Not so. If other kinds of claims can be assigned truth values on some other grounds than empiricism, then they can be manipulated through truth-functional logic just the same. The logic doesn’t care what the truth values mean or where they come from. — Pfhorrest
I think that the idea of knowing when to be silent is good – it's just that here it's too obviously tied to present theoretical prejudices. — Snakes Alive
When a person makes what are supposed to be truth statements about the world, then later admits that those statements are really "senseless", then I think we can conclude that the person has come to the realization that those truth statements are really not truthful at all, and therefore wrong. — Metaphysician Undercover
Wittgenstein's entire conception of science, what a fact is, etc., are Humean. — Snakes Alive
The Wittgensteinian notion of how language works comes from the idea of the world being composed of a Humean mosaic of atomic facts, and the idea that the purpose of language is to say true or false things under certain conditions. — Snakes Alive
It follows from this that for a sentence to have sense is just to carve exactly the set of atomic facts to which it corresponds against those to which it doesn't. — Snakes
The rest of the Tractatus, past the mystical and transcendental stuff, just falls out of that. You can see it as not an account of what language is, but what it would have to be if this picture were right. So Witt. has comments about how everything in natural language must be in order in this way, even though we can't tell how it is and empirically it doesn't look that way. The prejudices are guiding the account of language, not vice-versa. — Snakes
I have no idea of what you mean by 'humean mosaic of atomic facts', — Pussycat
The Tractatus, in my eyes, is just saying that language mirrors facts in the world, that it is/was designed to do this, and nothing more. I don't think that W. says what language is supposed to be, he just makes this observation, whether he is right or wrong. And, based on this, he goes on to talk about the abuse of language when people, philosophers mainly, use it wrongfully. But then again, we can discuss. — Pussycat
The Tractatus, in my eyes, is just saying that language mirrors facts in the world, that it is/was designed to do this, and nothing more. — Pussycat
Hume tried to make metaphysics NOT make sense, instead of working around doubts and reduction. That's like Wittgenstein. I don't see what lock has to do with this. — Gregory
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.