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Author(s): Jan Ludwig
Source: Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic
Tradition, Vol. 29, No. 5 (May, 1976), pp. 307-318
Published by: Springer
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4319034
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JAN LUDWIG
"Objects make up the substance of the world," this claim lies at the heart
of Wittgenstein's logical atomism, and indeed at the heart of the Tractatus
itself. Not only the ontology of the Tractatus, but practically the whole of
the theory of language which Wittgenstein develops later in the work
depends upon the doctrine that there are ultimate simples. Without
absolutely simple objects to serve as the meanings of names, such principal
theses as the account of elementary propositions as pictures, the distinction between the sense of a proposition and its truth-value, and the
radical difference between what can be said and what can only show itself
could not be established. To put this point another way: unless there can
be such a thing as the final analysis of a proposition, Wittgenstein's view
of language in the Tractatus is untenable. It is the existence of simple
objects which guarantees that the analysis of a proposition cannot be infinitely complex.
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308
JAN
LUDWIG
On the other hand, remark T 2.021, which has been left largely unexplicated by the commentators, does explicitly relate the substance of
the world to the concept of a 'simple object'. I wish to argue that T 2.021
contains the skeleton of a second argument which is crucial to any clear
understanding of the so-called 'argument for simple objects'. For it is
this second argument which connects substance with simple objects, and
2.0212 In that case we could not sketch out any picture of the world
(true or false).
James Griffin has provided one of the most detailed accounts of this
passage. According to him: 2
Wittgenstein's proof [that objects are simple] is as follows. Objects form the substance
of the world, therefore they cannot be compound, i.e. they must be simple. [T2.021]
And the world must have substance because: (i) if the world had no substance, then
whether a proposition had sense would depend upon whether another proposition
were true [T2.0211], and (ii) if whether a proposition had sense depended upon another
proposition's being true, then we could not sketch out a picture of the world, true or
false [T2.0212]. The argument moves from the obvious falsity of the consequent in
(ii): of course, we can make pictures of the world. The argument is in forn a two-staged
modus tollens; (i) p> vq, (ii) qD r, but - r, thus - q, thus p. And its conclusion, -p, is:
the world does have substance, i.e., objects which are simple.
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I agree with those who take this [T2.021-2.012] to be an incomplete argument, the
rest of which runs as follows: Since we can produce pictures of the world (2.1ff.), then
wbether a proposition has sense does not depend on whether some other proposition
is true; and since the latter is the case, the world must have a substance. That is, the
entities which make up atomic facts must be noncomposites.
be simple objects. Max Black also focuses his analysis upon remarks
T 2.0211-2.0212, arguing that they show that the denial of simple objects
would lead to a vicious infinite regress: 6
If the world had no substance - i.e., if there were no objects - the resolution of the
apparent complexity of a given proposition could have no terminus. The sense of Si
would depend upon the truth of some other sentence S2 (affiirming the existence of a
complex apparently mentioned in Si) and the sense of S2 would depend upon the truth
of some other S8, and so on without end. This would be a vicious regress: we could
never know what the sense of a given Si was without first, per impossibile, knowing an
infinity of other propositions to be true.
world," the present section [T 2.0211] clearly deals witb the existence of objects.
Wittgenstein thought it plainly false to say that the question of whether or not a
proposition has sense (meaning) depends on whether or not some other proposition is
true. (One allegedly absurd consequence of such a statement is given in the succeeding
section, T 2.0212.) Therefore, if it can be shown that this unacceptable statement
follows from the hypothesis that there are no simple objects, this will prove that there
must be such objects.
the accounts cited above. The first is that these commentators all tend
to overlook the important remark T 2.021. When they mention it at all,
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310
JAN
LUDWIG
(1) Proving that the world must have a substance; and (2) proving that
the substance of the world must consist of simple objects. That there is
such a distinction to be made seems undeniable; many philosophers who
would agree to the conclusion (1) above would not, and need not, assent
to conclusion (2). Certainly there have been a number of views regarding
the nature of substance expressed in the history of philosophy, many of
them radically at odds with the metaphysical pluralism which Wittgenstein defends in the Tractatus.
whereas remark T 2.021 speaks explicitly about why the objects which
make up the substance of the world must be simple. Nonetheless, the
above accounts all tend to miss this critical point and to conflate the
vious when their accounts are carefully examined, for one finds them
treating 'substance' and 'simple objects' as synonymous terms, especially
in their respective expositions of the argument at T 2.0211-2.0212. This
is clearly revealed in such passages as the following:
Griffin: ... the world does have substance, i.e., objects which are simple;
Weinberg: In the indirect form given in the Tractutus the argument is: if the world
has no simples,... [etc.];9
Klemke: ... the world must have a substance. That is, the entities which make up
atomic facts must be noncomposites;
Black: 'If the world had no substance' - i.e., if there were no objects -... [etc.]10
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view, these two remarks, suitably amplified, prove only that the world
must have a substance, and prove nothing in regard to the nature of that
substance. If this could be established, then the accounts discussed earlier
would have to be considered incorrect.
III
in either of two ways: (1) As an argument that the world must have a
substance (leaving the nature of that substance an open question); or
(2) as an argument that there must exist simple objects (which constitute
the substance of the world). The accounts of the argument for logical
atomism referred to earlier all tend to support the latter interpretation.
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312
JAN
LUDWIG
argument [I. (B); II. (A)] for the identification of substance and simple
objects. Thus Wittgenstein's proof of logical atomism consists of two
distinct arguments, and is considerably more complex than the usual
accounts suggest.
As the two schemata above indicate, I contend that the crucial second
IV
In the first place, Wittgenstein appears to share a bias which has historically characterized metaphysicians, namely, the belief that the ultimate
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can, as it were, be indefinite in some such sense as that in which our knowledge is uncertain and indefinite.
While the Notebooks are not always a reliable guide to the interpretation
of the Tractatus, in this case it seems clear that the idea of a necessary
and fixed ontological structure of the world did find expression in the
later work. Thus we find the notion that "the world has a fixed structure"
embodied in the following remarks:
2.027 Objects, the unalterable, and the subsistent are one and the
same.
The thrust of these and related remarks in the 2.0's of the Tractatus is to
is necessary and unalterable, the firm base upon which all description
of the 'real' world rests.
The next step in the argument is the further claim that what is fixed
can be taken apart; it can be analyzed into its components, and thus it
cannot be the ultimate ontological ground of the world.15 Nor can what
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314
JAN
LUDWIG
It is interesting that Wittgenstein confirms these views in the Philosophical Investigations (para. 46), where he refers to Socrates' discussion
nature and, while there can be little doubt that Wittgenstein accepted
them, they do not provide his only grounds for the conclusion that substance must consist of simple objects. The passage from the Theaetetus
suggests a second type of argument which is central to Wittgenstein's
view, namely, an argument from the nature of language to the nature of
substance.
The first step in this argument is to prove that a complex cannot be
named. This conclusion follows from Wittgenstein's view that "a com-
plex can be given only by its description..." (T 3.24), together with the
claim that whatever can be described cannot be named (cf. T3.144).
Given this conclusion, one can then construct the following argument to
demonstrate that objects must be simple:
Every proposition can be completely analyzed (see especially
T2.0201;17 3.2 and 3.201);
A proposition is a truth-function of elementary propositions
(T 5ff.);
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A bit later in the Notebooks [63 (8)] this point of view is expressed quite
succinctly: "The demand for simple things is the demand for definiteness
In Section III above, I outlined two possible interpretations of the structure of the proof of logical atomism in remarks T 2.02-2.0212. Each
requires the separate argument for the simplicity of objects which I
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316
JAN
LUDWIG
formulated in the last section, but its logical relationship to the other
argument at T2.0211-2.0212 differs in the two cases. The accounts of
T 2.02ff. cited earlier all appear to follow Interpretation (II), since they
construe T2.0211-2.0212 as proving the existence of simple objects
(which constitute the substance of the world). While I have shown that
these accounts are incomplete, I can see no way to prove that they are
incorrect. That is, I cannot show conclusively that Interpretation (II)
T 2.02 is the claim, "Objects are simple", which is the conclusion of the
entire argument of the passage as characterized in Interpretation (I).
This is not true of the other interpretation. Furthermore, the numbering
T 2.02 1, that is, a proof that the world must have a substance. They lead
to, are a comment upon, T2.021, and this again is demanded by the
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consistent with such a strict reading of the text, while Interpretation (II)
clearly is not. Related to this textual consideration is the further point
disagreement. In any case, the crucial point is not to decide upon one
interpretation or the other, but to acknowledge that, on either interpretation, remarks T 2.0211-2.0212 do not prove that objects must be
simple. Rather, this is proven through an enthymematic argument which
conceptual difference between proving that the world must have a substance and proving that the substance of the world must consist of
simple objects, and to realize that paying attention to this distinction
improves our understanding of the grounds for Wittgenstein's logical
atomism.*
Union College
NOTES
2 James Griffin, Wittgenstein's Logical Atomism (Oxford, 1964), p. 65. (The interpolations are mine.)
8 Julius Weinberg, 'Are There Ultimate Simples?', Philosophy of Science 2 (1935), pp.
387-399.
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318
JAN
LUDWIG
10 It is clear from the context that Black is here using the term 'objects' to mean 'simple
objects'. See Companion, pp. 58-61.
edition. See the foreword to: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Letters to C. K. Ogden [edited by
G. H. von Wright], (Oxford and London, 1973), viii-ix.
13 Again following Black, p. 61.
16 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations [Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe], Third Edition (New York, 1958), para. 46.
17 I believe that it is here, in the argument for T 2.021b (=2.02), that this remark,
which is akin to a brief statement of Russell's theory of descriptions, enters into
Wittgenstein's proof of logical atomism. It says in effect, that every non-elementary
proposition (statement about a complex) must be completely analyzable into a set of
elementary propositions referring only to simple objects. This assessment of its role in
the argument accounts for its standing as a comment on T 2.02, and for its being a less
important comment on T 2.02 than is T 2.021. [On the relationship of zero-remarks
such as these, see my "Zero-Remarks and the Numbering System of the Tractatus"
(forthcoming in The Journal of Critical Analysis, VI).]
18 Stenius has suggested a generally similar interpretation of T 2.021 ff., but he does
not supply the details of the argument, as I have tried to do. See: Erik Stenius, Wittgenstein's 'Tractatus' (Oxford, 1964), pp. 64-66. On Wittgenstein's arguments in the
Tractatus as "transcendental deductions" see Chapter XI of this book.
19 That is, if one has already shown that objects, as substance, must be simple, then
'transcendental arguments' from the nature of language can be used to prove that the
world must have a substance. This is in fact the sort of interpretation whicb the argument at T 2.0211-2.0212 usually receives at the hands of commentators. However, it
should be pointed out that the same general argument could be made out even if
substance were identified with irreducible complexes. In this case one would of course
have to argue from a view of language very different from that actually held by Wittgenstein in the Tractatus.
20 That is, if one accepts the view that the principles of the numbering system as stated
* Early versions of this paper were written while I enjoyed a leave of absence for
research under a grant from the Union College Humanities Faculty Development Fund.
I am gratelul for that support.
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