all for which obtain, which don't. The only restrictions here -- I think -- would be form and logic. But again, obtaining not an issue.

Then there are the possible partitions of the entirety of logical space into atomic facts that obtain, and atomic facts that don't obtain. Such a partition is a Sachlage, a way things might stand in logical space.

There's a sense in which the Sachlage doesn't affect which atomic facts an object may participate in -- again, that's only down to form and logic. But we can still look to the partitions, and say here's a partition that includes atomic facts an object could participate in, here's one that includes atomic facts an object cannot, because of formal or logical reasons. Atomic facts here are still all possible atomic facts, but we can look at those in terms of the possible partitions of logical space, the Sachlagen.

This starts to sound right to me. And it leaves Tatsache as the obtaining or not of an atomic fact. A Sachlage is still just a partition, a possible way logical space might shake out, but I think we'll want a way to say here's a partition that obtains. But a partition is on a whole different level from an atomic fact, so we can't talk about this the same way. Such a partition actually obtaining would be a collection of Tatsachen, of facts, and now we're in a position to sort out what is meant by "reality", by "the world".

We never do in fact talk about a partition being factual. Instead, we talk about the collection of atomic facts that would be factual if a partition obtained. That leaves us with two options: list the atomic facts and say they obtain; list the obtainings, the facticities of the atomic facts, and say they -- what? Are? It seems where we want to end up is saying this or that atomic fact is a fact -- I'm just not quite sure that's what W's taxonomy does.

Thoughts?

ADDED: One further note about the big logical space: it would include, I think, atomic facts that are mutually exclusive. ((ADDED: WRONG)) It's not a consistent space at all. Everything possible is there. The partitions of this space will all be logically consistent, I think.

MORE ADDED: This would make the Sachlagen the possible worlds I had been hunting for, with the curiosity that we don't directly specify an actual world ((ADDED: mainly wrong)) -- as, for instance, an indexical, the way Lewis would have it -- instead, we shift to collections of facts. (Still haven't gone back to see how "reality" and "world" slot in here -- that's next.)

Last part.

We call the partition in effect, that Sachlage, "reality", so it's the complete set of obtaining and non-obtaining atomic facts. The world is all of the atomic facts that obtain, the positive "half" of the Sachlage. But I don't know yet whether there is a function over partitions that assigns one the value "true" and the rest the value "false". Maybe.

W seems instead to focus on the Sachlage itself as a function that assigns some atomic facts the value "fact" and some not. From just the ones that are assigned "fact" -- the "positive half" -- you get the whole thing. It's a partition. And focusing on this level keeps to the forefront that shifting the value of a single atomic fact (from fact to not, or vice versa) is always an option, and that switch defines the difference between one partition, one Sachlage, and another.

Last last part, some of what each of us had right and wrong:

You were right that Sachlage is associated with possibility -- it's possible assignments of the value fact to atomic facts.

This assignment is in some sense "external" -- the atomic fact as a whole gets designated fact, without regard to its internal structure -- I think. But since a Sachlage is consistent, we rule out things like the same object participating in multiple atomic facts, a restriction not in place in the "big" space of all possible atomic facts.

I would expect to be able to say that a Sachlage also rules out mutually exclusive atomic facts -- and may have said so above -- but there are no mutually exclusive atomic facts! They are all independent.

I don't know quite how to take the last bit.

Doing my best to follow all this, and if the following ramble is not helpful, ignore it.

I'm hearing a prefiguring of the digital; logical space as the virtual world, atomic fact as a bit. This would explain why W. cannot define or give an example of an atomic fact. "The cat is on the mat." is a complex (picture?), which might have the addition of an extra atomic fact, (T) or (F). A picture is an array of bits, so is a sentence. Any bit can be changed independently of any other bit, but the resulting array may not make sense any more, to say nothing of its truth.

And the virtual world is the world of language and thought, where babes are hot or not, cats are on or off mats, wardrobes lead or do not lead to Narnia, and so on.

An atomic fact is absolutely a bit here, good call.

I don't think though that a complex has an extra bit that's on or off; either the right set of bits is on or it isn't. Calling them a set like that, treating them as a unit, implicitly adds another bit, in a sense, but it's not something that shows up on the same level. It isn't another fact.

don't think though that a complex has an extra bit that's on or off; — Srap Tasmaner

Yeah, that was a tad "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" and exactly the kind of thing W wants to 'sort out'. A picture does not contain its own truth... still, its truth status is a matter of atomic fact, and that's what I was trying to point to.

I'm still waiting for more people to chime in, @Srap Tasmaner. Thanks for posting @unenlightened.

I got an email back from Jeff Speaks, recommending that I pick up Scott Soames, History of Analytic Philosophy Volume I. I'll see what I can find through libgen and the other website posted by another member as I don't really have money to spend on the book currently.

In the Quora page I posted someone said that in the P&M translation the distinction was simply omitted out of personal preference? Strange.

It isn't another fact. — Srap Tasmaner

A picture does not contain its own truth.. — unenlightened

While waiting around, I started reading The False Prison by David Pears, and within a few pages it is suggested that this little exchange is very nearly the whole point of the Tractatus. So there you go.

Can someone help me find a PDF or ebook version of the following book?

https://www.amazon.com/Philosophical-Analysis-Twentieth-Century-Dawn/dp/069112244X

Thanks.

Found it.

Sorry, but I just don't have the time to respond, I've been very busy.

I haven't forgotten about this reading group.

I'm going to scour and compile a summary based of what we've covered thus far. Going to take a while for me to do that, so stay tuned.

Thanks.

I'm still here too. I thought I would get up something about the picture theory to finish off prop 2. Then we could spend some time reviewing and talking about 1-2 as a unit. Do you want me to hold off on that?

Sure, why not?

So, @Srap Tasmaner, are you any more knowledgeable about the whole part we've already covered?

Kinda worried that we'll never complete this group reading, :sweat:

Think I'll have time today to do the picture theory post, and then we can talk.

So, here's my short take on what I've learned thus far.

Atomic facts are like tautologies that exist in logical space and are observer independent, which are denoted as simple objects. They are true in every possible world.

States of affairs are combinations or an amalgamate of atomic facts in logical space and are observer dependent, that are denoted by an observer creating a reality of their own. They are true in each particular case.

Facts can only be described as observer dependent and hence refer to states of affairs in logical space, with an observer giving rise to their content.

OK, I'll stop there and then we can see what can be said about the world from that.

Hey Posty. (Been busy and what time I've had here has gone to the damn two envelopes paradox, but I have not forgotten about TLP.)

States of affairs are combinations or an amalgamate of atomic facts in logical space and are observer dependent, that are denoted by an observer creating a reality of their own. — Posty McPostface

Maybe this will turn out to be right, but I just don't think it's in what we've read so far. The possible realities are built in, there from the start. What you're talking about is picking one. As far as props 1-2 are concerned, we're still just establishing what representation is, how it works, how it's possible.

Here's one thing I keep thinking about: can we think "state of affairs" as always short for "state of affairs in logical space"?

A state of affairs is a function defined on logical space that assigns the value obtains or the value doesn't obtain to possible atomic facts, the elements of logical space. But there's an oddity here: must such a function be defined over the entirety of logical space? Why not just some subspace? When we consider pictures, it is inconceivable that a picture would present how things (could) stand in all of logical space; a picture presents how things (could) stand in some subspace of logical space.

Here's an analogy. Given a deck of cards, either the ace of spades is on top or it isn't. If you define a state as [ace of spades on top], that picks out an equivalence class of many possible states of the deck, in each of which the ace of spades is on top, but with the other 51 cards distributed in all the other possible ways. You have the option here of saying [ace of spades on top] is a complete description of part of the deck, or a partial description of the complete deck.

Which gets us back to my question. Which way you go could matter to you, epistemically, but if it matters to LW he hasn't said yet. For instance, objects contain within themselves all possible ways things could stand in logical space; looked at from object-side, there are only complete realities, and in each there are atomic facts this object could be part of that obtain or don't. Or start with atomic facts: each divides logical space into those states of affairs in which it obtains, and those in which it doesn't, and there is somewhere a pair in which all other atomic facts have the same value.

We get "world" for all obtaining atomic facts; "reality" for all obtaining and not obtaining atomic facts; I think it turns out "state of affairs" is kept around for its useful ambiguity: it covers the case where you only have a subspace defined, the case where only the positive facts are defined, and the case where absolutely everything is defined.

I would add this: the extreme realism of the TLP suggests that every partial state of affairs, up to and including the partial state of affairs that is the world, is one and only one complete state of affairs, one reality, whether you know it or not. We, picture makers, only ever deal with complete realities, but we always fail to completely specify them.

I cannot bring a world quite round,
Although I patch it as I can.

One little bit of off-the-cuff chitchat

What I find exciting about the Tractatus is the intimation that everything there is to say about the world is immanent in stating facts. This is hard to express clearly, but it's as if he anticipates Gödel, Tarski, etc. There is no extra bit for "true" or "provable" or "constructibe" or even "member of a class"; there are only the atomic facts. All such ways of describing how things stand are immanent in saying how things stand with the atomic facts themselves.

there are only the atomic facts. — Srap Tasmaner

And then he got rid of atomic facts - see Philosophical investigations.

Thanks, bro.

I'm wondering how useful it is to read in detail a book that was eventually surpassed by its own author. While granting that understanding the Tractatus leads to a better understanding of how Wittgenstein changed his mind, I wonder if that alone makes the reading worthwhile. If you want to understand Wittgenstein, then perhaps; if your aim is to understand philosophy... perhaps not?

I should not wish to be spared the trouble of thinking.

Sure. To be blunt, can the Tractatus be understood apart from the Investigations?

can the Tractatus be understood apart from the Investigations? — Banno

My working assumption is that Wittgenstein understood it when he wrote it, so yes, it is possible.

And would understanding the Tractatus as it were understood by Wittgenstein at say, the time he mailed the document to Russell, be adequate?

It would be a start.

I don't know what you're on about it, but it looks off topic to me.

Perhaps. The thread seem to be going slowly, so I thought I might add my two bits. The point being that atomism is explicitly rejected in the investigations. That has got to have some relevance.