My point is this: which philosophies argue that the world, at least in terms of human communication, is not composed of facts or true propositions?
For example, the statement "the unicorn is on the mat" is a false proposition because it's an impossibility. — schopenhauer1
If I say, "the cat is on the mat," and we observe a cat on the mat, we might call this a true proposition.........................It's a truism. Almost no one disputes it. Well done for stating the obvious. — schopenhauer1
So, I'm puzzled as to why a philosophy would assert, "My knowledge is made up of independent facts," as if this were a profound statement. — schopenhauer1
1) Similarly, stating truisms in philosophy without delving into the mechanisms behind them adds little value.
2) My broader point is that non-empirical philosophies can also be considered true propositions
3) If Wittgenstein isn't explaining why a proposition cannot be true, why should we care if the broader claim, "The world consists of true propositions or independent facts," is correct? — schopenhauer1
You believe that the statement "the unicorn is on the mat" is a false proposition. I believe that the statement could equally be a true proposition. — RussellA
Yes, there is no dispute that what is important in language are facts and true propositions, but the dispute arises in deciding what is a fact and what is a true proposition. — RussellA
On the one hand the statement "my knowledge is made up of independent facts" is philosophically profound — RussellA
Aren't thoughts 1) and 2) in opposition.
I cannot justify in words my non-empirical thoughts that "evil is bad" and "beauty is good", yet I believe them to be true. I believe them to be truisms.
The only mechanism I can think of to explain such beliefs is that they have been programmed by evolution into the human gene for the benefit of the survival of the group.
As there are only 75 pages in the Tractatus, primarily devoted to Linguistics, I don't think we should also expect a foray into Evolutionary Biology, even if that is what he believed. — RussellA
How do we determine that this philosophy is not a true proposition? It only needs to be a true proposition. "Will and Representation" could be token objects that either are or are not the case.
If Wittgenstein isn't explaining why a proposition cannot be true, why should we care if the broader claim, "The world consists of true propositions or independent facts," is correct? Again, it's a truism that means nothing without a mechanism to determine what is actually true or not.
From here you can try to tell me that it has to form a picture that models such as the cat on the mat. But at the same time, Will and Representation can also form a picture or model of a state of affairs of the world if it is true. However, it is a metaphysical truth that is not empirically falsifiable. So now it is not the picture but the verification that his notion of meaningful language hinges on. But then that doesn’t answer the question of why true propositions have to be empirically verified to be meaningful. It’s very much just an assertion and discounts “facts” or states of affairs that one cannot necessarily verify empirically. It’s arbitrarily putting a hierarchy on what counts as meaningful language it seems to me. — schopenhauer1
Also, you didn't answer my question.. "What philosophy DOESN'T think their understanding of the world comprises independent facts"? I have yet to meet a person, who thinks "This is morally bad, or this is good" is the same as "The cat is on the mat." What problem then is he solving? — schopenhauer1
"The cat is on the mat" is true IFF (the cat is on the mat), where "the cat is on the mat" exists in language, and (the cat is on the mat) exists in the world.
The fact that (the cat is on the mat) in the world is dependent upon there being a relation between the cat and the mat. What is the nature of this relation?
Mereological Nihilism, aka compositional nihilism, is the philosophical position that in the world there are no objects with proper parts, in that there are no metaphysical relations that connect parts to a whole. — RussellA
IE, if a fact in the world is dependent upon the ontological existence of relations between parts, then if there are no such things as ontological relations in the world, then it follows that there are no facts in the world. — RussellA
But was Tractatus really aimed to dispute the position of mereological nihilism?............................How does he actually do that, rather than simply asserting premises that he thinks is true? — schopenhauer1
As I can assert that "evil is bad" as a self-evident truth, perhaps the Tractatus can also assert that "the world is the totality of facts" as a self-evident truth. Anyone disagreeing that "evil is bad" or "the world is the totality of facts" then has the opportunity to present their argument.
After all, most of our statements are assertions, whether "I walked to the supermarket", "stealing is bad", "I admire Monet's aesthetic", "the world is a complex place" or "the play starts at 9pm". Rarely is it expected that we need to justify what seems to be self-evident. — RussellA
You mention the supposed colour incompatibility problem, but to my understanding, this issue only crops up if you take the work to operate in a manner similar to Russell. — 013zen
Therefore we cannot say "there are objects", which is not depicting anything, but we can say "there are red objects", which is depicting something.4.1272 The same applies to the words "complex", "fact", "function", "number", etc. They all signify formal concepts, and are represented in conceptual notation by variables
4.1274 "To ask whether a formal concept exists is nonsensical"
2.0232 In a manner of speaking, objects are colourless
2.0251 Space, time and colour (beng coloured) are forms of objects
I want from my philosopher reasoning and justifications for their assertions and claims. — schopenhauer1
6.522 There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.
6.53 The correct method in philosophy would really be the following: to say noting except what can be said, ie propositions of natural science ie, something that has nothing to do with philosophy - and then, whenever someone else wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in his propositions. Although it would not be satisfying to the other person - he would have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy - this method would be the only strictly correct one.
6.54 My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them – as steps – to climb up beyond them - (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it) He must transcend these propositions and then he will see the world aright.
7 What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.
Yes, perhaps a statement can be justified, but why stop there, why shouldn't the justification be justified, and then again, why not justify the justification of the justification. — RussellA
You mentioned the mystical. I see Schopenhauer in a way, as being an analytic mystic. — schopenhauer1
If your claim is "The world is what are the facts", this is either of the following:
1) A truism- something everyone pretty much holds in everyday life.
2) A profound philosophical insight- in which case it must give the context for which it is set against, what notion it is overturning or contradicting — schopenhauer1
If Wittgenstein isn't explaining why a proposition cannot be true, why should we care if the broader claim, "The world consists of true propositions or independent facts," is correct? Again, it's a truism that means nothing without a mechanism to determine what is actually true or not. — schopenhauer1
His philosophy implicitly relies on VERIFICATION for making distinctions yet the case would have to be made why empirically verifiable statements are more meaningful, especially if it can be the case that NON-VERIFIABLE propositions CAN BE true. — schopenhauer1
An elementary proposition is not "The car is red". This is a proposition capable of being true or false and depending on its veracity or falsity we can infer other propositions from it. — 013zen
Hopefully my question is not too far removed from the OP, the history of the Tractatus. — RussellA
However, Wittgenstein later began to realise that the logical atomism of the Tractatus was incapable of dealing with the colour incompatibility problem (aka colour exclusion problem). — RussellA
... then why did Wittgenstein turn away from the logical atomism of the Tractatus because of the colour exclusion problem? — RussellA
Many simple colour propositions, such as "this car is red" and "this car is blue" fail the truth-functional combinations of elementary propositions, in that "this car" cannot be both red and blue simultaneously. — RussellA
(the colour exclusion problem)...........I've never heard the position that this supposed problem was one of if not the reason why Witt wrote the PI. — 013zen
Sraffa’s Impact on Wittgenstein - Matthias Unterhuber, Salzburg, Austria
Ramsey’s criticism (1923) of the Tractatus (Wittgenstein 1922/1933) is essential for the change from Wittgenstein’s earlier to his later philosophy (Jacquette 1998). Ramsey’s influence on Wittgenstein is very easily traceable, as Ramsey (1923) published his criticism of the Tractatus and Wittgenstein modified the approach of the Tractatus to account for the criticism and published his response in Some Remarks on Logical Form (Wittgenstein, 1929). He, however, eventually noticed that his modified approach did not solve the problem suggested by Ramsey.
The criticism of Ramsey amounts to the fact that Wittgenstein could not explain a statement he accepted: that a “point in the visual field cannot be both red and blue” (Ramsey 1923, p. 473). According to the Tractatus “the only necessity is that of tautology, the only impossibility that of contradiction” (p. 473). The present contradiction, however, is attributable rather to properties of space, time and matter and is not accounted for by the general form of proposition which according to the Tractatus determines all and only genuine propositions. Wittgenstein eventually gave up the thesis that there is a general form of proposition and resumed a family resemblance approach which does not provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the distinction of meaningful and senseless propositions.
SEP - Frank Ramsey
Ramsey, as we saw in the previous section, was still an undergraduate when, aged 19, he completed a translation of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Wittgenstein 1922). Alas, C. K. Ogden got all the credit and it has been known since as the ‘Ogden translation’. Ramsey’s translation is usually considered to be superseded by the Pears-McGuinness translation (1961), but one should not lose sight of the fact that it was carefully scrutinized by Wittgenstein, who gave it his seal of approval. Ramsey then wrote a searching review of the Tractatus (1923) in which he raised many serious objections (Methven 2015, chapter 4) (Sullivan 2005). One such objections is the ‘colour-exclusion problem’ (1923, 473), against Wittgenstein’s claim in 6.3751 that it is “logically impossible” that a point in the visual field be both red and blue. This claim was linked to the requirement that elementary propositions be logically independent (otherwise, the analysis of the proposition would not be completed), a pillar of the Tractatus. Wittgenstein’s recognition in 1929 that he could not sustain his claim (Wittgenstein 1929), probably under pressure at that stage from discussions with Ramsey, was to provoke the downfall of the Tractatus.
Wittgenstein and the colour incompatibility problem - Dale Jacquette
What induced Wittgenstein to repudiate the logical atomism
I want to argue that Wittgenstein's abandonment of logical atomism and the development of his later philosophy was in large part the result of Ramsey's criticism of the Tractatus treatment of the color incompatibility problem, the problem of the apparent nonlogical impossibility of different colors occurring in a single place at the very same time.
Wittgenstein writes in Philosophical Grammar - "The proposition 'this place is now red' (or 'this circle is now red') can be called an elementary proposition if this means that it is neither a truth function of other propositions nor defined as such...But from 'a is now red' there follows 'a is now not green' and so elementary propositions in this sense aren't independent of each other like the elementary propositions in the calculus I once described - a calculus to which, misled as I was by a false notion of reduction, I thought that the whole use of propositions must be reducible".
He goes on to describe how one might analyze the proposition: "The square is red" into the elementary propsition: " [6-9, 3--8] R " — 013zen
If Witt truly thought that "X is red" was an elementary proposition, why would he attempt to construct an analysis into " [6-9, 3--8] R " in Some Remarks on Logical Form? — 013zen
As every proposition has content and form, and as any given proposition is the sum of atomic propositions, atomic propositions must also have content and form. — RussellA
Therefore the expression - Is red (the patch) - may be replaced by - Is red [6-9, 3-8] - or as he writes [6-9, 3-8] R — RussellA
Therefore the expression [6-9, 3-8] R is a proposition — RussellA
Witt clearly is offering this up as an example of an atomic proposition, not a proposition. He starts by saying that he believed that one needed to introduce numbers into atomic propositions, and that he would provide an example of what he means, which was the square example with [6-9, 3-8] R as the elementary proposition: — 013zen
Referring to Wittgenstein's Some Remarks on Logical Form, as he writes that any given proposition is the logical sum of simpler propositions, eventually arriving at the atomic proposition, this means that an atomic proposition is still a proposition — RussellA
He also writes "a proposition about it, e.g., P is red, by the symbol [6-9, 3-8] R"
So we have the proposition "the patch is red", which may also be written as either "Is red (the patch)" or [6-9, 3-8] R. — RussellA
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