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Discussing the beginning (through around 3.1) of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Mr. W. wrote that the world is made up of facts (as opposed to things) and that these facts can be analyzed into atomic facts, but then refused to give even one example to help us understand what the hell he's talking about, and so Wes and Mark argue about it per usual while Seth corrects our German pronunciation. The first 3/4 of this episode was recorded off-site from our regular equipment, making the audio quality relatively sucky. Enjoy!
For a clearer explanation of fact-based ontology, see this short introduction by Bertrand Russell to his lectures on logical atomism.
Our discussion of Wittgenstein continues in episode 8.
End song: "Facts for a Moment (What You Are to Me)," recorded in 1992 and released on the Mark Linsenmayer album Spanish Armada, Songs of Love and Related Neuroses.
Christopher Jonas says
October 28, 2009 at 12:01 amGuys,
I just discovered your site and thoroughly enjoyed your earnest and diligent examination of philosophical matters regrettable rarely sufficiently examined.
WARNING:Despite the rational, entertaining and illumination discussion in your podcst, I’d like to make some comments, however, that are not entirely flattering in regard to your treatment of the Tractatus, even though many of your points were quite reasonably and intelligently made.
As a preface let me say that I briefly dallied with philosophy as an undergraduate and graduate student (and likely would have continued further if I had come across Wittgenstein in time durin g the course of those studies). As it was, my academic interests were in psychology…and, in some sort of inevitable path leading from psychology and my youthful encounters with Piaget, thereafter to epistemology.
It has been several decades since my academic years, but during that time I carried my Investigations with me on business trips, on vacations and just had it sitting around in the usual places whenever I was inclined to sit myself down and read a page or two.
OK. I promise that this is not a wanton digression but I’d like you to know (for reasons that I hope will become clear below ) that my first encounter with the Tractatus was quite accidental while stumbling into the wrong classroom and finding a philosophy seminar on Wittgenstein. Now, I know that you folks are not likely to be kindly disposed to Piaget, but there is one book which you all should read, inaptly entitled “Structuralism”, which he put together in his later, already-famous years and which surveys the manner in mode in which the various sciences seem to all pursue a parallel means of articulating whatever wisdom they have thus far accumulated, and a book which also sketches out a rather aesthetically pleasing “circle” by means of the gamut of scientic endeavors and articulations all relate to each other.
I tell you this because, as someone with only a few basic philosohy courses, I was clearly woefully unprepared to sit down and read the Tractatus. Yet, because I had just spent months, and even years, on Piaget, and had encountered the interesting use to which he put the “theory of groups” in his Structuralism book, I found myself pretty much akin to an idiot savant or someone unwittingly “channeling” Wittgenstein from the very first moments of this Tractatus seminar.
Why? Well, from the very first words, “The world is all that is the case” and “The world is totality of facts, and not of things”, which seem to leave most readers with a glassy eyed, dear-in-the-headlights” look I y, unlike my more well-schooled and conspicuously Anglo-phile and often pompous seminar-mates, immediately and completely understood what he was getting at.
And, as part of my critique, the first thing to note about this bombasitc beginning of Wittgensteins’ is that it had to be done with a purpose and had to be telling us that by the term “world” he did not mean anything that we would ever have previously encountered and been expecting. As in a mathematical system he was alerting us to not slip into the easy, lazy and uncritical use of the word “world”, as I fear you guys have done, but to understand that here he was defining something anew. The world defined in terms of “fact” and facts defined in term of “the world”—
To fail to focus immediately upon this essential “re-definition” of these two terms and to, instead, simply going using them without coming to grips with these first two statements, leads to a series of hopeless misunderstandings and puzzlements with the entire later Tractatus and, indeed, goes so far as to contaminate our understanding even of the later Wittgenstein, as well.
So what was the magic secret I found in Paiget? Well, it was the simple fact that Wittgenstein was here telling us in no uncertain terms that we could not possibly productively understand the “world” in terms of the prevalent, colloquial, and ordinary “theory of sets”, as a mere collection or assemblage of mere “things”. Instead, W was invoking the “theory of groups”–(if you are not conversant with that mathematical notion and don’t wish to rely strictly on this stranger’s words, please just Google it).
What Wittgenstein is telling us is that “the world” is a “symmetric group” wherein the various members of the group are “facts”, and a simple, uninteresting “set” which is just an unstructured assemblage of ‘things”. I cannot give you all the wondrous and illuminating consequences of understanding the way we think and the way we speak in terms of “groups”, but will give you just one outstanding example. Hopefully, you will sense the significance and how this example helps us understand the brilliant madness that goes on in the Tractatus.
If we take a deck of cards, no matter how many….but, let’s just take an ordinary playing deck. That might be considered a simple “set”.
However if we take a “shuffle”, any shuffle, whether simply a shuffling of one card, or a few, or that which a dealer in Vegas might perform for us, we can then come to deal with ‘a group” of which the members are the countless ‘shuffles” which are possible. The ‘shuffles” constitute a group, much like do the integers with respect to the operation of “addition” and must as do the ‘rational numbers” with respect to the operation of “addition” and ‘multiplication”
Interestingly, we can deal alone with the “shuffles” (or transformations”) very productively as is done in much of modern physics, without concerning ourselves with the actual cards which are being shuffled. The laws and “form” of the group are determined, irrespective of these primary “objects” but by the “grammar” in accord with which the shuffling takes place.
The group of shuffles is characterized by the rule that the ‘operation of successive shuffling” will always give us yet another shuffle in the group. The “limits of this worlds” are quite nicely determined and bounded in this way, although infininite or countless in their possibilities. No matter which “shuffle”s in succession occur, the resultant “shuffle” is a member of the same group. Moreover, any “shuffle’ in the group in decomposable or understandable as the cumulative operation of a series of successive “shuffles’. Further, as can be seen in furhter examination of the properties of the group, for every shuffle (transformation) which is a member of the group, there is an “inverse” shuffle, such the operation of the two leads to an “identity’ element…..(for integers this is “zero”).
To digress for yet another moment, the relation in W’s thought at this stage of his life…and, indeed, in the popular notions of ‘self” and “reality” are very much structurally analogous and understandable in terms of the notion of ‘zero” and “infinity”,just as are W’s notion of the “eye” in relation to the visual field and the “horizon” at that visual field, but that related topic is perhaps something for discussion on another occasion.
Anyway, the point I’d like to make here is that when we are confronted with that “deck” of cards, the best way to make sense of it, or at least a dazzlingly elegant way to do so is to not attempt to get down to the “realism” of the description of each individual card.
It suffices to know that we do indeed have cards. It is the “shuffles” and their cohesion into a “group” with respect to the “operation” of successive application of shuffles (transformations) which allows us to make a wide range of interesting statements (indeed most of physics), and the “grammar” or rules of the mechanics of these “shuffles” is roughly parallel to those almost inscrutable “truth tables” of Wittgenstein’s and the “Form” which they provide and which determines the manner in which shuffles are possible, what might be the “limits of my world” and which of the various shuffles are either “True’ or ‘false” and just how the successive application of shuffles (even going down to “atomic facts” presumably of only one card being shuffled) continually succeeds in producing yet more interesting and illuminating “transformations” or “facts” which are all, by definition, aspects of the “world”.
The “world” is the ‘useful” concept here. Not the “realism” of the precise nature of the cards….any cards will due. Not a pre-occupation with the “hands” that do the ‘shuffling”, since any hands will do. But the “group” of shuffles which has a form and aesthetic of its own and, which because of that “form”, is productive and useful and worth concerning ourselves with.
This is a very rough, off the top of my head bit of opinion and after not having looked at the “theory of groups’ for many years, , and is not meant to be a conclusive argument in favor of my ‘thesis” but I only wish to share with you only a way in which I have come to possess an eerie, almost easy way of modeling the nature of Wittgenstein’s claims in the Tractatus.
And it all starts with the first two statements. “The world is all that is the case”, and “the world is totality of facts, and not of things’ which are defined at the outset and which we really, truly cannot ignore and take for granted as the kind of sloppy writing that other less philosophic minds would allow themselves.
Hope that this might start a bit of further discussion on this topic as well as on the rest of Wittgenstein. There surely is not enough such discussion to be found.
And your podcast is definitely a place for it to transpire. Thanks for making it such a place.
Sincerely,
Christopher Jonas
Westport, CT 06880
Francisco says
February 23, 2013 at 2:05 amwhy are you trying to model something that Wittgenstein himself detracted as a castle of cards, among other self derrogatory statements that it was in error, was dogmatic, etc, etc…(which it was from the very first page)? He was actually the first one to do so, another sign of genius, including the fact that himself AND Russel “forgot” that examples would have been kind of a good idea and they didn’t have one (he didn’t “refuse” to give one, what a ridiculuous account). Someone should write a Tractatus Ilogico Obsessicus”.
Ryan says
February 23, 2013 at 11:39 amBecause it continues to be a highly influential text even though Wittgenstein apparently did not succeed in deducing exactly the logical atomism of the world, the question remains what it is that he did perform. It’s quite a magnificent “house of cards” for what should be under your account more like outright gibberish.
Mark Linsenmayer says
October 28, 2009 at 12:41 amThanks, Chris. I definitely appreciate the consideration. I ran into the Piaget book at around age 19 and found it extremely thought-provoking, but have not looked back at it, so I think I’ll do so…
I’m also putting myself through some online physics lectures (Leonard Susskind… check youtube) that have been discussing nature as a closed system that can be documented by transformation rules in the way you’re discussing, so I see that, and what you say about Witt. essentially giving us some kind of set theory certainly accords with the way that Carnap’s thought evolved (see the next episode). I also like the cards analogy in that, yes, the facts are all related in ways that limit their possible relations (e.g., to continue with the physics talk, the relation of facts under Newtonian mechanics is meant to rule out some of the findings of quantum mechanics).
So yes, I suppose it’s uncharitable to interpret this talk of “world” and “facts” as an ontology instead of a methodological construct meant to provide a framework for science and hence for what is not science. Fair enough. On the other hand, I don’t WANT to be so dogmatic about the way I think the facts of the world insofar as I am aware of them fit together such that I’d rule out things like quantum mechanics or anything else at the edge of my comprehension, so I’m not entirely convinced that this non-ontology even works as a pragmatic device. If it amounts to what the logical positivists thought it did, then, well, I think Wes rips them down pretty well in ep. 8.
Christopher Jonas says
October 28, 2009 at 2:30 amMark,
Just want to add that I essentially left out the ‘punch line’ of my comment ..and that is that what Wittgenstein tells us in the first lines is that he’s takes a firm stance AGAINST set theoretical constructions in putting together his Tractatus. What he says is that “All that is the case” is a ‘GROUP” and “not a SET”.
The irony of much commentary on the Tractatus is that is seeks to interpret, subsume, mutilate the argument in terms of standard constructs external to the Tractatus…and that, in fact, the Tractatus, or should I say “Discussion of the Tractatus” is a a tuly dazzling and remarkable “language game” of the purest sort invented adhoc by Wittgenstein. If we are to play we must give the man the courtesy of adopting the rules with which that “game” is constructed. Wittgenstein clearly has the temperament and sensibility of a mathematicians and his ‘proof like” presentation in the Tractatus is only the most conpsicuous testimony to that fact. So, to play the game with him, we must acknowledge his definitions, his axioms at the outset of his proof…..That is not to say we can’t reject the whole thing. But it is to say that if we are to be critics of it in a fair or reasonable or useful sense then we must acknowledge his definitions and then seek to discern whether he has proceeded skillfully or elegantly or cogently within the bounds.
If we don’t allow him his axioms, then we are refusing to play coherently and fairly within the language game of Tractatus discussion.
Chris
Neil Bearden says
July 13, 2011 at 12:03 amThe Tractatus is poetry — what is says, to me, is transcendental. And it’s best spoken, not read:
http://youtu.be/pHLpPwZR8Nc
Barry says
December 9, 2011 at 9:02 amPeople seem more concerned about what the atomic facts are when they read Wittgenstein, then they are then about the monads or substance when they read Liebnitz, although the arguments for both are similar. Existence proofs without explicit demonstration are common in mathematics.
Mark Linsenmayer says
December 9, 2011 at 10:01 amIn mathematics, yes, but metaphysics is about actual things, which makes us want to picture those things, whether they be quarks or monads (I think we were pretty worried about what these monads were on that episode ourselves) or atomic facts. But I think you’re right that we are willing to accept a more abstract, purposefully approximate picture when it comes to other types of basic units; since a fact seems like it could be expressed linguistically, we just want him to state one of these facts.
Daniel Horne says
December 9, 2011 at 11:58 amIt’s not clear to me that one can ostensively point to an atomic fact. To be fair to Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russell wrote a great deal about his conception of “atomic facts,” and stated that no such example could be provided of an ultimate “simple”, because it was beyond human capacity:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logical-atomism/#4.2
Perhaps both Russell and Wittgenstein meant for atomic facts to be a kind of theoretical verbal construct, like, say electrons.
I’m not sure it’s not a serious flaw in the Tractatus that it failed to provide an example of an atomic fact, as I’m not sure that the nature or qualities of atomics facts is essential to the thesis.
I was kind of obsessed with trying to get to the bottom of atomic facts as well. Reading Russell on atomic facts may shed insight, as I’m not sure Russell and W. disagreed on the nature of atomic facts as such.
Barry says
December 12, 2011 at 11:56 amThanks for the replies and the information.
My issue was that, having studied the Tractatus, I was familiar with this issue and had a taste of how unfruitful such a search is. And my favorite part of the Tractatus is the last third. So, I was a little disappointed that such a large chunk of the conversation was focused on that. It was still very interesting and I enjoyed listening. Conversations about the Tractatus are rare.
But, I’m still more sympathetic to atomic facts then most. I think most people would acknowledge that, in a given domain of discourse, there should be something like atomic facts. If you are speaking factually, then what you are saying must represent a possible reality to have a sense. Otherwise, analysis would reveal that you weren’t talking about anything. If it is possible to truly understand the world, then that understanding will be composed of such facts or you aren’t talking about the world. But these facts would come from science, not philosophy. That is my interpretation.
And, btw, the atomic fact isn’t a regular sentence like “Red Patch Here.” because an atomic fact is not true or false. It either exists or it doesn’t. If it exists, then the elementary proposition that pictures it is true. So the atomic fact isn’t “Red Patch Here.” It is the actual situation of the red patch being here.
“If we try to analyze any given propositions we shall find in general that they are logical sums, products or other truthfunctions of simpler propositions. But our analysis, if carried far enough, must come to the point where Jt reaches propositional forms which are not themselves composed of simpler propositional forms. We must eventually reach the ultimate connection of the terms, the immediate connection which cannot be broken without destroying the propositional form as such, The propositions which represent this ultimate connexion of terms I call, after B. Russell, atomic propositions”
-Wittgenstein. Some remarks on Logical Form.
http://www.geocities.jp/mickindex/wittgenstein/witt_SRoLF_en.html
Daniel Horne says
December 12, 2011 at 2:35 pmHi Barry,
Thanks! I mostly agree with you, with some reservations I’ll describe below. It just feels like we ought to be able to capture atomic facts linguistically. But:
(1) perhaps you’re right; had I better training in mathematics, which is where Wittgenstein and Russell were coming from, I wouldn’t find this problematic, and
(2) anyway, perhaps my frustration with the seemingly ineffable nature of “atomic facts” doesn’t critique W.’s argument, but rather means I’m on the verge of grasping it(?)
That is to say, W. argues that the subject/predicate structure of ordinary language limits our ability to describe an atomic fact. As a result, we are only able to talk around atomic facts by describing their relational characteristics to other atomic facts. (That’s what I was getting at when I was reaching for the “electrons” metaphor above.) I’m thinking in particular about W.’s comments, which follow the quote you provided above:
Thus, an arbitrary symbol is the best we can do to represent an atomic fact? To the extent I’m less willing to let W. off by stating that descriptions are common in mathematics, I’d state that (1) W. never creates an existence proof for atomic facts, but merely seems to postulate them, and (2) his later comments in Logical Form imply that a correct analysis of atomic facts can only be determined a posteriori. This would imply he’s talking about something physically analyzable, and not merely mathematical, no?
I’ll concede I’m a bit out of my depth here, so I welcome correction from you or anyone else!
Francisco says
February 23, 2013 at 1:47 pmit is puzzling, incomprehensible really, that Wittgenstein would attribute to Russel the term atomic propositions! It would not be inconceivable that the very foundation of the Tractatus would have been “borrowed” from Russel , even though highly unlikely. Such statement from Wittgenstein, however, can only give origin to shocking disbelief. In a letter to Wittgenstein on 8-13-1919, one finds, among a series of queries, in relation to the Tractatus, which he had just read (for the first two times), the following:”What is the difference between fact and atomic fact?” A question that actually exposes the basic flaw of the Tractus at its very unveiling. A compounding, much less important, and very possibly attributed to disfiguring translation, one reads the expression “atomic propositions”. knowngly, Wittgenstein insisted that the quality of atomic was attributable to facts, while propositions could somewhat relatedly be qualified as elementary.
Francisco says
February 23, 2013 at 2:54 pmFollowing up on my comment below, it just dawns on me that Witgenstein’s “embarassement” with the paper in reference, as reported by Barry, may be more than justified. Wittgenstein was a very disgurbed man at time, I mean, more than he was for the most, or for his entire life. Also, he acknowledged, again specially in those times, a strong feeling of vanity and dogmatism, dramatically expressed in his Preface to the Tractatus.
Barry says
December 14, 2011 at 11:43 amI wouldn’t say he merely postulates them. He thought they must exist because the world is intelligible . I believe he says, somewhere in the Tractatus, that they are required in order for there to be a sense and this is because he thought that all meaningful language could theoretically be analyzed truth functionally. Everything we say that isn’t nonsense is a disguised truth function of something simpler. IF that were true, then atomic facts are required. (But most people probably feel that this is absurd now. Truth functional logic doesn’t even include quantificational logic- although Wittgenstein attempted to accomplish that) He is also assuming that the world is logical or understandable (to god?).
G. Anscombe has an excellent chapter on elementary propositions in her Intro to the Tractatus where she gives some of the properties of the elementary propositions and explains why Wittg thought they must have those properties.
I didn’t mean to imply that Wittgenstein was doing mathematics. I was only pointing out that sometimes it isn’t necessary to exhibit something in order to show that it must exist. For example, you can prove that there are infinitely many primes or there is at least one prime larger than a million without exhibiting it. I don’t see why that shouldn’t be the case is metaphysics too. I admit it is unsatisfying though. It the very least, it should be possible to state the nature of the thing.
Because Witt. says, towards the end of the Tractatus, that meaningful language is scientific, the atomic facts should probably be simple observable relations in the world that most people would accept or perhaps statements about physics. But Witt. didn’t know what facts constituted knowledge. That’s epistemology. His expertise was logic.
Daniel Horne says
December 14, 2011 at 2:07 pmThanks, Barry, I will check out the Anscombe book!
Barry says
December 12, 2011 at 12:12 pmSomeone has probably already mentioned this, but just in case no one has, Wittgenstein explains his idea of the nature of atomic facts in Some Remarks on Logical Form. But, he was embarrassed by this paper and it lead to his later disavowal of atomic facts and the Tractatus.
http://www.geocities.jp/mickindex/wittgenstein/witt_SRoLF_en.html
Tony Gilkerson says
December 22, 2012 at 3:11 pmThis is a great podcast overall but I did not get much from #7 but no fault to you guys I blame Witgenstein. BTW, the sound quality was very bad I hope that gets better. We will see, I am working my way to current.
Mark Linsenmayer says
December 23, 2012 at 12:54 pmRe the sound quality, yes, it was right after this that we figured out not to edit in lossy compression mode (mp3), where every time you save, the quality goes down.
Some few episodes are really textual analysis heavy, and are best appreciated if you’re into that and can delve a bit into the text yourself. For a clearer constructivist project sort of like the one Witt. describes, try our recent ep on Carnap.
Doug says
October 21, 2013 at 9:22 amLove you guys, but Seth please quit interrupting Wes!
Seth Paskin says
October 21, 2013 at 12:00 pmNo
Caleb G. says
August 14, 2016 at 12:37 amThe way ‘object’ was defined may have been inadequate, correct me if i am missing the forrest for the trees.
What i noticed was objects were defined as (i think) essentially ‘that which guarantees the world is not constantly flowing and unchangeable’ but the entirety of that which exists is constantly changing.
All things are essentially energy, if all the enegy is pumped out of a system, it ceases to exist, but this never happens because of a ubiquitous background energy dubbed ‘zero point energy’ or ‘quantum fluctuations’ (which gives rise to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle) i.e. motion.
Between the three of you, well educated that you all are, i presume at least one of you if not all of you are aware of what i stated above, so could someone clarify where i am missing the point?
I am by no stretch of the imagination an expert in physics or philosophy, just relaying what i think i understand.
John Zorko says
November 27, 2016 at 6:51 pmHello, all …
If PEL ever does a podcast on Goodman (Ways Of Worldmaking, Languages Of Art), that’d be so cool, in my view at least. I’m fascinated by intersections of different fields like this 🙂
Regards,
John
Mark Linsenmayer says
June 20, 2017 at 8:31 amhttp://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2010/10/31/episode-28-nelson-goodman-on-art-as-epistemology/
Laura Lasworth says
June 20, 2017 at 8:25 amIs what is happening to Agent Cooper in the new season of Twin Peaks 2017 a representation of what you guys are talking about?
Matthew says
July 8, 2017 at 12:27 amGreat podcast, and a great opening to further discussion. What a difficult philosopher to discern.
I think that the “level of thought” which Wittgenstein refers, e.g. whether we are talking about strings, quarks, molecules, strands of carpet, the carpet of a house, a house, a suburb, etc. is just a list of descriptions of all of the things contained in the set of properties that makes that thing–that thing. Those “things” in the world Wittgenstein is talking about take a basic form, which is arbitrary.
What makes a book a book? We take it for granted that we know what a book is because of common definitions, and without definitions, we can’t say what anything is.
I think there is only a finite list of properties that describe an object but it is possible there is an infinite number of them.
Once you know how to define the object then you can create relations between objects (atomic facts).
I don’t know if that’s what Wittgenstein meant but that’s how I see it.
I’m more confused now than before I listened to this.
P.S. Wes’s laugh cracks me up.