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Wittgenstein's Tractatus: A Dialectical Interpretation
"The philosopher strives to find the liberating word, that is, the word that finally permits us to grasp what up until now has intangibly weighed down our consciousness." Would Wittgenstein have been willing to describe the Tractatus as an attempt to find "the liberating word"? This is the basic contention of this strikingly innovative new study of the Tractatus. Matthew Ostrow argues that, far from seeking to offer a new theory in logic in the tradition of Frege and Russell, Wittgenstein viewed all such endeavors as the ensnarement of thought.
- GenresPhilosophy
188 pages, Paperback
First published February 20, 1998
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August 22, 2021
I bought this book a couple of years ago but could never bring myself to actually read it. Because the subtitle seemed so silly. A Dialectical interpretation? What could that mean? Why not a Catholic interpretation or a Vegan?
It turns out dialectical has nothing to do with a Marxist view of things.
“To read the Tractatus dialectically, in my sense of the term, is to recognise that the successful characterisation of philosophy is its dismissal as Unsinn“. (p. 15)
There is, Ostrow argues “a dialectic’s purpose“ to be achieved, namely “to see the world rightly“.
So we are on familiar turf here. The whole of the Tractatus is nonsense, and somehow by reading it and ideally by having had the same ideas as Wittgenstein you come to realise that you better do not say what you cannot say anyway. Or something like that.
“It might then seem“, Ostrow says right in the introduction, “that we would best make the Tractatus’ point by stopping right here.“ (p. 14)
This is a useful hint and he even goes further saying “nothing ultimately compels one to read the Tractatus in the way that I maintain.“ (p. 18)
But, of course, what he really means is, it is the only way to read the book.
What is endlessly fascinating to me with philosophers belonging to the resolute school of Wittgenstein interpretation is their ability to double think. Maintaining that everything in Wittgenstein’s work is literally nonsense and at the same time giving sometimes deeply technical explanations and interpretations, for example in this case about the subtle differences between vorstellen and darstellen or Sachlage and Sachverhalt (For some reason he prefers the Ogden translation, by the way.)
We learn “the pictorial form is parasitic on our way of picturing with a picture“. (p. 41)
And: “Wittgenstein’s aim is once more to bring out how our hold on a notion of logical form is parasitic on how we speak, on what it makes sense to say.” (p. 67)
“A complete analysis into elementary propositions consisting only of names... “ will not allow us to better understand logical form (this is what the naive reader might expect.) “... but by removing the temptation to imaging that there is anything to be understood in the first place.“ (p. 70f.) Now, if this was really Wittgenstein’s purpose he did not succeed in my case, but that might only show how stupid I am.
And I am not convinced that Wittgenstein “is ultimately concerned to claim that the very attempt to engage in [...] formalisation is an indication of deep confusion.“ (p. 109)
And in the final chapter, where we are supposed to learn Wittgenstein’s liberating word: “Wittgenstein seeks to change my whole way of viewing, my fundamental attitude toward philosophy: I am now to see the philosophical activity as essentially an attempt to make impossible demands on language and the world.” - Well maybe. But I cannot help thinking, that that would be rather thin as the essence of a work of first class magnitude.
But then, and I am not being sarcastic, maybe I am not clever enough to understand all arguments.
Case in point: “To paraphrase Tolstoy, one might say that for the Tractatus all significant sentences are alike, while every nonsense utterance is nonsensical in its own way.“
I have no clue, what he might want to say with this. The opposite sounds true, if trivial, but every nonsense utterance is nonsensical in its own way? Maybe one has to climb up the ladder of doublethink right up to the top, to make anything out of this.
Reading this book was not a waste of time, and I am quite serious, that I think it is possible that I just did not understand it. There are a couple of things that are very good, e.g. his treatment of the watch on the table. Or this: “The Tractatus does not and could not attempt to provide us with an external mark as of significance.” (p. 99) And I would like to discuss with him the question whether tautologies are true in “all possible worlds”. (He does not think so.)
Maybe, and this is just a guess, the whole everything-is-nonsense-attitude is just camouflage, because the current time seems to demand it. But more likely, to repeat, in order to get something of value from the book, I need to start taking lessons in doublethink. 5/10
It turns out dialectical has nothing to do with a Marxist view of things.
“To read the Tractatus dialectically, in my sense of the term, is to recognise that the successful characterisation of philosophy is its dismissal as Unsinn“. (p. 15)
There is, Ostrow argues “a dialectic’s purpose“ to be achieved, namely “to see the world rightly“.
So we are on familiar turf here. The whole of the Tractatus is nonsense, and somehow by reading it and ideally by having had the same ideas as Wittgenstein you come to realise that you better do not say what you cannot say anyway. Or something like that.
“It might then seem“, Ostrow says right in the introduction, “that we would best make the Tractatus’ point by stopping right here.“ (p. 14)
This is a useful hint and he even goes further saying “nothing ultimately compels one to read the Tractatus in the way that I maintain.“ (p. 18)
But, of course, what he really means is, it is the only way to read the book.
What is endlessly fascinating to me with philosophers belonging to the resolute school of Wittgenstein interpretation is their ability to double think. Maintaining that everything in Wittgenstein’s work is literally nonsense and at the same time giving sometimes deeply technical explanations and interpretations, for example in this case about the subtle differences between vorstellen and darstellen or Sachlage and Sachverhalt (For some reason he prefers the Ogden translation, by the way.)
We learn “the pictorial form is parasitic on our way of picturing with a picture“. (p. 41)
And: “Wittgenstein’s aim is once more to bring out how our hold on a notion of logical form is parasitic on how we speak, on what it makes sense to say.” (p. 67)
“A complete analysis into elementary propositions consisting only of names... “ will not allow us to better understand logical form (this is what the naive reader might expect.) “... but by removing the temptation to imaging that there is anything to be understood in the first place.“ (p. 70f.) Now, if this was really Wittgenstein’s purpose he did not succeed in my case, but that might only show how stupid I am.
And I am not convinced that Wittgenstein “is ultimately concerned to claim that the very attempt to engage in [...] formalisation is an indication of deep confusion.“ (p. 109)
And in the final chapter, where we are supposed to learn Wittgenstein’s liberating word: “Wittgenstein seeks to change my whole way of viewing, my fundamental attitude toward philosophy: I am now to see the philosophical activity as essentially an attempt to make impossible demands on language and the world.” - Well maybe. But I cannot help thinking, that that would be rather thin as the essence of a work of first class magnitude.
But then, and I am not being sarcastic, maybe I am not clever enough to understand all arguments.
Case in point: “To paraphrase Tolstoy, one might say that for the Tractatus all significant sentences are alike, while every nonsense utterance is nonsensical in its own way.“
I have no clue, what he might want to say with this. The opposite sounds true, if trivial, but every nonsense utterance is nonsensical in its own way? Maybe one has to climb up the ladder of doublethink right up to the top, to make anything out of this.
Reading this book was not a waste of time, and I am quite serious, that I think it is possible that I just did not understand it. There are a couple of things that are very good, e.g. his treatment of the watch on the table. Or this: “The Tractatus does not and could not attempt to provide us with an external mark as of significance.” (p. 99) And I would like to discuss with him the question whether tautologies are true in “all possible worlds”. (He does not think so.)
Maybe, and this is just a guess, the whole everything-is-nonsense-attitude is just camouflage, because the current time seems to demand it. But more likely, to repeat, in order to get something of value from the book, I need to start taking lessons in doublethink. 5/10
Displaying 1 of 1 review