Without too much exaggeration, the only thing they have in common is the word 'logic'. — Fooloso4

So, the word logic is empty to you? You see no thread in terms of the logic of language that goes from his early thinking to his later thinking? That flies in the face of almost everything I've read.

The transcendental logic of the Tractatus is not simply the logic of language, it is the logic of the world. — Fooloso4

That's strange since W. clearly says in the preface "The book deals with the problems of philosophy, and shows, I believe, that the reasons why these problems are posed is that the logic of our language is misunderstood." It's the logic of language and how it connects with the world of facts. The logic of language is demonstrated in his picture and truth-function theory of language.

I'm not sure why you keep using the term "transcendental logic," its simply truth functional logic that he's using. It shows, he believes, how a proposition has sense.

You see no thread in terms of the logic of language that goes from his early thinking to his later thinking? — Sam26

No. What I see is a disjunction. From PI:

107. The more closely we examine actual language, the greater becomes the conflict between it and our requirement. (For the crystalline purity of logic was, of course, not something I had discovered: it was a requirement.) The conflict becomes intolerable; the requirement is now in danger of becoming vacuous. We have got on to slippery ice where there is no friction, and so, in a certain sense, the conditions are ideal; but also, just because of that, we are unable to walk. We want to walk: so we need friction. Back to the rough ground!

108. We see that what we call “proposition”, “language”, has not the formal unity that I imagined, but is a family of structures more or less akin to one another. —– But what becomes of logic now? Its rigour seems to be giving way here. But in that case doesn’t logic altogether disappear? For how can logic lose its rigour? Of course not by our bargaining any of its rigour out of it. The preconception of crystalline purity can only be removed by turning our whole inquiry around. (One might say: the inquiry must be turned around, but on the pivot of our real need.

... the logic of our language is misunderstood — Sam26

For the later Wittgenstein it is the logic of our language as presented in the Tractatus that is misunderstood.

It's the logic of language and how it connects with the world of facts. — Sam26

It is the logical structure or scaffolding that underlies both language and the world and thus their connection:

The logical scaffolding surrounding a picture determines logical space. (3.42)

The proposition constructs a world with the help of a logical scaffolding (4.023)

I'm not sure why you keep using the term "transcendental logic — Sam26

Because Wittgenstein says so:

Logic is transcendental. (6.13)

It is transcendental both in the Kantian sense of the conditions of the possibility of language and world, and in the sense of what transcends or stands outside of the world.

I'm not going to get into a long drawn out discussion about interpretation. We'll never resolve that issue. Besides this is beyond the scope of what I'm trying to do. I suspect this has a lot to do with the different schools of interpretation.

I know very little about schools of interpretation, but I do not see how interpretation can be avoided. If you are satisfied with your interpretation and wish to produce a video that is your business. I assumed, however, that if you were posting here you were looking for some response.

I agree that we will not resolve the issue. I pointed to some problems regarding your claim of continuity. Do with them as you want or will.

I do want responses, and they are appreciated, but I also know when an issue isn't going to get resolved within a few posts. Even if we spend hours and hours writing we're probably not going to make much headway. If you've been observing my responses you'll find that I don't spend a lot of time arguing, especially when I know that's it's a waste of time, but I do take note of the responses.

Interpretation can't be avoided, and I wouldn't claim that my interpretation is always correct, but at some point one just settles on an interpretation, unless there is a clear mistake. I think I understand the main thrust of the Tractatus. As for continuity, they've been arguing over this for the last 100 years. Even W. when asked what he meant by this or that couldn't always remember his thinking around a particular passage. I don't mind the disagreements, but I don't always have the time to argue through each issue.

Again, I appreciate any response I get.

As I said a few posts ago I think there is continuity between Wittgenstein's early philosophy and his later philosophy, but there is also much that he rejects. One of the ideas that W. seems to keep is proposition 1 in the Tractatus, viz., "The world is all that is the case." My understanding of his later philosophy is that he still believes there is a limit to what can be sensibly said, which is why I think T. 1 is still something that he holds on to.

The other claim that I and others maintain is that the logic of language still has sway in his later thinking. However, the logic of language in his later thinking equates to the rules grammar, but his use of grammar is not the standard use. This confused G.E. Moore, who remarked that W. was using the word grammar in a very non-standard way (Moore made this remark in one of W.'s lectures), and he was correct. Wittgenstein expands grammar to more than just syntax, i.e., he expands grammar to the public use of words or language-games, which is much more than mere syntax. If we think of a simple language-game, like the one W. gives us at the beginning of the PI (between the builder and his assistant), we can, I believe, understand that the use of particular calls (pillar, block, etc) require certain responses beyond syntax. The logic of this language-game expands the use of grammar to how the assistant responds to the calls of the builder, and how the assistant may even use the word pillar or block. So, the rules of grammar in this case are what is meant by the logic of language. Just as the rules of chess make up the logic of the moves.

My understanding of his later philosophy is that he still believes there is a limit to what can be sensibly said, which is why I think T. 1 is still something that he holds on to. — Sam26

Not is some general philosophical sense. Only that there is agreement in a language game and form of life. This is agreement in judgment and action. This is shown by describing these forms of life.

It is not coming up with some metaphysical theory like is done in the Tractatus explaining the demarcation of sense and nonsense.

This is not continuous but abruptly different approaches. One is a general metaphysical theory. The other is describing and sticking to examples.

Yeah both are exploring “what is meaningful to say” but if that is the criteria for calling something continuous, then you could say that any philosophy of meaning is continuous with any other theory of meaning.

What I'm saying is, he still believes that the "world is [still] all that is the case," that there is a limit to what can be said in terms of the metaphysical. Although the limit in his later philosophy is confined to the language-game, grammar, and forms of life for example.

So, the continuity is there in terms of what can be said about the metaphysical, and it's still part of his thinking. He has an affinity with the mystical for example, but would still, even in his later philosophy, bemoan arguments for the existence of God because, I believe, he still held that there were no facts to latch onto. He still sees the world of facts as quite separate from the metaphysical, which is something that can only be shown, not factually stated.

What I'm saying is, he still believes that the "world is [still] all that is the case," — Sam26

I am not sure. Let us look at two quotes that may support this view, and two quotes that may not support this view.

Not Support;

1. From PI 241, "So you are saying that human agreement decides what is true and what is false? It is what human beings say that is true and false; and they agree in the language they use. That is not agreement in opinions but in form of life."

2. From PI Part 2 xii, "If formation of concepts can be explained by fact of nature, should we not be interested, not in grammar, but rather in that in nature which is the basis of grammar? Our interest certainly includes the correspondence between concepts and very general facts of nature. (Such facts as mostly do not strike us because of their generality.). But our interest does not fall back upon these possible causes of the formation of concepts; we are not doing natural science; nor yet natural history-since we can also invent natural history for our purposes. I am not saying: if such-and such facts of nature were different people would have different concepts (in the sense of a hypothesis). But; if anyone believes that certain concepts are absolutely the correct ones, and that having different ones would mean not realizing something that we realize-then let him imagine certain very general facts of nature to be different from what we are used to, and formation of concepts different from the usual ones will become intelligible to him."

Support;

1. OC 505, "It is always by favor of Nature that one knows something."

2. Culture and Value, "Life can educate one to a belief in God. And experiences too are what bring this about; but I don't mean visions and other forms of sense experience which show us the 'existence of this being', but e.g. sufferings of various sorts. These neither show us God in the way a sense impression shows us an object, nor do they give rise to conjectures about him. Experiences, thoughts, -life can force this concept on us. So perhaps it is similar to the concept of 'object'.

Wittgenstein's oscillates between two views, human's contribution to concepts, and Nature/Life/World's contribution to concepts. So "The world is all that is the case.", I believe Wittgenstein does not consider the human contribution in the Tractatus, but that there must be an isomorphic relation between the logic of language and the logic of the world to make sense. However, I do not believe he gives up on this idea that our concepts are, at times, accountable to the world we live in.

I think of passages like the following: "What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical use to their everyday use (PI 116)" And also, "The results of philosophy are the uncovering of one or another piece of plain nonsense and of bumps that the understanding has got by running its head up against the limits of language (PI 119)."

Passages like this make me think that there is still a strong sense that "The world is all that is the case (PI 1)" in his later philosophy." But there are other passages that seem like he's saying something else, which is why there is so much controversy over interpretation. I think what should be emphasized is his method of doing philosophy in his later works, as opposed to some philosophical theory or truth. However, the tendency is to look for some philosophical theory or truth, which I've done in OC.

There is no doubt that W. repudiated much in the T., but for me there is some continuity. I guess it depends on what you're emphasizing. Anyway much of this is beyond the scope of what I want to say in my video.

A good book that gives a basic understanding of W.'s early and later philosophy, and it's one that I've mentioned before, is K.T. Fann's book called Wittgenstein's Conception of Philosophy.

The world is all that is the case — Sam26

It may have no bearing on your project, but Wittgenstein's focus on seeing aspects, ways of looking, and ways of seeing run counter to the claim that the world is what is the case. Although he does not develop this, even in the Tractatus he is thinking about these things. This is why the ethical and the aesthetic, in its original sense of what is perceived or seen, are regarded as the same. That they are not in the world does not mean that they are not of the utmost importance. Ethics too is said to be transcendental. (T 6.421)

Logic is what is transcendental from inside the world. Ethics and aesthetics from outside, that is, "my world".

With regard to ethics he says:

The world of the happy man is a different one from that of the unhappy man. (T6.43)

With regard to the way of seeing things:

... the figure can be seen in two ways as a cube; and all similar phenomena. For we really see two different facts. (T 5.5423)

In terms of Wittgenstein's picture theory and truth function theory of language "[t]he world is all that is the case," at least in the Tractatus. He still believes that the truly important (e.g., ethics, aesthetics, the mystical), that which is beyond the world of facts, is not part of this world in terms of what can be said, it can only be shown. My point about T. 1 is a propositional point, it's not meant to include the transcendental or mystical. There is what is mystical, but it's not a point of fact, i.e., there is no fact beyond the limit of the world, which is the limit of what can be said in the T. I'm not saying that everything W. talks about is covered under the umbrella of T. 1, that's obviously not the case.

In his later philosophy the proposition is still limited to the world, but the way it functions, the way it has sense, is not through the a priori method of analysis given in the Tractatus (the picture theory and truth function theory). As you know it's more social, but it's still in the world, and I believe that what can be said in his later philosophy is still limited to the world. He still has little patience for factual talk about the metaphysical, even though the metaphysical has importance to him. So, again these are propositional points about the limit of language.

My goal in my video is to try to explain, as simply as possible, his picture theory and truth function theory of the proposition; and to show that he is still holding on to the traditional view of meaning in the T.

... what can be said in his later philosophy is still limited to the world — Sam26

In the Tractatus he makes the distinction between "the world" and "my world". That distinction does not carry over to the later writings. What can be said is no longer limited to the facts delimited in the Tractatus. It is no longer a question of what can be said but of the shared language of a form of life.

The limits of language in the Tractatus were drawn in order to show the limits of thought or its expression. In the preface to PI the limits of thought are no longer determined by facts:

The thoughts that I publish in what follows are the precipitate of philosophical investigations which have occupied me for the last sixteen years. They concern many subjects: the concepts of meaning, of understanding, of a proposition and sentence, of logic, the foundations of mathematics, states of consciousness, and other things.

Rather than narrow things down his investigations opens up our view of thought and language.

122. A main source of our failure to understand is that we don’t have an overview of the use of our words. - Our grammar is deficient in surveyability. A surveyable representation [ an übersichtlichen Darstellung] produces precisely that kind of understanding which consists in ‘seeing connections’. Hence the importance of finding and inventing intermediate links.

The concept of a surveyable representation is of fundamental significance for us. It characterizes the way we represent things, how we look at matters. (Is this a ‘Weltanschauung’?)

125. This entanglement in our rules is what we want to understand: that is, to survey.
It throws light on our concept of meaning something. For in those cases, things turn out otherwise than we had meant, foreseen. That is just what we say when, for example, a contradiction appears: “That’s not the way I meant it.”
The civic status of a contradiction, or its status in civic life - that is the philosophical problem.

I agree with much of what you're saying, and where we disagree it's seems to be more about the nuances of his thinking, at least that's how I see it.

If white turns into black some people say “Essentially it is still the same”. And others, if the colour becomes one degree darker, say “It has changed completely".
(Wittgenstein, Culture and Value 42)

Sounds about right. :grin:

What does logic consist of in W. later philosophy? This is not easy to pin down because it’s not a formalized system like the logic used in the Tractatus. The logic of the PI is seen in, for e.g. the language-game, grammar, our forms of life, and all the actions that correspond with each of these activities. The logic of the PI is broad in its scope, but it’s definitely not a formalized system .

As an e.g. we might think of the logic of chess, i.e., what does the logic of chess look like? First, the rules of chess, viz., knowing how to move a piece based on the rules is part of the logic. Knowing where to place the pieces on the board, and knowing who moves first; knowing which move is best in a particular situation is also part of the logic. So, one could say that the logic of the game, although not spelled out, is intrinsically connected with the rules, the pieces, the board, the clock, the color of the pieces, the shape of the pieces, combined with our actions, etc, etc.

The logic of the PI, although much different from the logic of the T. is seen in the use of language in our everyday lives, and what governs this logic, again, it's a multitude of things that connects to W. concept of forms of life, grammar, and our actions as a people within the language game. This is how I see the logic of language in the later W.

One can play chess according to the rules and not play logically.

What one says within a language game is not thereby logical.

Of course, I'm not saying that playing chess necessarily leads to logical moves, but if you know how the pieces move this is part of the logic of the game. The same is true of a language-game. In fact, some language-games, are simply illogical. This doesn't take away from my main point, that there is an underlying logic to language, viz., in the use of grammar (syntax) or the expanded grammar that Wittgenstein refers to.

This doesn't take away from my main point, that there is an underlying logic to language, viz., in the use of grammar (syntax) or the expanded grammar that Wittgenstein refers to. — Sam26

There is a difference between the logic of a language game and an underlying logic of language. Analogously, the rules of chess are not an underlying logic of the game.

Rather than an appeal to an underlying logic Wittgenstein appeals to what we do. More specifically, to the metaphysical demands philosophers put on words.

Wittgenstein is useful insofar as his language games concept. As long as we are using the same language, games, and agree on the definitions of what terms mean what, we will have a much more lucrative dialogue. However, if everyone is using different terms for their starting points, then the language game breaks down, and no constructive debate occurs. However, if Wittgenstein is used to simply shut down philosophical debate, that’s more an agenda. It’s the equivalent of saying “how does philosophy about metaphysics help me in the stock market?” philosophy, perhaps will never satisfy the ultimate pragmatist whereby if it’s not about immediate survival, comfort, entertainment needs it is all useless banter. In that case, it’s just the disposition of the person.

if everyone is using different terms for their starting points — schopenhauer1

More to the point, it is about using the same terms with different demands on the meaning of the terms. It is not about shutting down constructive debate. It is, rather, about trying to get to an agreed starting point or marking the differences in starting points.

It is, rather, about trying to get to an agreed starting point or marking the differences in starting points. — Fooloso4

Agreed. I meant people using Wittgenstein to say you can’t talk about anything “meaningful” in regards to metaphysics or ethics etc

Analogously, the rules of chess are not an underlying logic of the game. — Fooloso4

It's partly what makes up the logic of the game, i.e., without the rules there wouldn't be a logical move. In fact, there would be no game.

In the game of chess certain moves are prohibited. The rules are specific to the game. One could make that move in a game that is like chess with the exception of allowing that move. The same holds for language games.

When Wittgenstein says parenthetically:

Theology as grammar (PI 373)

this is not an appeal to logical syntax. It is, instead, about looking at how theological terms are used. What they mean for those who use them. The role they play in the life of those who believe. One might devise or derive rules, but the game is not determined by rules, but rather by what is felt and experienced and believed, by how the words resonate, by how one is moved, by how one is compelled, by how they matter.