The Enchantment of Words: Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Contents......Page 10
List of Abbreviations......Page 14
1. Introduction......Page 18
1.1 The Puzzle of the Tractatus and its Four ‘Keys’......Page 19
1.2 Part 1 of a Sketch of the Present Book......Page 20
1.3 Intelligibility as Con-formity......Page 21
1.4 Part 2 of a Sketch of the Present Book......Page 23
2.1 Logic as Truth and Logic as Language......Page 31
2.2 Frege’s Revolutionary Logic......Page 33
2.3 The Logicist Project......Page 35
2.4 Philosophical Problems and Logical Analysis......Page 37
2.5 Frege’s Definition of Number......Page 39
2.6 Russell’s Paradox and Theories of Types......Page 41
2.7 The Nature of Logic......Page 43
3.1 Objects and Facts......Page 46
3.2 Names and Propositions......Page 50
3.3 The Internal Relation of Depicting......Page 51
3.4 An Inexpressible Con-formism?......Page 52
3.5 Wittgenstein on Signs, Symbols, and Intelligibility as Con-formity......Page 55
4.1 Resolution: An Initial Sketch......Page 60
4.2 Resolution: A Sharper Specification......Page 63
4.3 Elucidating Nonsense......Page 66
4.4 Broadening our ‘Diet of Examples’......Page 68
4.5 Understanding Nonsense and its Logic......Page 70
4.6 An Interlude: ‘Understanding’ and Understanding, ‘Logic’ and Logic......Page 71
4.7 Sign/Symbol Conflation and Philosophical Confusion......Page 72
4.8 The Tractatus as Elucidating Nonsense......Page 74
4.9 The Questionable Status of Assertions about Internal Relations......Page 75
4.10 The Assertion of the Holding of Internal Relations as a Move within Confusions......Page 79
5. The Picture Analogy......Page 82
5.1 Pictures and their Parts......Page 83
5.2 ‘The Illogical’......Page 85
5.3 ‘The Logical’......Page 88
5.4 ‘Throwing Away the Ladder’......Page 90
6.1 Ambitions for Notation......Page 93
6.2 Ontological Distinctions......Page 96
6.3 Utter Differences and ‘An Infallible Paradigm of Identity’......Page 99
6.4 Shown Differences and Internal Relations......Page 100
6.5 Borrowing Sense and the Fragestellung of Philosophical Problems......Page 104
7. The Supposed ‘Con-formity’ of Language and World......Page 107
7.1 On Finding a Fit......Page 108
7.2 ‘The Method of Comparison Must be Given Me before I can Make the Comparison’......Page 112
7.3 Internal Relations Emerge in Contexts of Misunderstanding......Page 115
8.1 Thoughts and their Constituents......Page 119
8.2 Does Thought Bind Language to the World?......Page 121
8.3 Learning a First Language......Page 123
8.4 Is Solipsism a Solution to the Puzzle?......Page 127
8.5 An Unsurveyable Condition of Thought?......Page 128
8.6 Solipsism, Internal Relations, and the Sign/Symbol Hybrid......Page 131
9. Objects Revisited......Page 136
9.1 Limits on Doubting the Fulfilment of ‘Conditions of Meaning’......Page 137
9.2 Learning a First Language and Learning of the World and its Order......Page 138
9.3 The Demand for Explanation and a Shadow Cast by Language......Page 140
9.4 A Bland ‘Belief in Objects’......Page 141
9.5 Descriptions Misconstrued as Prescriptions......Page 144
10.1 Elucidation and ‘The Only Strictly Correct Method in Philosophy’......Page 146
10.2 Descent into Primeval Chaos......Page 148
10.3 Therapy, Argument, and the Double Life of Elucidations......Page 151
10.4 What is ‘the Ladder’ Made of?......Page 154
11.1 Introduction......Page 157
11.2 The Double Significance of Elementary Propositions......Page 159
11.3 Logical Laws, Internal Relations, and Inference as ‘Unpacking’......Page 161
11.4 Truth-Functions and Truth-Tables......Page 163
11.5 Tautologies and Contradictions......Page 165
11.6 Negation and the Picture Analogy......Page 167
11.7 Islands of Sense......Page 169
11.8 Rules of Inference, Univocal and ‘Heterodox’......Page 172
11.9 Does the GFP Embody a Metaphysical Moral?......Page 175
12.1 The Colour-Exclusion Problem......Page 179
12.2 Generality......Page 180
12.3 Where do our Models ‘End’?......Page 183
12.4 How Variables ‘Show’......Page 186
12.5 Hypotheses......Page 189
13. Ethics and ‘the Inexpressible’......Page 192
13.1 Decency and Philosophy......Page 195
13.2 Logic and Ethics: An Initial Parallel......Page 196
13.3 An Intuition that the Ethical is ‘Inexpressible’......Page 198
13.4 Can we use Conscience as a Key to Wittgenstein’s Ethical Concerns?......Page 199
13.5 Logic and Ethics: ‘Conscience’ and ‘Judgement’......Page 202
13.6 Ethics and ‘the Ladder’......Page 203
14. Ethics and ‘the Ladder’......Page 205
14.1 A Sketch of an Initial Case for ‘Throwing Away’ ‘the Inexpressible’......Page 206
14.2 Another Kantian Parallel: A Craving for Reasons and the Rejection of Responsibility......Page 208
14.3 Dissolving our ‘Problems of Application’......Page 211
14.4 ‘The Internal Relation between Belief and its Application’......Page 214
14.5 Conscience as a Supplement to a Sign/Symbol Confusion......Page 215
14.6 Con-formism and ‘the Independent Life of Sentences’......Page 216
14.7 The ‘Revelation’ of ‘the Inexpressible’ as a Move within a Confusion......Page 219
14.8 ‘Throwing Away’ ‘the Inexpressible’ and ‘the Unteachable’......Page 220
14.9 Enchanted Words and ‘Living Words’......Page 223
14.10 Recognition of Conscience is a Metaphilosophical Insight......Page 225
14.11 Further Implications, and a Narrow Conception of Ethics......Page 227
15.1 Saying and Showing......Page 230
15.2 Showing in Action......Page 231
15.3 Signs, Symbols, Saying, and Showing......Page 238
15.4 The Mystical, a Mundane Ineffable, and a Higher-Order Conscience......Page 240
15.5 The Animism of Logical Truth......Page 244
15.6 Life as a Whole......Page 246
15.7 A Fear of Life......Page 251
A.2 Irredeemable Promissory Notes......Page 252
A.3 Family Resemblance......Page 254
A.4 ‘Language’ as a Family Resemblance Concept......Page 255
A.5 Abandoning the Idea of a Proposition’s ‘Complete Analysis’......Page 257
A.6 The Fate of the Idea of ‘the Arbitrariness of Grammar’......Page 259
A.7 ‘Philosophy’ as a Family Resemblance Concept......Page 264
A.8 Metaphilosophical Breadth and Illusions of Unknown Depths......Page 265
A.9 Demonstrating a Method......Page 267
A.10 So Why is the Tractatus Still Worth Reading?......Page 271
Appendix B: List of Abbreviations used for Particular ‘Theses’ of the Tractatus......Page 274
References......Page 275
F......Page 282
L......Page 283
R......Page 284
W......Page 285