on placing wittgenstein in history southern journal of philosophy

7/27/2019 On Placing Wittgenstein in History Southern Journal of Philosophy

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SOUTHERN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY WINTER, 1973

ON PLACING WITTGENSTEIN IN HISTORYS. K. Wertz

Texas Christian UniversityIntroduction

I. In recent years ph ilosophers and historians of philosophy alike have begun t o assessLudwig Wittgensteins place in history. Among these scholars, Stephen Toulmin hasoffered the most provocative and comprehensive study. His conclusions and theirarguments are, I think, significant enough to warrant an appraisal. Professor Toulmin, inhis usual way, has put forth attractive and forceful theses on W ittgenstein which are inneed of review because it seems that they have become uncritically accepted by manystudents of W ittgenstein.Toulmin suggests tha t since most of the posthumous opus, class notes, and letters havebeen published and since twenty years have passed since Wittgensteins death , it is time toplace W ittgenstein historically in terms of bot h prior and contemporary influences and todraw an informed picture of the man and his work. I shall not concern myself withToulmins account of Contemporary influences, such as the Buhlers. One of the things Iwill be concerned with is Toulmins suggestion that the underscoring and illuminatinginfluences on Wittgenstein were Kant and Schopenhauer. He further argues that the factthat these influences have been ignored in favor of Russell (and possibly Moore) has ledto undue com plication and distortion o f the development of the mans thought. His claimis that historically we should not think Hume-Russell-Wittgenstein-Austin, but ratherKant-Schopenhauer-Wittgenstein-Strawson. In consequence, Toulmin draws fivenegative conclusions or theses, which he claims are controversial, about Wittgenstein.These are: (1) Wittgenstein was never a positivist; (2) He was never deeply concerned w ithepistemology; (3) He was not a linguistic philosopher; (4) There were not twoWittgensteins, having different philosophical questions and concerns-the autho r of theTractatus and the author of the Investigations; ( 5 ) There were not even two distinctWittgensteins-one the technical philosopher and the other the thinker. I shall discusseach of these theses in turn , and I shall begin w ith Toulmins assertion that the formativeinfluence on the shape of Wittgensteins thinking was the Kantian critical tradition .

The Kant-Schopenhauer HypothesisII . According to Toulmin, Kants conception of the tasks of philosophy was tha t of i)exploring the scope-the intrinsic limits-of the reason; and ii) demonstrating theconsequences of our irrepressible tendency to run up against.. . hose unavoidablelimits (62). Schopenhauer, he says, restated Kants questions about the pure reason intoquestions about representation. And Wittgenstein, in turn, restated those questions onceagain into questions about language. This statement of the tasks of critical philosophyS. K . Wertz is an assistant professor of philoso phy a t Te xas Christian U niversity, Fo rt Worth, and i scurrent ly the Se cr et ap Deasurer of the North Texas Philosophical Association. He received his B.A.

and M.A. f r om TCU, and his B . D . f r om the Universiry of Oklohoma where he was a KingfisherCollege Fellow. His most recent publications have appeared in such journals as The New Scholasticism,The Personalist, Southwestern Journal of Philosophy, and the Journal of the History of Ideas. Hismain interests lie in the history ofphilosophy and the philosophies ofhistory, kmgwge, and emotion.337


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SOUTHERN JOURN AL OF PHILOSOPHY WINTER, 1973seems fair enough, and we may want to concede its fairness to Wittgenstein as we11.2Unfortunately, however, t h s is the most impressive contextual corroboration thatTou lmin gives. Will it survive a rest atement o f Toulmins parallel sta tem ents? What if wewere to restate the central question of the critical philosophy in the familiar form: Whatmust reality be like for our experience to be what it is? Indeed, we can also restate theTractatus que stion : What must language be like for it t o be a tru e or false sign of affairs inthe world? The Kantian question would be HOW s an ideal language possible? whereasthe Tractatus begins as if this q uestio n was already answered. Th at Toulmins parallel hassurvived restatement is not negligible, but before establishing merit, lets look for othersimilarities and bits of corrobo ration in the text s.

A broad analogy is at once apparent in the conclusions of Kants metaphysics andWittgensteins Tractafus. Kant ended up with a noumenal realm which cannot beexperienced though it must be posited. Wittgenstein is left with the mystical whichcannot be spoken of but only shown. For Kant this is ultimate reality which determinesthe content of phenomena both at the subject-pole and at the object-pole. ForWittgenstein, it comprises all the nonsense things that language canno t picture likereligion, ethics, art, and last but not least Principia Mafhernatica. Kantian regulatorycategories could be compared to Wittgensteins laws of logic-procedura l rules which giveour propositions working operation. Neither is a fact of the world. Neither is true norfalse. In fact, we can go on by saying that Kant thought he could derive the categories ofthe understanding from transcenden tal if not form al logic. The world for Ka nt is a realworld b ut it is a world of thoug ht-objects (i.e., con stituted ones). Is this true forWittgenstein in the Tractatus? It can be argued that Wittgenstein did not take theegocentric predicament so seriously as to make an ontology of i t .3 But another apparen tparallel suggests itself.

In Kant, the noumenal subject (the I) interacts with the noumenal object toconstitute the phenomenal world, but it is not part of the phenomenal world itself. Thenoumenal I is not an object of experience. In the earlier works of Wittgenstein (such asthe Notebooks),he frequently speaks of the I as no t being a part o f the w orld. Again, inth e Investigations he comm ents tha t the eye is no t part of its own visual field, it is whatmakes the visual field possible. (This obviously suggests a category and a Kantiansounding one at that.) What about the other suggested parallels? Do they, too, apply toth e Investigations? Many seem to break down at this point. We may accept the variousrules of the respective language-games as guides and regulators, though here they are notso finalized as Kants categories or Wittgensteins own earlier laws of logic. The mosttelling parallel, however, does persist in both Wittgensteins major books to Kant: that ofthe consequences of running ou r thin king int o the antinom ies or into nonsense by tryingto apply the categories to the noumena or ignoring the limits (or various rules) ofmeaningful language.What can be said for the claim about Schopenhauers influence? More substantialreasoning is in th e o ffing here. K ant had said tha t all we can say of the noumena is that i tis ultimately responsible for our experience and that it thus comes to explain ourcommon world. Other than that, only negative claims can be made about it. We cannotsay (know) mo re because we do no t ex perience it. This is all that metaphysics can do. ButSchopenhauer goes further than this to claim tha t th e nature of that which lies beyon d iswill. Schopenhauers argument for getting to this metaphysical commitment can besimply stated : The world is m y idea; m y idea is due to iny will; therefore, the world is a

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SOUTHERN JOURNA L OF PHILOSOPHY WINTER, 1973representation or idea of will. Would Wittgenstein go along? Yes and no. On the topic ofwill in the Tractatus, Wittgenstein thought that the world was independent (i.e., nological connection) of ones will. To that extent, it is a transcendental along with themystical and the meaning of life. However, Wittgenstein repudiates this in the Invesri-gations ( u sec. 644), nd comes closer to Schopenhauers statement that the world is(conditioned by) my will and is bad because of it.4The most striking similarities Wittgenstein shows to Schopenhauer, apart from thecommon elements of the critical philosophy which can be covered in Kant, come fromSchopenhauers ethics: the will is the bearer of the ethical (Tractatus, 6.423). In thosepassages which the good positivists must have blushed to read, Wittgenstein speaks indecidedly Schopenhauerian terms abou t happiness as being the absence of desire and thecultivation of the capacity for calm acceptance. In short, when questions of value comeup, Wittgenstein sounds very much like Schopenhauer. The Schopenhauer half of theKan tSchopenhauer hypothesis seems true enough t o the evidence-both internally andexternally, but the Kant half of the hypothesis remains somewhat dubious and nebulous.So far contex tual parallels seem to be about the only influence claims that can be madewith Kant (u Engel, nl). A quick look at the Tractatus reveals only one reference to Kant(and it is a subsidiary one, 6.361 1 l), and there are none in the Investigations, so super-ficially at least, this part of the claim needs more careful substan tiation , for the support isnot overtly there.Now after all of this running barefoot through the texts, one must ask what tre-mendous value there is in thinking of Wittgenstein in the critical tradition. The answermust at this po int remain guarded, although some benefits are possible. First, if we accep tthat Wittgenstein was asking a critical question, it does enable us to see him asking it inboth the Tractatus and the Investigations. What is language like? and What happens ifwe ignore our answ er? However, this benefit is very general and has extremely limiteduse, for the answers to each of these questions vary considerably according to which bookone discusses. And second, one can see where Wittgenstein got the stock for his personalmystical remarks. The rest of the con textua l scrambling, frankly, was enlightening neitherto W ittgenstein nor to the critical tradition. W hy, then, should we be guarded in accep tingthe two interpretative principles of Toulmin? For t h i s reason only: it is entirely possibleand even common to pose the two questions mentioned above as central to the inter-pretation of the Tractatus and the Investigations without their being part of the criticaltradition. Moreover, the overwhelming majority o f philosophers and historians ofphilosophy have been reading Wittgensteins mystical remarks as Schopenhauerian foryears without the help of thinking of him within that tradition.5 But guarded andskeptical as we are, we have yet more tests to put to the Kant-Schopenhauer hypothesis(hereafter, the K S hypothesis) before reaching a conclusion.

Wittgensteinwasnever a positivist.III, Turning t o our five promised controversial conclusions, lets put Toulmins K-Shypothesis to a test. We can see whether our accep tance of this hypothesis makes a

sizable difference in our assessment of Toulmins conc lusions. Toulmins first thesis orconclusion is that (1) Wittgenstein was never a positivist. One can safely, but trivially, saythat (1) does follow from the K S hypothesis. However, what one is committed to inaccepting this first conclusion is not clear-the seman tics surrounding, the technical term339


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SOUTHERN JOURNA L OF PHILOSOPHY WINTER, 1973positivism need t o be cleared up. Som e of th e associations and c onn otatio ns apply tothe argu ment, and others do not. Let us briefly sort these ou t.

The first argument needing careful consideration is the one which attributes ananti-metaphysical viewpoint to Wittgenstein on the premise that positivism is an anti-metaphysical position. Even with the necessary intermed iate premise that one can find inWittgensteins thought positivistic strands, it does not follow that Wittgenstein wasbasically anti-metaphysics. The counter-argument which is used to support this reply isthat he may have been anti-metaphysics in the sense that Kant was; meaning,speculative m etaphysics-the kind which Kant thoug ht was in need of reform in theeighteenth century. David Pears in his book, Ludwig Wittgenstein, has suggested such aninterpretation, and in seizing upon this idea with Wittgenstein, has argued to the con-clusion: So critical philosophy [th e mo dern fo rm ] has no t really changed the subject.6Toulmin would concur and he further points out (60) that about all that Wittgensteinme ant b y metaphysics is suggested in th e Zettel: it [metaphysics] obliterates thedistinction between factual and conceptual investigation^."^ Translated into th e Kantianidiom, that would probably mean that metaphysics consists of synthetic a priori state-ments. Just what else is suggested is a moot question. There is no general context for thisremark and it surely does not contain its own implications. Did Wittgenstein think thatthere were synthetic a priori statements? I am skeptical of Toulmins suggestion that weinterpret this statement as an approval or at least as something other than a con-demnation of metaphysics. That remark by itself is not sufficient to establish the pointToulmin and Pears are trying t o m ake, tha t certain kind s of metaphysical statem ents forWittgenstein were genuine-the one s th at critical philosophy consists of. Even so, the factthat Wittgenstein did not speak negatively in the Zettel remark does not imply that hethought positively of metaphysics.

I am do ubtf ul here, too, whether this issue can be settled, because W ittgenstein saysso very little directly on m etaphysics; there are only a few remarks in th e T ractatus and inthe Investigations. And his indirect statements or his own instances on anything, in-cluding metaphysics, are not to be trus ted, because of h s aphor istic style. So there is no tmuch to go on. The most revealing comment reflecting Wittgensteins attitude towardmetaphysics is in section 116 of t he Investigations: When philosophe rs use a word-knowledge, being, object, I, , proposition, name-and try t o grasp the essence ofthe thing, one m ust always ask on eself is th e word ever actually used in this way in thelanguage-game which is its original home?-What we do is to bring word s back fr om theirmetaphysical to their everyday use (48e). F or the wo rd philosophers, one can easilysubstitute metaphysicians in this passage with out loss or change of meaning.And in the Tractatus (6.53): whenever someone else wanted to say somethingmetaphysical, . . [one should] demonstrate to him that he had failed to give a meaningto certain signs in his propositions. Although it would not be satisfying to the otherperson-he would no t have the feeling th at we were teaching him philosophy-thismetho d would be the only strictly correct one (151). In these tw o examples, it is fairlyclear that he is speaking of metaphysics in a speculative sense rather than in a reform,critical sense. Wittgenstein often uses philosophy in this former sense. One place whereit is not, and which supports my skepticism of Pears and Toulmins conclusion, is in thesame Zettel section (458) discussed above. This time, let me quote the entire section:Philosophical investigations: conceptual investigations. The essential thing aboutmetaphysics: it ob literates the distinction betwe en factual and concep tual investigations.

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SOUTHERN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY WINTER, 1973In other words, philosophical investigations are different from metaphysical ones. HereWittgensteins anti-metaphysics would differ from the logical positivists in that theythought that what was talked about did not exist; whereas he does not say anythingabout what they refer t o , but how they did the referring-only about their grammar orlack of it.8This is obviously not the whole story for Wittgenstein does, in fact, make meta-physical pronouncements; for example, There is no such thing as the subject that thinksor entertains ideas (Tractatus, 5.631). However, a positivistic reply is possible here, inthat a remark like this one is not really philosophy at all; it is just a form of poetry w hichhas no cognitive content or significance. Nonetheless, Pears and Toulmin are not com-pletely without support for their interpretation. Wittgenstein does sometimes use theword philosophy in a way that suggests a Kantian critical meaning (as does the Zettelsection which we discussed earlier): The book deals with the problems of philosophy ,and shows, I believe, tha t the reason why these problems are posed is tha t the logic of ourlanguage is misunderstood (Tractatus, Authors Preface). (Perhaps for better examples,see the Notebooks, 28e, and the Tractatus, 4.1 12.) So, where do we come out on thisissue? I think that the textual evidence negates the Pears-Toulmin interpretation. As longas claims like these about influence remain general they sound fine; but once we try tosupport them with textual evidence, they begin to slip away from us and are no longer asattractive as they first appeared. Be that as it may, more than an anti-metaphysicalposture is implied by (1).There are other obvious tenets of logical positivism besides its anti-metaphysicaldoctrine. Since the debate is so common in the literature, I need not repeat the detailshere. Wittgenstein shares (and influenced) the positivist view, especially that of MorrisSchlick, that philosophy is an activity and not a body of information or propositions.Also, the position that mathematical and logical statements are tautologies and hencevoid of empirical significance, and the theory that the meaning of a proposition is iden-tical with its truth-conditions are both found in the Tractatus. Perhaps even more strandsare to be found: the verification principle, the Tractatus theory of language entailing ascientism, and so on. On one hand, Wittgenstein was a positivist in the sense tha t he wascommitted to those views. On the other hand, as A. J. Ayer reports in his EditorsIntroduction of LogicalPositivism:

. . . here is a hint of mysticism in the Tractatus which some members of the[Vienna] Circle, especially Neurath, found disquieting; but as a whole theyaccepted it, and it stood out as the most powerful and exciting, though notindeed th e most lucid, exposition of their point of view. Wittgenstein did notofficially adhere to the Circle but he maintained close personal relations atleast with Schlick and Waismann who he continued t o influence even after hisdeparture fo r Cambridge in 1929.9Whatever may be the case on this issue, it seems that one thing remains true. As JustusHartnack succinctly puts it: the fact remains that, without the Tractatus, withoutWittgensteins deep insight into the nature of logic and language, logical positivism wouldhave lacked the rational foundations and the rational force which it has undoubtedlypossessed. To a large extent the Tractatusgave logical positivism bo th its m aterial and its

34 1tools (56-57).


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SOUTHERN JOURNA L OF PHILOSOPHY WINTER, 1973Wittgenstein was no t concern ed with epistemology.

ZV. This claim ( 2 ) is not as controversial or bur den ed w ith sem antic difficulties as itis merely false. Furthermore, if what I have argued in section two is correct, then thisclaim is puzzling. Toulmins backing is essentially a restatement of ( I ) , that Wittgensteinwas not a positivist. Is the inference we are to draw fro m this that the positivists were theonly ones interested in epistemology? Nor do we generally draw the conclusion thatWittgenstein was interested in epistemology just because two of his more extendedexamples in the Investigations were on private language and the use of knowing orknowledge. These, I think , have been read for just what th ey are-examples of the newmetho d that for Wittgenstein was rather fully developed. It m ust be kep t in mind tha t thelast year and a half of Wittgensteins life was spent with an intense preoccupation withepistemological problems, especially with many problems which G . E. Moore hadform ulate d and answered; see Wittgensteins On Certainty (Uber Gewissheit).

But this claim appears even more peculiar when judged in the light of the K Shypothesis. Are we now to believe that critical philosophy was not really interested intheory of knowledge? If we are, then we may just as well say that Locke was not reallyconcerned with epistemology, since the Essay was written as a result of the need toinvestigate the limits of the understanding before proceeding with metaphysicalquestions. W hat nonsense this is! And, for the sake of rhetor ic, let me add : How are we tolocate Wittgenstein in a tradition which was very much con cerned with epistemology andsimultaneously deny that Wittgenstein had any such interest? It is in viewingWittgensteins language work as being in modern-day epistemological dress that the K-Shypothesis has most of its appeal.Thesis ( 2 ) seems to be questionable on other grounds. A brief look at the mysticalremarks in the Tractatus suggests a denial of ( 2 ) . Since mysticism is a claim o n o ur abilit yor inability to describe reality, then Wittgensteins mystical remarks entail positionalstatements on the knowability of reality by way of descriptions. In other words, eventhough Wittgensteins conclusions may not be characterized as epistemological, they arederived from some premises which are unmistakably claims about knowing. Anotherpoint t o be observed is tha t Toulmin draws a very sharp distinction between language andknowledge in w h c h he wants to argue that Wittgenstein was concern ed with the limits oflanguage rather than knowledge, which was Russells concern. That is, Wittgenstein was atranscendental philosopher. And Tou lmin suggests that h e was som ehow examininglanguage in such a way as not to learn, discover, or come to know something from hisexam ination. Aside fro m th e absu rdity of this consequence of Toulmins argum ent, itappears to be inco mpa tible with his third thesis.

Wittgenstein w a s n o t a linguistic philosopher.V. This claim (3 ) really seems to be in conflict with the previous one, because if

Wittgenstein was not an epistemologist, then surely he was a linguistic philosopher. Thetruly amazing aspect of this tlaim is that now Toulmin wants to argue back to the K Shypo thesis to s how that Wittgenstein did not consider language to be th e end-all inquiry.I do no t thin k we can allow Toulm in to argue b ot h ways. We might state Wittgensteinsmain concern as seeing how language could bridge thought and the world as Toulminsuggests, althoug h I d o no t think this is a particularly ad equate statem ent of the purpose

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SOUTHERN JOURNA L OF PHILOSOPHY WINTER, 1973occurred in him at that very moment, a struggle by which he tried to pene-trate from darkness to light under an intense and painful strain, which waseven visible on his most expressive face. When finally, som etim es after aprolonged arduous effort, his answer came forth, his statement stood beforeus like a newly create d piece of a rt or a divine reve1ation.l

In other words, the historical evaluation of his works should in part be guided by thepersonal life and manner of the man. For example, the Tractatus remarks were onespro duc ed by such e ffo rt and struggle that Carnap describes. Th is is also th e underlyingcrucial assumption of Toulmins last two theses to which we now turn.

Th ere were not two Wittgensteins.VI. This general viewpoint involves the last two of Toulmins conclusions: (4) TheTractatus and the Investigations have the same subject-matter-there was no earlier and

later Wittgenstein, and ( 5 ) Wittgenstein the thinker and Wittgenstein the philosopherwere one and the same. In (4) he K-S hypothesis once again comes into play. Toulminmeans that Wittgenstein was asking the same question in both books, and he furtherclaims it to be a questio n derived fro m the critical philosophy. Perhaps tha t is so, but I donot think we need the K-S hypothesis to make us believe in the unity of Wittgensteinsth0u ght.l There is a com mon place bu t disconcerting fact abo ut Wittgenstein scholar-ship. Positivists not too surprisingly overlooked the mystical remarks in the Tractatus.Yet theologically oriented scholars make a great deal of these very same remarks.14Ordinary language philosophers have been quite eager to note the extraordinary dif-ferences between t he two b ooks, stressing that Wittgenstein repudiated those obnoxiou sideas ab ou t language having an elegant skel eton . Ideal language philosophers have stressedthat what Wittenstein did in the Tractatus was much m ore impo rtant and impressive thanwhat he did in the Investigations, mo re substantial and m ore rigorous.15 Up u ntil re-cently (and perhaps not even now) Wittgenstein scholarship was at the stage whereeveryone saw and took just what they pleased. In this stage, the differences in a manswork always appear m ore striking th an th e un ity. Now that the op us is nearing comp letepublication and enough ti me has passed for an historical perspective to be possible, theunit y (i.e., linguistic and/ or epistemological concerns) show s thr ou gh . Whether the un ityof the project and method or the difference of views is stressed is not such a crucialma tter. Either way, the direction in which the so lutions to the philosophical pro blems didmove is remarkable.With his last conclusion ( 5 ) , Toulmin is bringing us back to the K-S hypothesis. Andit is here that the hypothesis is most crucial and illuminating historically. He is arguingthat part of Wittgensteins work , the technical logical and linguistic p art , was not th e sumtotal of his serious contribution. The part which is overlooked as a serious underlyingcontribution has been the ethical a nd mystical passages. The direction in which Toulmintakes his interpretation, though, is different from that of the theologically orientedscholars. In fact, Toulmin labels his interpretation of Wittgenstein as within Post-Kantian Existentialism. What is distinctively new in Toulmins acco un t is th e interpre -tation he makes of the ethical as a unifying connection between the man and his work.Generally we are left with th e sort of inte rpre tation which Pears gives of ethic s inWittgensteins th ough t. Tw o p oints, he says, can be made abo ut his Schopen hauerian lineof thought: 34 4


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SOUTHERN JOURNALOF PHILOSOPHY WINTER, 1973First, whatever the exact positive analogy he saw between philosophy andethics, it is obv ious that he did not th ink that a philosophical investigation oflanguage would lead to any conclusions in ethics. Second, though he likeKant wished to keep ethics safe from the encroachments of science, there is astriking difference between their ethical views. Kant tried to establish thatcertain ethical theses, which can be applied to ordinary human life andaction, are substantial necessary truths . This kind of solution was no t open toWittgenstein. Nor was it possible for him to treat value judgments as factualpropositions or as ordinary tautologies. So he gave them the transcendentaltreatment which he gave solipsism and other metaphysical theories. He in-sisted tha t they must have the kind of necessity which can scarcely be accom-modated in his system, and so he priced his ethical theory out of this world.(92)

We can think of the last statement in two d ifferent ways: one, here ends the K Shypothesis, or two, this is a beginning of a new possible interpretation which iscompatible with the K S hypothesis, as an extension of it.Toulmin w ants to interpret the ethical and mystical passages as pointing over to thenoumenal realm in the Tractatus, o that which we could not speak of but apparently wemight not show either without sometimes making non-sense noises in its direction. Thisis how the limits are discovered. This is th e ethical realm, and Kierkegaards influence isto be recorded here. Both Toulmin (63) and Pears (187) have noted this autonomousaspect of W ittgenstein. However, Toulmin adds (63) Waismanns report of a conversationin which he spoke with genuine respect for M artin Heidegger and his analyses of Sein andAngst. So the possible inclusion of Heidegger, especially his later thought, becomes re-vealing at this point.16 Heidegger would agree with Wittgensteins statement in theNotebooks: Words are probes; some reach very deep; some only to a little depth (39e).Undoubtedly, part of what is meant by depth here is the personal connotation ormeaning that words have for their users. Whether or not one agrees with this particularaspect of interpreting ( 5 ) , one thing seems clear. More employment of Toulminsargument in ( 5 ) is needed in order to give a more complete view or connection betweenthe man and his work. However, it must be used with caution, for it is not without itsproblems.The realm of the unsayable is what Toulmin and o thers are mainly capitalizing on inmaking the Post-Kantian existential interpretation. Hartnacks argument (54) can be usedas a serious objection to it. The argum ent runs som ething like this.1.2.

3.4.5 .6.7.

The unsayable is the unthinkable.Wittgenstein (and others) think that the unthinkable can exist.By think and unthinkable Wittgenstein means more than som ething beingpsychologically possible or impossible.He means logically possible or impossible. (The psychological aspect of think-ing has no connection with meaning-tmthconditions do.)Premise 2 in the above argument is false: it makes no sense to say that some-thing w hich is logically impossible to th ink nevertheless exists.To say that x is logically impossible is to say tha t one does not know what x is.In other words, what is know n can also be logically expressed.From this (1-6) it follows that the thesis that the inexpressible or the unsayableexists is absurd . 345


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SOUTHERN JOURN AL OF PHILOSOPHY WINTER, 1973So the Post-Kantian existential interpretation constructed on the basis of this premise,i.e., the inexpressible exists, is harboring or sheltering an inconsistency in W ittgensteinsthought, and from an inconsistency anything follows. So those interpreters who wish tofurther their enterprise must refu te this argum ent before safely going on.

One alternative whlch may avoid the above premise and its consequences is to drawthe distinction in (5) between the different phases or sides to Wittgensteins.writings asexamples of technical philosophy and those examples reflecting the thinker. Of the latterwe would include such remarks as Just dont pull the knot tight before being certainthat you have got hold of the right end, besides the ethical and mystical remarks. Infact, Toulmin can be viewed as using the very distinction he denied: For though, as aphilosopher, W ittgenstein was concerned to delimit the boundaries of language-i.e., ofwhat could literally be stated-his deeper ethical reason for drawing this boundary wasnot to confine men inside it; but rather to show that all the really important issues-about God and freedom , value and immortality-overlap the boundary and lie very largelyin the realm of the unsayable (63). One advantage in drawing the distinction in (5) andusing it here is that the relationship between philosophy and ethics is nebulous inWittgenstein. I would be inc lined to agree with Pears whom I quoted earlier as saying thatWittgenstein thought that a philosophical examination of language would not lead t o anyconclusions in ethics. Pears argues that they lie in the realm of the unsayable and not tha tthey overlap the boundary which Toulmin wants. If Pears is right, then this alternative Ihave suggested may not be open. And it would be if (5) is denied and Toulmin is right insaying that the really important issues do overlap the boundary or limit, and hencesayable in some sense. However, difficulties arise at this po int.Toulmin asserts that Wittgenstein attem pted to show that ethics-or all the reallyimportant issues-overlap the boundary of language and lie very largely in the realm ofthe unsayable. Several points should be no ted here:

A. Wittgenstein would probably reject the notion of overlapping the boundary oflanguage. He indicates tha t sharp boundaries are inherently necessary, and that the task ofphilosophy is to delimit these boundaries: Without philosophy thoughts are (language isalso implied here), as it were, cloudy and indistinct: its task is to m ake them clear and togive them sharp boundaries (4.1 12). Wittgenstein continues the logical progression:Everything that can be thought at al l can be thought clearly. Everything tha t can be pu tinto words can be put clearly (4.1 16). And finally: What we cannot speak about wemust pass over in silence (7). Based on this textual evidence from the Tractatus, it ishard to imagine Wittgenstein taking a position of ethics overlapping the boundaries, orassuming tha t they lie even very largely in the realm of the unsayable. Ethics lie outsideof the world (the limit of language) and therefore make propositions of ethics impossible.(Tractahrs 6 .42) There is no ethical overlap or partia l dwelling in the unsayable. Ethics iscompletely outside the realm of the sayable, and does not overlap the boundary oflanguage.B. Toulmins overlap idea might have been derived from the position thatWittgenstein took in his 1929 Lecture on Ethics. He says:

My whole tendency and I believe the tendency of all men who ever tried towrite or talk Ethics or Religion was to run against the boundaries of language.This running against the walls of our cage is perfectly, absolutelyhope l e s s . . . . Man has the urge to thrust against the limits oflanguage. . . .This thrust against the limits of language is ethics.34 6


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SOUTHERN OURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY WINTER, 1973This tendency which Wittgenstein discusses could have led Toulmin to assert thatlanguage was ardently attempting t o grasp the unsayable, to overlap it. But how can theoverlap be measured or even grasped? And how can Toulmin explain that this runningagainst the walls of our cage is perfectly, absolutely hopeless?

However, Toulmin would probably be willing to grant this point as he progresses tohis next argument. He states that Wittgenstein continued throughou t his philosophy toseek some alternative way of conveying what could not be stated. The inference is thatWittgenstein still realized that ethics is important, and attempted to convey it in somemanner other than language, which necessarily excluded propositions of ethics. One mustagree tha t Wittgenstein thought tha t ethics could be conveyed: There are, indeed, thingsthat cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mysti-cal. (6.522) So Wittgenstein views ethics as transcendental, as mystical abstractionswhich make themselves manifest. We must agree with Toulmin that Wittgenstein soughtan alternative way of conveying what could not be said. The argueable point lies inwhether or not Wittgensteins search represents a seriouscontribution t o the sum total ofhis work.Consider first Wittgensteins view of philosophy (trying to isolate him from anyethical tendencies at this point):4.11 3

4.1 14Philosophy sets limits to the m uch disputed sphere of natural science.It m ust set limits to what can be though t; and, in doing so, to what cannotbe thought. It must set limits to what cannot be thought by working out-wards through w hat can be thought.It will signify what cannot be said, by presenting clearly what can be said..1 15

It appears here that Wittgenstein shines a ray of hope upon philosophy signifying thatwhich cannot be said. But he shatters this hope near the end o f the Tractatus:The correct method in philosophy would be the following: to say nothingexcept what can be said , i.e. propositions of natural science-i.e. somethingthat has nothing t o w ith philosophy-and then, whenever someone elsewanted to way something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he hadfailed to give a meaning to certain signs in his propositions. Although it wouldnot be satisfying t o the other person-he would not have the feeling that wewere teaching him philosophy-this method would be the only strictly correctone. (6.53)

Textually, Wittgensteins search does not make a serious contribution to his works. Itappears from the Zhzctatus that Wittgenstein the philosopher aimed at delimiting theboundaries of language, and that Wittgenstein the thinker hoped for the manifestationof ethical propositions through some mystical process. No textual signs of unity areapparent.Secondly, Toulmin undou btedly reached many of his conclusions from several newsources, including part of a letter from Wittgenstein to Ficker in 1919:The books point [the Tractatus] s an ethical one. I once meant t o include inthe introduction a sentence which is not in fact there now but which I will

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SOUTHERN JOUR NAL O F PHILOSOPHY WINTER, 1973write out for y ou here, because it will perhaps be a key to th e work for you.What I meant to write then was this: My work consists of two parts: the onepresented here plus all that I have not writt en. And it is precisely this secondpart th at is the im por tant o ne. My bo ok draws limits to the ethical from theinside as it were, and I am convinced that this is the ONLY rigorous way ofdrawing these limits. In short, I believe that where many others tod ay are justgassing, I have managed in my book to put everything firmly into place bybeing silent about it. And for that reason, unless I am very much mistaken,the boo k will say a great deal tha t yo u yourself want t o say. Only perhapsyou w ont see that it is said in th e book.18

Thus Wittgenstein surprises us all by suggesting that the ethical point of the book, whichtextually is nonexistent, is actually the significant and most purposeful element in thebook. But does this solve any of our problems? Actually, it intensifies the mysteries ofthe Tractatus!In a ny event, what we are no w in the position t o see is tha t the ethical reflects thepersonal, an d this is the intermed iate premise we spoke of earlier at t he close of the lastsection (V) which reflects the underlying assumption of Toulmins portrait ofWittgenstein. Theses (4) and (5) can be true for him because he sees Wittgensteinsthought as having two sides: the philosophical and the ethical. However, the relationshipbetween them still remains a mystery . This scheme is one which m any others haverecently used, and as we have seen it has difficulties which must be dealt with.

ConclusionVZZ. Of our five newsworthy s tatem ents, the n, (1 ) and (4) do no t seem newsworthyafter all. Theses (2) and (3) are jointly exhaustive in which case Toulmin must pick at

least one, and (5) is interesting i n th at it p ut s Wittgenstein int o a fresh unified per-spective. If it is valuable, however, it is also costly in t ha t i t is not self-evident; we needthe K-S hypo thesis or something like it to arrive at (5) and its implications. Where else didthis hypothes is get us? Not far. There are after all half a do zen othe r influences tha t co uldhave been named. For instance, John Passmore in A Hundred Years of Philosophy,men tions tha t h e had once argued fo r a Jamesian influence strictly on th e basis of internalevidence when a former pupil of Wittgenstein told him that Wittgenstein frequentlyreferred to James in lectures, even making reference to the page number on oneoccasion.19 Due to this situation, I find myself in essential agreement with Passmoreshistorical assessment:

Like many ano ther a ma teur, he was interested in Schopenhau er; if there issometimes a Kantian flavour in his w ork, th at is perhap s the explanation. Heknew something of Mach an d Hertz, and perhaps he h ad dipped into, or heardsomebody discuss, Meinong and Husserl. All one can say with confidence isthat in writing the Tractatus Wittgenstein was taking as a poin t of departuresome of the things he had read in the works of, or picked up in discussionwith , Frege and Russell. Quite what he owed to , and qu ite what h e con-tributed to, Russells philosophy of logical atomism it is difficult t o say. Henowhere refers to any of his predecessors except in an elusive and off-hand

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SOUTHERN JOURNA L OF PHILOSOPHY WINTER, 1973fashion; what he says even abo ut Frege and Russell is som etim es verypuzzling. In sh ort, th is is no t a case in which the detailed pursuit of influencesis likely t o prove at all rewarding. (352)

Professor Passmores only argument or rationale behind this historical estimate,which I find quite convincing, is s h o r t and to th e po int: Wittgenstein was trained as anengineer, not as a philosopher, so that one cannot presume in him an ordinarya c q u a i n t a n c e w i t h a c a d e m i c p h i l o s o p h y (352). This statement cannot beoveremphasized when the discussion is of influences on Wittgenstein. On the basis of anadmittedly cursory, contextual study and failing to find the K-S hypo thesis relevant tomore than one of Toulmins five points, I must agree with Passmore. In fact, the sort ofinformed picture that Toulmin and others are looking for may simply not be there orin the offing, and probably for the reason Passmore cites. Hence, Toulmins statement tothe effect that Kant-Schopenhauer influences have been ignored in favor of Russell (andothers) has led to undue complication and distortion of the appreciation of t he historicaldevelopment of Wittgensteins thought, I find without support from the literature. IfToulmin has more sufficient backing for his historical claim, he (and the others) mustproduce it.20

NoteslStephen Toulmin, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Encounter 32 (January 1969): 58-71. Hereafter,references to this work (an d the othe rs cited below) are indicated parenthetically by page numb er inthe text. Toulmins original thesis has been updated a nd expand ed in a new book which he has writtenwith Allan S . Janik entitled Wittgensteins Vienna (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973). Although Irefer specifically to the Encounter article, my major arguments apply to their book and are not

affected by more details since my emphasis is mainly on the point of view and the type of portraitwhich they are seeking.Some of the o the r scholars wh o have begun placing Wittgenstein within th e Kantian tr adit ion are:S.M.Engel, Wittgenstein and Kant, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 30 (June 1970):483-513, see also Engels book, Wittgensteins Doctrine of the Tyranny of Language: A n Historicaland Critical Examination o f His Blue Bo ok (Th e Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 197 1); E. B. Greenwood,Tolstoy, Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer, Encounter 36 (April 197 1): 60-72; and inter alia, David Pears,Ludwig Wittgenstein (New Y ork: Th e Viking Press, 1970) , and C. A. Van Peursen, LudwigWittgenstein: A n Introduction of His philosophy (New York: Dutton and Co., 1970). Much of what Ihave to say about Toulmin applies to them. Also, Bernard Kaplan, Some Considerations of Influenceson Wittgenstein, Idealistic Studies, 1.1 (Janua ry 19711, has begun a m uch needed assessment of someof the historical claims that Toulmin makes of Wittgenstein, although our papers cover differentground.ZHowever, the Schopenhauer thesis w a s offered nearly ten years before Toulmin by Erik Stenius,Wittgensteins Tractatus (Ithaca, New York: Come ll University Press, 1960). ch. 11 , where he con-jectured that the Tractatus as a whole displays a Schopenhauerian (and hence Kantian) characteristic:a preoccupation with the limits of th e expressible which had appeared earlier in Kant andSchopenhauer as the limits of thought and knowledge. O ne disturbing factor in this tidy thesis is thatWittgenstein at times thought (in the Investigations primarily) that talk about limits per se wasnonsense. See th e Tractatus remarks 5.6-5.641 o n limits, solipsism, and t he m etaphysical subject.These remarks were discussed a year earlier th an Stenius (1959) in connectio n with Schopenhauer byG. E. M. Anscombe, A n Introduction to Wittgensteins Tractatus (2nd ed.;London: HutchinsonUniversity Library, 19631, pp. 1 f and 168-172. However, her thesis is n ot a s bold a s Stenius.The essential difference between Stenius and Toulmin is that the former is obviously suppo rting

his interpreta tion on the basis of in ternal evidence where Toulmin is trying to carry his interpreta tiona step further to include external evidence. The fundamental problem (if not an engima) inWittgenstein scholarship is tha t the tw o, the t ex ts and their historical environm ent, do not always gotogether. But more of this later (see sections VI and V II).31n A Companion to Wittgensteins Tmc&tus (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press,1964), Max Black makes the following comment on 5.62-5.641 : Wittgenstein, like Schopenhauer,ente rtai ns the idea of a transcendental I., but unlike him, eventually rejects it (308).

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SOUTHERN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY WINTER, 19734See Anscombe, An Introduction to Wittgensteins Tractatu s,pp. 171-173, for the details.5-One might think that Patrick Gardiner in his book, Schopenhauer (Baltimore and Harmonds-worth: Penguin Books, 19631, would b e susceptible to such interpreting, bu t he does no t placeWittgenstein in the Kantian tr adition as he does Schopenhauer (v 278-282). Such talk begins to place agreat deal of stress and strain on the idea of continuity which runs through much of Toulmins

historical discussion. Needless to say, such continuity is not necessary for the informed picture ofWittgenstein that Toulmin is talking about. Gardiner cautiously speaks of recalls and reminderswhen parallels appear. However, Toulmins tradition statem ents assert much more than this. Th equestions to which we now need t o address ourselves are what these tradition statem ents mean, whattheir implications are, and whether they are appro priate to Wittgenstein.6David Pears, Ludwig Wittgenstein, p. 24. See his Introduction for this general, interpretativeargument establishing Wittgenstein in the perspective of critical philosophy.7Ludwig Wittgenstein, Zettel , G. E. M. Ansco mbe , trans. (Ox ford: Basil Blackwell, 196 7), p. 82e ;sec. 458. T he other specific editions and translations of W ittgensteins works alluded t o in this paperare: the Notebooks 1914-1916, G . E. M. Amscombe, trans. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1961);th e Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, D. F. Pears an d B. F. McGuinness, trans. (New York: TheHumanities Press, 1961); the Philosophical Investigations, G. E. M. Anscombe, trans. (3rd ed.; NewYork: T he M acmillan Co., 196 8); and On Certainty, G. E. M. Anscombe and Denis Paul, trans. (New

York: J. & J. Harper, 1969).8F or Wittgenstein, there was something to be silent abou t. On this point, see Justus Hartnack,Wirrgenstein and Modern Philoso phy, Maurice Cranston, trans. (Anchor Books ed.; Garden City, NewYork: Doubleday and Co., 1965), ch. 111, especially pp. 52ff. I have reproduced Hartnacks argumentagainst the idea tha t th e unsayable exists which Wittgenstein held t o in section VI.9A. J. Ayer, ed., Logical Positivism (Glencoe, Ill.: Th e Free Press, 1959 ), p. 5.l0G. J. Warnock, English Philosophy Since I900 (London and New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1958 ), p. 149 . Erich Heller makes a point abo ut Wittgenstein which equally holds for A ustin:When Wittgenstein speaks of th e language of every d ay, he does not mean what actual usage suggestshe means. In fact, he means Language-means something that is of surpassing imp ortan ce as therepository of our common humanity, of understanding, knowledge, and wisdom. in Wittgenstein:Unphilosophical Notes, Lud wig Wittgenstein: The Man and His Philos ophy , K. T. Fann, ed. (New

York: Dell Publishing Co., 1 967 ), p. 104 .l l F o r Carnaps own statem ent of his philosophical m ethod and its motivation, see his Auto-biography and Replies and Expositions in The Philosophy of R ud olf Carnap, P. A. Schilpp, ed. (LaSalle, Ill.: Op en Cou rt Publishing Co., 196 3), pp. 3-84; 859-101 3; see, especially pp. 11-1 4, 935 .12ThePhilosophy of Ruciolpf Cam an pp. 25-26. This passage and its immediate context isreprinted in Lud wig Wittgenstein: The Man and His Philo soph y, pp. 33-39.13For example, Dennis OBrien has argued for the following connection without the K-Shypothesis: a fun dam ental unity o r at least con tinuity can be discerned in Wittgensteins notion ofthe task an d me tho d of philosophy, in The U nity of Wittgensteins Thou ght, Ludwig Wittgenstein:The Man and His Philosop hy, p. 381.14See, for example, W. D. Hudson, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Bearing of His Philosophy uponReligious Belief (Richmond, Virginia: Jo hn K nox Press, 196 8), pp. 2 8 et passim.ISSee, for exam ple, Gustav Bergmann, The G lory and th e Misery of Ludwig Wittgenstein, inhis Logic and Reality (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964), pp. 225-241.16See, for example, Martin Heidegger, Discourse on Thinking, J. M . Anderson and E. H. Freund,trans. (New York: Harper and Row, 1966),pp. 41-90; On the Way to Language, P. D. Hertz, trans.(New York: H arper and Row , 1 971) ; and Poetry , Language, Thoug ht, Albert Ho fstadte r, trans. (NewYork: Harper and R ow , 1971). For the recent literature exploring this avenue of interpr etation , see D.A. Rohatyn, A Note on Heidegger and Wittgenstein, Philosophy To&y15 (Spring 1971): 69.17Ludwig Wittgenstein, Friedrich Waismann, and Rush Rhees, Wittgensteins Lecture onEthics, reprinted in Philosophy Tod ay No . I , J. H. GiU, ed. (New York: Macmillan CO., 1968), pp.13, 15.1 8 ~ a u 1 nge lmann, Letters from Ludwig Wittgenstein with a Memoir, L. Furtmuller, trans.(Ox ford: Basil Blackwell, 196 7), pp. 143- 144 .19John Passmore, A Hundred Years of Philosophy (2nd ed.; Baltimore and Harmondsworth:Penguin Books, 1966), p. 592. For further discussion of the Jamesian influence, see my OnWittgenstein and James, The New Scholasticism, 46.4 (Autumn 1972).201 wish to thank B. F. Rakoover for her comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of thispaper. I also wish to gratefully acknow ledge th at this essay was prepared with the assistance of aresearch grant from the Research Foundation of Texas Christian University.35 0

on placing wittgenstein in history southern journal of philosophy

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