I recommend reading the introduction written by Bertrand Russell to get a sense of the "world" as a boundary rather than as a "thing."

I don't agree with Russell's framing of many issues, but he does reflect the distance from the "totality of facts" given in the descriptions: — Paine

We need to consider the age old incompatibility between being and becoming. A proper understanding of "the world" needs to include both. "Fact" refers to what is, and is not, and so that part of the world which consists of being might be understood as facts. However, there is still that aspect of the world known as "becoming".

Aristotle proposed that we allow a violation of the law of excluded middle to accommodate becoming. Others have proposed that becoming violates the law of non-contradiction. In any case, this aspect of "the world" cannot be understood as consisting of facts. But this odes not mean that we cannot speak about, or even understand this aspect. It just means that we need to apply different principles. A good example is the application of statistics and probabilities.

So that's where the problem lies, in the assumption that this aspect of the world (that which does not consist of facts), since it does not consist of facts, is "incapable of being expressed in language". To represent language as being restricted to the expression of truths and falsities, is a very naive representation of language.

Well, I went over the various papers mentioned hereabouts.

But in the end it seems to me that if what is involved in 'sublimating Kant" is just making use of a transcendental argument then the point is pretty trivial.

And that if there is some deeper point, I haven't been able to follow it. Kant places transcendence in experience, Wittgenstein places transcendence in the commonality of language. On this we agree.

I do not share your regard for Kant. So while there are plenty of issues here we might discuss, I see Kant as being of little help.

Aristotle proposed that we allow a violation of the law of excluded middle to accommodate becoming. Others have proposed that becoming violates the law of non-contradiction. In any case, this aspect of "the world" cannot be understood as consisting of facts. But this does not mean that we cannot speak about, or even understand this aspect. — Metaphysician Undercover

How does that idea connect with what Wittgenstein says? Do any particular passages bring that issue into the conversation for you?

Nowhere does Wittgenstein say that we cannot know all the facts. Nowhere is that relevant to his argument. — Banno

Immediately before saying the limits of my language means the limits of my world. (5.6)

He says:

If I cannot say a priori what elementary propositions there are, then the attempt to do so must lead to obvious nonsense.

(5.571)

The idea of having all true propositions is nonsense.

The application of logic decides what elementary propositions there are.
What belongs to its application, logic cannot anticipate.
It is clear that logic must not clash with its application.
But logic has to be in contact with its application.
Therefore logic and its application must not overlap.

(5.557)

Logic tells is there must be elementary propositions, but cannot determine what they are. This requires a move from logic to its application, from form to content. The claim that the world is the totality of facts is a priori,. From this we know nothing about any of the facts of the world, what they are, how many there are, or what the totality of them is.

Of course if we did have all the true propositions we would have a complete description of the world! But positing this hypothetical condition does not explain Wittgenstein's claim that the limits of my language means the limits of my world. The limits of my language does not include the totality of true propositions.

My language is limited by my life:

So too at death the world does not alter, but comes to an end.(6.432)
The world and life are one. (5.621)
I am my world. (5.63)

I see the issue as sort of two-fold, the premise and the conclusion. The primary premise is at the beginning of the book where language is characterized as picturing the world with propositions. As I explained above, this is a faulty representation of the world. But what is also presented is a faulty representation of language as a sort of secondary premise, derived from the first. It is assumed that since the world consists of facts, then there is nothing else to language but talk about facts. However, since a large part of the real world consists of what is other than fact, language has naturally developed ways of referencing this part of the world, which does not consist of truth-apt propositions.

What appears to happen in the Tractatus is that Wittgenstein discovers the reality that the primary premise is false, that a large part of the world consists of what is other than fact. But instead of recognizing that language has naturally developed to speak of this other part of the world in ways other than truth-apt propositions, he makes the faulty conclusion that we cannot speak about this part of the world. I think it's around 6.3 where he starts to talk about the problems with the primary premise, acknowledging that the world isn't really limited in the way proposed. Then you'll see from 6.5 onward, where he doesn't adjust the secondary premise accordingly, but instead assumes we cannot speak about this part of the world. "6.522 There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the
mystical."

Instead of recognizing that the mystical is referenced in ways other than truth-apt propositions he concludes that we cannot speak about this part of the world. But the idea that language consists of truth-apt propositions was derived from the faulty premise, that the world consists of facts. So when the primary premise is dispelled, the secondary one needs to be rejected as well, as being based on the primary.

Best drop this. It is a side line and rather pointless.

But the idea that language consists of truth-apt propositions was derived from the faulty premise, that the world consists of facts. — Metaphysician Undercover

That assertion does not appear in the text.

That assertion does not appear in the text. — Paine

That's right, the premise I stated is not stated in the text. But it's implied by the conclusion made at 6.5 - 7. That section is stated as a conclusion, it is not stated as a descriptive observation. And without the premise I stated, the conclusion cannot be made. So the premise is implied by the conclusion, whether or not it is stated.

In philosophy we often find conclusions drawn from unstated premises. If for example, the author thinks something to be obvious or self-evident it will not be stated, even though it is a requirement for the conclusion made. Most often this appears as a matter of undefined terms. In which case, a term requires a specific definition to make the conclusion presented. This is the case of "inexpressible" in my quote above, and in general the conclusion of the Tractatus, which makes a statement about what we cannot say. That conclusion requires a special, very restrictive definition for 'speaking about', 'saying', or what people do with language in general.

It is my belief that in some cases the author even recognizes that if the required definition is made, it would obviously be objectionable and would draw attention to the weakness of the argument. Or it's just a matter of habit. In any case, the special definition, which is a requirement as a premise, for the conclusion that is made, is simply not stated, but taken for granted instead. I believe this is commonly known as "rhetoric", when the weaknesses and flaws of what one is arguing are intentionally veiled to make the speech more persuasive. It's actually very common here at TPF, and you can understand it as a sort of inversion of "special pleading". Special pleading argues an exception to a general rule. Invert this, and in the form of rhetoric I am talking about, there is a general rule, a definition which acts as an inductive conclusion, but the general rule doesn't include all the special cases which fall outside, and thereby weaken the inductive conclusion. When the definition, or general rule (inductive conclusion), is very weak, it is nothing more than a presentation of a special case itself, as if the special case made a general rule.

while there are plenty of issues here we might discuss, I see Kant as being of little help. — Banno

I think it's a matter of taste. But Kant is indispensable for a discussion about Kant, which is what this is (as well as being a discussion about Wittgenstein).

And the point is not simply that Kant and Wittgenstein used transcendental arguments, but that they used them to the same ends. Or put another way, transcendental arguments are not just arguments of a particular logical form but tend to be motivated in a particular kind of direction: the critique of the legitimacy of metaphysics; more specifically, the critique of transcendence, i.e., wondering if the cup disappears, wondering about noumena; and to flip inner and outer and make what’s outside the head primary.

Together these amount to a transcendental approach that wrestles with global scepticism (neither of them just dismissed it) and challenges the Cartesian and Humean tradition of inner/outer and appearance/reality. I think that’s significant. You on the other hand, with your Wittgensteinian disregard for history, do not. No problem.

Soon I hope to present my thesis that Wittgenstein was a Hegelian. :wink:

Best drop this. It is a side line and rather pointless. — Banno

Sure, we can drop it. But what it means for the limit of my language to be the limit of my world is not a side line and is not pointless.

We cannot a priori construct all true propositions and cannot do so a posteriori either unless we knew of all the facts of the world.

As to the claim:

if you have all the true propositions, then you have completely described the world. — Banno

it is a tautology. If you could say everything true about the world, then you could say everything true about the world.

Yep. Wittgenstein and Davidson are much closer to your way of putting it than Kant is, since they emphasize other people, whereas Kant is thinking about the lonely subject perceiving objects. Davidson adds another element to make it a three-way relation, a "triangulation" ...

It's interesting though to ask, what makes something or someone capable of engaging in "triangulation" with us? Looking back at the SEP quote on Donaldson:

it is impossible to make sense of what it is to follow a rule correctly, unless this means that what one is doing is following the practice of others who are like-minded:

It seems like the term "like-minded," has to do a lot of lifting here if it isn't unpacked. I can train a dog to follow rules, but it doesn't seem like a dog can triangulate and ground the content of my thoughts.

What does the dog lack? What is it about the other human person that makes them able to ground the contents of thought for us? For if we say that the dog, the dolphin, and the chimpanzee fail to understand our rules, despite following them, and we turn around and say that to understand a rule is to follow the practice of like-minded individuals, we have just circled round the question.

And this might be where Kant comes back in, for Kant's focus leads him to an explanation of the ways in which we are "like-minded," such that we can ground word's meanings for one another. For to say only that "language is use," fails to explain why language is only useful vis-á-vis certain entities. We don't command rocks to move or explain our day to our house plants. "Use" can only become use because of what the other person is, and this leads us back to perceptions and experiences, the "meanings of words," since if words didn't mean anything to our interlocutors, what use could they have? The establishment of use itself seems to have certain prerequisites.

This is why I am skeptical of largely externalists explanations of language and meaning. I think they get something right, but I can't shake the suspicion that there is a large black box at the center of the explanation. The Swampman example seems to pop up because the content of thought is supposed to be entirely contingent on, and to exist in external linkages. But it seems possible to say that the external relations are a prerequisite for/a cause of thought, without having to move to saying thought subsists in or is fully defined in them.

Soon I hope to present my thesis that Wittgenstein was a Hegelian. :wink:

Nah, he's an Islamic Golden Age thinker: :cool:

It is easy to see why thinkers like Alfarabi, Avicenna, Averroes, and the Averroists might conclude that there is a separate “active intellect” for all human beings.12 The identities we achieve in language seem to transcend us as individuals, and so we might well suspect that something beyond us is at work in us when we manage to touch the intelligibility of things. These thinkers believed that we each have our own imaginations and that we supply the phantasms for the cosmic mind, but that it is the separate intellect that does the thinking in us, not we ourselves. There are analogies to this doctrine in more recent writers, who have located human thinking in the structuralism of language or in intertextuality

But where is this used by Wittgenstein in the Tractatus?

Third ask. The pointless bit is continuing a conversation where someone says a text says something that the text does not say.

Well, over time, it is inevitable that the interpretations of an author diverge.
An Hegelian will read with an Hegelian lens.

But where is this used by Wittgenstein in the Tractatus? — Banno

Where is what used?

Cheers.

Cheers. — Banno

l'chaim.

What appears to happen in the Tractatus is that Wittgenstein discovers the reality that the primary premise is false, that a large part of the world consists of what is other than fact. But instead of recognizing that language has naturally developed to speak of this other part of the world in ways other than truth-apt propositions, he makes the faulty conclusion that we cannot speak about this part of the world. — Metaphysician Undercover

Your use of "fact" and its place (or absence of place) in the world has nothing to do with Wittgenstein's argument. What cannot be said is found through recognizing our condition:

6.4312 The temporal immortality of the soul of man, that is to say, its eternal survival also after death, is not only in no way guaranteed, but this assumption in the first place will not do for us what we always tried to make it do. Is a riddle solved by the fact that I survive for ever? Is this eternal life not as enigmatic as our present one? The solution of the riddle of life in space and time lies outside space and time.
(It is not problems of natural science which have to be solved.) — ibid.

The dimensions of this condition are found through the structure of our representations. The argument of what can be said or not is the description of that structure. That is where the limits of what can and what cannot be done are laid out. The method is the linking of these "cannots."

2.16 In order to be a picture a fact must have something in common with what it pictures.
2.161 In the picture and the pictured there must be something identical in order that the one can be a picture of the other at all.
2.17 What the picture must have in common with reality in order to be able to represent it after its manner rightly or falsely is its form of representation.
2.171 The picture can represent every reality whose form it has.
The spatial picture, everything spatial, the coloured, everything coloured, etc.
2.172 The picture, however, cannot represent its form of representation; it shows it forth.
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.
2.174 But the picture cannot place itself outside of its form of representation.

2.223 In order to discover whether the picture is true or false we must compare it with reality.
2.224 It cannot be discovered from the picture alone whether it is true or false.
2.225 There is no picture which is apriori true.
3 The logical picture of the facts is the thought.

3.22 In the proposition the name represents the object.
3.221 Objects I can only name. Signs represent them. I can only speak
of them. I cannot assert them. A proposition can only say how a thing is, not what it is.
3.262 What does not get expressed in the sign is shown by its application. What the signs conceal, their application declares.

4.0312 The possibility of propositions is based upon the principle of the representation of objects by signs. My fundamental thought is that the logical constants do not represent. That the logic of the facts cannot be represented. — ibid.

With these limits established, the arguments can observe differences between logic and the world we talk about:

5.556 There cannot be a hierarchy of the forms of the elementary propositions. Only that which we ourselves construct can we foresee.

5.5561 Empirical reality is limited by the totality of objects. The boundary appears again in the totality of elementary propositions.
The hierarchies are and must be independent of reality. — ibid.

From this point, what cannot be explained is distinguished from the explanations given through natural science referred to in 6.4312:

6.36 If there were a law of causality, it might run: There are natural laws.
But that can clearly not be said: it shows itself.

6.363 The process of induction is the process of assuming the simplest law that can be made to harmonize with our experience.

6.3631 This process, however, has no logical foundation but only a psychological one. It is clear that there are no grounds for believing that the simplest course of events will really happen. — ibid.

Your use of "fact" and its place (or absence of place) in the world has nothing to do with Wittgenstein's argument. What cannot be said is found through recognizing our condition:

6.4312 The temporal immortality of the soul of man, that is to say, its eternal survival also after death, is not only in no way guaranteed, but this assumption in the first place will not do for us what we always tried to make it do. Is a riddle solved by the fact that I survive for ever? Is this eternal life not as enigmatic as our present one? The solution of the riddle of life in space and time lies outside space and time.
(It is not problems of natural science which have to be solved.) — Paine

How do you suppose that this passage says anything whatsoever about what cannot be said? How could "recognizing our condition" produce any conclusions about "what cannot be said"?

The dimensions of this condition are found through the structure of our representations. The argument of what can be said or not is the description of that structure. That is where the limits of what can and what cannot be done are laid out. The method is the linking of these "cannots."

2.16 In order to be a picture a fact must have something in common with what it pictures.
2.161 In the picture and the pictured there must be something identical in order that the one can be a picture of the other at all.
2.17 What the picture must have in common with reality in order to be able to represent it after its manner rightly or falsely is its form of representation.
2.171 The picture can represent every reality whose form it has.
The spatial picture, everything spatial, the coloured, everything coloured, etc.
2.172 The picture, however, cannot represent its form of representation; it shows it forth.
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.
2.174 But the picture cannot place itself outside of its form of representation.

2.223 In order to discover whether the picture is true or false we must compare it with reality.
2.224 It cannot be discovered from the picture alone whether it is true or false.
2.225 There is no picture which is apriori true.
3 The logical picture of the facts is the thought.

3.22 In the proposition the name represents the object.
3.221 Objects I can only name. Signs represent them. I can only speak
of them. I cannot assert them. A proposition can only say how a thing is, not what it is.
3.262 What does not get expressed in the sign is shown by its application. What the signs conceal, their application declares. — Paine

If you take these "cannots" to be an indication of what can or cannot be said, it simply confirms the point I made. Wittgenstein is operating under the false premise that the only things which can be said are true and false propositions. But that is simply not at all representative of "our condition".

With these limits established, the arguments can observe differences between logic and the world we talk about: — Paine

Those are limits of what can be "pictured" in Wittgenstein's schema. The problem is that it is very obvious that language provides us with a whole lot more creativity than just a basic capacity to draw some simple pictures. Therefore this provides us with no information concerning what can or cannot be said.

Notice also that 5.5561 is blatantly false. Empirical reality is not "limited by the totality of objects". There is another completely distinct category of empirical reality which concerns the activities of objects. And a "picture" does not ever capture the activity. This is the fundamental incompatibility between being and becoming which \I referred to earlier. Pictures, statements of fact, provide us with information about what is, and is not, being and not being, but they do not provide for us any real information about the nature of activity, becoming. So there is much more to "the world" than a sum of elements, there is also the function of the elements. But this does not mean that we cannot talk about activity, becoming, or functions in general.

From this point, what cannot be explained is distinguished from the explanations given through natural science referred to in 6.4312:

6.36 If there were a law of causality, it might run: There are natural laws.
But that can clearly not be said: it shows itself.
6.363 The process of induction is the process of assuming the simplest law that can be made to harmonize with our experience.
6.3631 This process, however, has no logical foundation but only a psychological one. It is clear that there are no grounds for believing that the simplest course of events will really happen.
— ibid. — Paine

So, we have here, at 6.36, a completely unsound conclusion. The premise which produces "that can clearly not be said" is untrue, as I explain above. And 6.3631 just borrows an unsound principle from Hume. Hume stated this position, the foundation of induction is psychological rather than logical. But Hume's efforts to prove this (inductive) principle logically only serve to demonstrate the falsity of it. If this inductive conclusion of Hume's can be proven through logic, then it proves itself to be false. So the best we can say is that it is an unsound premise.

How do you suppose that this passage says anything whatsoever about what cannot be said? How could "recognizing our condition" produce any conclusions about "what cannot be said"? — Metaphysician Undercover

That passage is the result of what cannot be said. It was arrived at by all the previous steps in the argument. Recognizing our condition is how we approach first principles. You are using that approach when you accuse Wittgenstein of excluding a premise to treat it as a discovered conclusion at the end.

Those are limits of what can be "pictured" in Wittgenstein's schema. The problem is that it is very obvious that language provides us with a whole lot more creativity than just a basic capacity to draw some simple pictures. Therefore this provides us with no information concerning what can or cannot be said. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is a complete misunderstanding of the argument. No text even remotely makes the statement that language is being depicted as a basic capacity to draw some simple pictures.

There is another completely distinct category of empirical reality which concerns the activities of objects. And a "picture" does not ever capture the activity. — Metaphysician Undercover

The development of the structure of representation has been built up since the description of thought in the second proposition. The role of "objects" in the argument is not referring to a world including a totality of things as you describe. This ties back to the beginning at 1.1 "The world is the totality of facts, not of things." The argument here is not dealing with what a picture can capture. Nothing in the text suggest that is the case. I am getting the impression that the argument has no existence for you because you have written it off as a fallacy from the beginning.

Hume stated this position, the foundation of induction is psychological rather than logical. But Hume's efforts to prove this (inductive) principle logically only serve to demonstrate the falsity of it. — Metaphysician Undercover

Wittgenstein is not trying to prove Hume's principle. Wittgenstein's statement is:

"There are natural laws.
But that can clearly not be said: it shows itself."

This goes to express the recognition that the limits of explanation are not the limit of what can be experienced through the use of a method. To that end, the argument is a deeper acceptance of transcendence than what Kant expressed.

Nothing in the text suggest that is the case. I am getting the impression that the argument has no existence for you because you have written it off as a fallacy from the beginning. — Paine

Not only does the argument have no existence "for me", but plainly and simply, there is no argument. There is persuasive talk, meant to evoke sympathetic emotions, but no logical argument because the necessary premise required to make the conclusion, is missing. As I said it's simple rhetoric. Nothing you said does anything at all to explain how Wittgenstein arrives at the conclusion that there are things which cannot be said. Recognizing "our condition" does not lead to that conclusion. As I will demonstrate below, a clear understanding of "our condition" will produce the inverse conclusion.

What I've already explained is that the premise "there are things which I cannot say" does not lead to the general inductive conclusion "there are things which cannot be said". This is because each individual is very clearly different in one's capacity to express oneself, so I have not the necessary "sameness" to draw any inductive conclusion about what others can say, based on what I can say. Therefore, that conclusion, "there are things which cannot be said" requires another premise. Obviously, that premise must be a proposition about what human beings can and cannot do with language, in general. And if such a premise is proposed, we must be very critical to ensure that it is a true representation, demonstrating a true understanding of what human beings actually can and cannot do with language.

What is the case, is that I've given you a very clear description and explanation of the unstated premise which I believe is indicated by the text, and how I believe that Wittgenstein has come to the conclusion that there are things which cannot be said. On the other hand, all you have done is made some vague, ambiguous remarks concerning a proposed concept of "our condition", as your claim to how he reaches that conclusion.

Obviously though, the proposed concept of "our condition", is completely unsupported as it is derived from reference to personal experiences which are not shared as "ours". So this proposed concept "our condition" would be an unsound premise if it is meant to support a logical conclusion. Then you claim that your explanation of how Wittgenstein reaches the conclusion he does is better than mine, but all you do to support this claim is to assert that I misunderstand the argument. Well of course I misunderstand "the argument", because there is no argument, just some very strange assertions which are not supported by the premises required to support them if it was an argument. In reality, it is you who misunderstands, because you insist there is "an argument" when all there is is emotional rhetoric.

Wittgenstein is not trying to prove Hume's principle. Wittgenstein's statement is:

"There are natural laws.
But that can clearly not be said: it shows itself."

This goes to express the recognition that the limits of explanation are not the limit of what can be experienced through the use of a method. To that end, the argument is a deeper acceptance of transcendence than what Kant expressed. — Paine

The quoted passage here is completely nonsensical. It makes a statement, "there are natural laws". Then right after saying this he states "that can clearly not be said". How is one to make any sense out of this other than to see it as blatant hypocrisy: "what I just said cannot be said"? It is utterly ridiculous if it is supposed to be presenting something serious, because it shows itself as false, by itself.

Because you are deceived by this hypocrisy, which is a false premise, your interpretation completely reverses the reality of the situation. In reality, language transcends each and every experience of any individual, as not being tied to the material here and now of the individual's condition, one's physical composition and one's circumstances of being. But you are claiming that what is experienced by the individual, as one's material here and now, in one's circumstances of being, transcends the limits of explanation (what can be said).

Clearly what you are arguing is not the reality of the situation, as language is known to have existed and evolved for thousands of years, transcending the experiences of millions of people. What you are arguing is nothing but an unsound conclusion produced from faulty premises concerning the nature of language. This concept (misconception) "the limits of explanation", is the product of a false understanding of the nature of language, created by imposing artificial boundaries on the concept "language", what can and cannot be said. But these proposed boundaries are not consistent with language in its natural use, therefore as a premise, the proposition is false.

The quoted passage here is completely nonsensical. — Metaphysician Undercover

blatant hypocrisy — Metaphysician Undercover

utterly ridiculous — Metaphysician Undercover

Because you are deceived by this hypocrisy — Metaphysician Undercover

For fuck’s sake. Check what Wittgenstein actually wrote before you go off on one of your rants:

If there were a law of causality, it might be put in the following way: There are laws of nature.
But of course that cannot be said: it makes itself manifest.

The quoted passage here is completely nonsensical. It makes a statement, "there are natural laws". Then right after saying this he states "that can clearly not be said". How is one to make any sense out of this other than to see it as blatant hypocrisy: "what I just said cannot be said"? It is utterly ridiculous if it is supposed to be presenting something serious, because it shows itself as false, by itself. — Metaphysician Undercover

I get you 100%.

But step back for a moment and think some. From a different angle than accustomed or comfortable. From your "natural law", perhaps it could be said. "Things exist". This is a fact. Do you know how a thermonuclear fusion reactor works or how a solar system functions in every excruciating and implicit detail? Likely not. You see it, it must be governed by something, hence its existence, which is the key proposition here, true or not. Simply reporting a fact "that can clearly not be said" may refer to a relative state of affairs and absolute accurate assessment of a given situation not an absolute limitation for all knowledge or context of it. The first man who observed fire, for example. It clearly exists, it clearly has laws, but at the time, for whatever reason, also, simply could not be explained. That's one possibility.

I can relate to your mindset, I feel yours and mine are more similar than they are different. What is natural? Preexisting? Since when? For all time or due to a recent change? The waters seem to follow the moon. This is a natural law. What if the moon did not exist or where to vanish? Then this "natural" law can be changed thus validating the claim that what "exists" may cease to or otherwise change and therefore cannot be pinned down with any degree of absoluteness ie. "cannot (or perhaps should not) be said/declared". No?

For fuck’s sake. Check what Wittgenstein actually wrote before you go off on one of your rants:

If there were a law of causality, it might be put in the following way: There are laws of nature.
But of course that cannot be said: it makes itself manifest. — Jamal

I don't see your point. He is exactly saying "that cannot be said: it makes itself manifest", right after he has explicitly said it; "there are laws of nature". If you somehow think that he is not saying what he claims cannot be said (hypocrisy), then please explain yourself.

As far as I can see, he says if there is a law of causality we would say it as "there are laws of nature". Then he says "of course that cannot be said". I ask you, by what principles does he conclude "that cannot be said", especially since he has just said it. The passage makes absolutely no sense.

You see it, it must be governed by something, hence its existence, which is the key proposition here, true or not. — Outlander

I don't see how you get from "you see it" to "it must be governed by something". That's a big step which is completely unsupported.

Simply reporting a fact "that can clearly not be said" may refer to a relative state of affairs and absolute accurate assessment of a given situation not an absolute limitation for all knowledge or context of it. — Outlander

How is this not blatant contradiction to you? How would you be "reporting" something, if you are not saying it?

The first man who observed fire, for example. It clearly exists, it clearly has laws, but at the time, for whatever reason, also, simply could not be explained. That's one possibility. — Outlander

Why do you assert "it clearly has laws"? Such an assertion requires a definition of what "a law" is, and an explanation of the phenomenon to show that it fits the criteria of "has laws". You are demonstrating exactly the issue I took up with Paine. You have an unstated premise, an understanding or definition of "laws". And you are asserting "fire clearly has laws" according to your personal, subjective understanding of "laws". But this is absolutely meaningless because "laws" could mean whatever you want it to mean. So to support your assertion "fire clearly has laws" you need to say what "law" means, and describe fire in a way so as to fulfill the conditions. Simply asserting "fire clearly has laws" when "laws" is an extremely ambiguous term really provides nothing meaningful.

Simply reporting a fact "that can clearly not be said" may refer to a relative state of affairs and absolute accurate assessment of a given situation not an absolute limitation for all knowledge or context of it. — Outlander

How is this not blatant contradiction to you? How would you be "reporting" something, if you are not saying it?

I don't see your point. He is exactly saying "that cannot be said: it makes itself manifest", right after he has explicitly said it; "there are laws of nature". If you somehow think that he is not saying what he claims cannot be said (hypocrisy), then please explain yourself — Metaphysician Undercover

But he does not explicitly state that “there are laws of nature”. He says we could say “there are laws of nature” if there were a law of causality. He does not say P; P cannot be said. He says If X then we could say P; but we cannot say P.

Context might be helpful:

Wittgenstein famously states that (Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, proposition 5.1361) : "The events of the future cannot be inferred from those of the present." and "Superstition is the belief in the causal nexus."

Later (Propositions 6.37, 6.371 and 6.362) "A necessity for one thing to happen because another has happened does not exist. There is only logical necessity. At the basis of the whole modern view of the world lies the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena. So people stop short at natural laws as at something unassailable, as did the ancients at God and Fate. And they both are right and wrong. But the ancients were clearer, in so far as they recognized one clear conclusion, whereas in the modern system it should appear as though everything were explained."

Does he have things backwards? Do we know cause first, in experience, and then abstract logical necessity from that? Arguably; I would say yes. But the statement in question makes more sense when you know where he is coming from.

I'd argue that the ancients didn't have this problem because reason was seen as inheritly transcendental, or even ecstatic (Plato). So, Plato approached the mind/nature, appearance/reality distinction differently. The transcendental argument in the first sailing of The Republic lies in the unity of the Good vis-á-vis Being and Reason, the Goods role as something that is both absolute and relational. There is not, as Wittgenstein puts it, something "unassailable" that we run up against, but something transcendent and without limit, which, in having no limit, must necessarily include the whole, and thus both sides of mind/nature and appearance/reality (and in this, we get something closer to Hegel's solution to the same issues).

If there were a law of causality, it might be put in the following way: There are laws of nature.
But of course that cannot be said: it makes itself manifest.

(6.36)

Why can't this be said? Of course he can say the words, he just did, but:

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

(5.1361)

There is no compulsion making one thing happen because another has happened. The
only necessity that exists is logical necessity.

(6.37)

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

(6.32)

The form is the method used to describe the world not what is described.

All such propositions, including the principle of sufficient reason, the laws of continuity in nature and of least effort in nature, etc. etc.— all these are a priori insights about the forms in which the propositions of science can be cast.

(6.34)

I don't see how you get from "you see it" to "it must be governed by something". That's a big step which is completely unsupported. — Metaphysician Undercover

Fair enough. I suppose.

If you observe something, sure, perhaps it could be an illusion. A puppet of a man looks like a man. A mirage of water looks like a body of such. Neither are truly as they seem. But eventually there has to be something, some concrete principle or law other than what would be the only other option "randomly changing nonsense" or some sort of Twilight Zone.

Vision requires functionality of a sensory organ. Think about that. If it is not governed by healthy functionality, it is not to be trusted. Makes sense?

How is this not blatant contradiction to you? How would you be "reporting" something, if you are not saying it? — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, I recommend taking a step back from your world view and looking at things from a different angle. I see (I think) the A-B logic your suggesting. How could you suggest something if you then say it cannot be pinpointed. What is 0? When you think of it? I leave open the possibility of semantics, as you surely must as well. It's not the same as saying, for example, "the door is open, therefore it is closed". Let's start from there. Surely an absolute object (a physical door) cannot be in two states at once? This invokes Schrodinger's cat. Which reminds me I need to check on mine. But yes, the door can be open or closed for someone wishing to use it for its intended or expected purpose, but surely, there very well might exist other purposes where a closed door is actually an open one and vice-versa. Not trying to be cheap with you here but sometimes the simplest explanations are often the most, not only profound, but encompassing.

If there were a law of causality, it might be put in the following way: There are laws of nature.
But of course, that cannot be said: it makes itself manifest.

This distinction is made in the context of limits to establishing possibility apriori but is also a moment in Wittgenstein's ongoing argument against Russell attempts to establish universal rules about logic that can be recognized independently of their use. The theme of "saying" being necessarily connected to "showing" is expressed in:

The application of logic decides what elementary propositions there are.
What lies in the application logic cannot anticipate.
It is clear that logic may not collide with its application.
But logic must have contact with its application.
Therefore logic and its application may not overlap one another. — ibid. 5.557

The discomfort Russell expressed with this result would probably have been shared by Kant. In regard to your OP, I think there is a continuity here between the Tractatus and the later Wittgenstein:

324. Would it be correct to say that it is a matter of induction, and that I am as certain that I shall be able to continue the series, as I am that this book will drop on the ground when I let it go; and that I should be no less astonished if I suddenly and for no obvious reason got stuck in working out the series, than I should be if the book remained hanging in the air instead of falling?—To that I will reply that we don't need any grounds for this certainty either. What could justify the certainty better than success?

325. "The certainty that I shall be able to go on after I have had this experience—seen the formula, for instance,—is simply based on induction." What does this mean?—"The certainty that the fire will burn me is based on induction." Does that mean that I argue to myself: "Fire has always burned me, so it will happen now too?" Or is the previous experience the cause of my certainty, not its ground? Whether the earlier experience is the cause of the certainty depends on the system of hypotheses, of natural laws, in which we are considering the phenomenon of certainty.

Is our confidence justified?—What people accept as a justification— is shewn by how they think and live. — Philosophical Investigations, 324

With the older and newer expressions placed side by side, Cometti can be seen to be missing the mark when stating:

In the later Wittgenstein the notion of "forms of life" takes the place of the Tractarian doctrine of the boundary between what can and cannot be said, which determines in turn the "limits of my world". My world takes on the limits of my form of life. — Jean-Pierre Cometti, 'Merleau-Ponty, Wittgenstein, and the question of expression'

Wittgenstein is observing the same limits of 5.557 in both works. The use of "form of life" is not a replacement of a previous schema.

Interesting.

Wittgenstein is observing the same limits of 5.557 in both works. The use of "form of life" is not a replacement of a previous schema. — Paine

Are you suggesting that the idea of a form of life is an elaboration of the earlier position?