Wittgenstein's Tractatus - Video 2 (English) - 2-2.063
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 มี.ค. 2022
- In this series, we will look at Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I have just published a new Dutch translation of the book with Boom Uitgevers, which I will use in the Dutch version of these videos, but in these English videos we will be using the English translations.
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This is incredibly helpful! In a work like the tractatus where the language usage is so minimal and enigmatic the translation can really obscure and invite misunderstandings, having someone with such familiarity with the original text is really great
I write this after my own digestion of the premises 2-2.063 and I may just edit it after adding the commentary of this video to my understanding.
I think there is a kind of cunning ‘meta’ teaching in this work. The obscure enigmatic and minimal features of Wittgensteins writing and therefore that is invites misunderstanding I would like to think is intentional. He is using the very (and what we find acceptable as conventional) structure of sentences to express his notion that language is misused.
For example 2.0122 seems paradoxical but I can both conceive of objects being independent and dependant (in the terms of the logical discussion). So he is making me struggle to understand his language and thus shows the misuse of it.
This reflects what Russel asserts in the introduction that we will find paradoxes in this theory if looked at from conventional philosophical grammar but that is the fault of language making philosophy a confusion, this seen in many of his meticulous premises.
It could be a very intellectual decision or just is a byproduct which yet assists Wittgenstein in asserting languages misunderstanding since he explains it whilst being subject to it.
Either he is very intelligent for choosingly using language to show of our misunderstanding to us. Or he is correct in his assertion of its faults by being subject to it in trying to use language to explain the faults of language.
It’s kind of a beautiful self-fulfilling prophetic philosophy.
Thank you for share this informations!! I have been loved your videos!
this is so clarifying
Thank you for going over in so much detail. I appreciate you cannot and have reason for not covering all points. But if possible could you share some light on 2.0251, are ‘Space, Time and Being Coloured’ examples of the simple objects perhaps? Or what does he mean if they are forms belonging to objects? Surly colour is not a form that persists in every possible world?
Similarly what do you think of 2.024? If structures of facts consist of the structure of states of affairs, is he talking on the clausal and sentence construction being the same in structure? Or does he mean something else? Like; states of affairs that are the case, have a structure that is like the linking of chains analogy about objects interaction?
Thanks again for your insight and tolerance of my many comments on this video!
Premise 2.0122 is my favroute so far in the Tractatus. Before really analysing it and finding what Wittgenstein means, as well described in this video, it seems mysterious and very confusing. It uses paradoxical language and contains a subliminal instruction that leads to two confusing conclusions. Check out my other comments on this vid for more explanation.
But essentially he very cunningly and intelligently uses Language to show the misunderstanding we have of language. Or his case for our misuse of language is self evident through him trying to use language to explain ideas and it at face value being mysterious, paradoxical and confusing.
2.0122 stays enigmatic to me because Wittgenstein uses two terms, Sachlagen (circumstances) and Sachverhalten (states of affairs, situations) of which it is not clear to me if he uses them as synonyms or in (albeit slightly) different meanings. Could anyone clarify this for me? Are they synonyms? And if not, what is the difference in the context of 2.0122? And shouldn't we take that difference into account when interpreting 2.0122?
Thank you for these videos! They are really informative and clear.
I'd like to ask two questions related to objects. First, are complexes themselves states of affairs or facts? On the one hand, a state of affairs is objects combined/configured in a specific way, and a complex seems to be just its constituent parts (which can be analyzed down to objects) combined/configured in a specific way, so they appear to be identical in their definition. On the other hand, the word for a complex is not by itself a proposition (Socrates), but a proposition is supposed to represent a possible fact.
Second, does each object have many copies? Suppose there are only three objects without any copies: a, b, c. And there are two states of affairs: "a-b" and "a-c". Then it seems like the existence of these two states of affairs is dependent. If "a-b" exists, then "a-c" couldn't exist, since the object a is already "used up". To avoid this situation, it seems like each object has to at least have n copies, where n is the total number of possible ways for that object to appear in mutually exclusive configurations.
Great questions! A complex is a state of affairs, but not a fact. The fact is the *existence* of the complex, the *obtaining* of the state of affairs. The fact is that the complex exists.
The second question brings us into the heart of certain Tractarian problems. All elementary propositions are supposed to be logically independent of each other. In particular, this suggests that whether a-b obtains and whether a-c obtains must be logically independent of each other. There seem two to ensure this. Either the relation here can obtain independently of where it obtains elsewhere; a-b doesn't use up the relation and a-c can still obtain. But what kind of relation could that be? And how does it turn into the more familiar relations like spatial relations? Or, and this is your suggestion, we allow for copies of objects. But that's even worse; for now it is both true and false that a is connected to b. (Since both a's are supposed to be not the same kind of object, but literally the same object!)
@@VictorGijsbers I think I have a better understanding now. Thanks for the timely reply!
@@VictorGijsbers Could a solution to copies of objects interacting be that the interactions are temporal. Such that a-b can happen as well as a-c in any order but not at the same time. Thus both are the case? In the case where interaction or propositions seem synchronised, perhaps it is just an infinitesimal temporal difference such that to relative observation such as from a human being, it seems simultaneous. Just as a being of cosmic scale which exists for a much longer period might see the two orbits of a planet as one since they are relatively hardly separated. Or how we perceive a Led lights to be permanently on but rather they flash on and of in imperceptible succession to save power?
Sorry for my many comments on this video, I am just starting the Tractatus in a personal capacity and am doing a lot of exploration and thinking in tying to understand it! Thank you so much for you videos with clear and enjoyable explanation.
22:54 Is Wittgensteins claim about there being but not the knowing objects thereof, influenced or in agreement consciously in anyway with Kant’s Transcendental Idealism and Things-In-Themselves?
I’d like to think so in my bias to wanting my favroute Philosophers to agree, but it’s hard to know when Wittgenstein is famous for not having read a lot of historical philosophy. Does anyone know if he read CoPR?!
Thanks!
Very good explanation. I suspect anyway that Italian translations work better than English ones. Indeed Italian is a perfect language for Philosophy
14:50 I do not believe any connection between this and QM but I think there is a nice analogy to be shared between all possible states of affairs and superpositions.
Following 2.014 you might be inclined to say that word Apple is in a superposition of all possible states of affair it can have.
Only once it is written in a sentence the probability function collapses such that the word is used in the sentence where it has an actual state of affair with another object. Thus the idea of a Word or Object being know fully is like knowing the Wave Function in QM where it has possibilities for states of affair. It is only once ‘observing’ the object in actuality or rather using the word in a sentence that it no longer is in a superposition but is in actuality, in a specific state of affair with something else.
When I think about what we know how the brain works (e.g. The Spike by Mark Humphries), that is actually quite reasonable. And in general there are many thoughts about QM and our thought process: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind
@@GustavMessanyOberwandling Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I have avoided looking into that term before as when I saw it I wrote it off as a quasi-spiritual misuse of the word to talk about spiritualism, as has the term Quantum been often hijacked by Sophists. But you have brought it back to me as valid!
Note that Wittgenstein was not offering anything like speculations about how the brain works, though. He is not making empirical claims.@@GustavMessanyOberwandling
Hi, my name is Victor Bladoudov Gijsbers (but they call me Bart for short) and I like ice cream. Could you please correct the mistake in your (otherwise wonderful) video?
...oh yeah, I'm also independent of anything else.
Can you please answer my question: How all of this relates to fact/value distinction?
I would say that Wittgenstein starts talking about value only much later in the book?
Hi, nice videos, will you go through whole Tractatus?
That's the plan!
@@VictorGijsbers Nice I will enjoy it!
@@VictorGijsbers I m glad that chanel like this exist, I'm really confused with Wittgensteins works.
@@VictorGijsbers Are you planning to do the PI afterwards?
@@FootnotesToPlato probably not, I feel far less qualified for that!
2.014 + 2.0141 = An object contains all its possible states of affairs.
2.01 “A state of affairs is a combination of objects” this is supported by 2.03 “in a state of affairs, objects fit into one another like links of a chain”
This suggests you can know from knowing one object know all other objects, for in knowing state of affair ‘p’ (By knowing X) which contains objects X and Y means you know all of X’s possible states of affairs, and surly know Y and so all of Y’s states of affairs, and knowing Y you know a state of affair ‘ q’ which contains objects Y and Z and so on? Right? Which seems paradoxical because Wittgenstein later asserts in 2.062 the not knowing of the existence of one state of affairs from the other.
So is it the case that you can not know objects from knowing only some and not all of their states of affairs they appear in?
(Edit) I think I am wrong since a situation (According to2.0131) is a point in the spatial field which speaks of an objects properties. A situation is not a state of affair. I came to this false conclusion by Wittgensteins cunning use of language by saying ‘possible situations’ and immediately after ‘possible states of affairs’ which without careful thought can lead to assimilating them - which I did in the above comment ^.
I did this because conventional use of language would have us think ‘situation’ could be used to as ‘state of affairs’ both sounding fine if naming the interaction of objects. He even preemptively starts this false assimilation in our minds in 2.0122 “things are independent in so far as they can occur in all possible SITUATIONS, but this form of independence is also a form of connection with other STARES OF AFFAIRS…”
I think he did this purposely to mislead us to the conclusion I drew at the start of the above comment. Which I think aids my Meta theory that Wittgenstein uses language to point out our misuse of it?!
Having now listened to this video in detail, I think I misunderstood twice. A situation is similar to a state of affair and is as describe nicely in this video at around 17:20 .
My first missunderstanding was wrong because I took the notion of knowing an object and all its possible states of affairs to allow us to know all other objects. This I felt was wrong because it seemed silly to know all by knowing one. And it seemingly contracted premise 2.062. I then corrected this by saying how situation and states of affair are not the same but Wittgensteins use of language might lead us to believe so. And I used this to support my hypothesis that there is a meta to the Tractatus that proves the problem of language by Wittgensteins clever and cunning use of it or the missunderstanding of it being incidental to using language.
I now have made a final correction, in that yes Situations and States of Affairs are similar. This does not mean though that knowing one means you can know all other objects from it in a paradoxical way. It does actually mean what I first asserted. Since knowing one object and knowing all its possible states of affairs is knowing all possible states of affairs in entirety. This is the same as knowing everything in the possible or actual world.
I think my thrice missunderstanding, despite a mistake, further supports my claim that the Tractus is a self-fullfilling prophetic piece since reading it clearly displays the problems of language and how without a Hypothetical Logically Perfect language, we can mostly get caught in reading nonsense from language claims.
Please enjoy this long journey of missunderstanding I have taken in just the first 2 premises of the Tractatus!
26:06 refering to the world requires names. Does Wittgenstein believe the existence of the world is impossible without the language? The way non-philosophers image world existing independently of us. And that we as autonomous individuals are sort of immersed in this independent self-subsistent world. But Wittgenstein is really following and blazing further the I. Kant's path of Transcendental Idealism? In that the world really is the way it is and what it is only in 'our heads', in our language, logic and outside of this linguistic universe we are not aware of anything. And the way world and individual identity appear to be to lay person, is more a religious view based on mistaken use of language. In that the way most people imagine the way things are, doesn't really mean anything.
For the question: I don't think that he bases the requirement of names for the existence of the world, but instead, he places that once we are capable of refere to the world, therefore this structure (of names) should apply for language to work.