Wittgenstein's tractatus and the limits of language

Wittgenstein's conception of philosophy is closely bound up with his conception of language. In fact, one could say that the status he designates to philosophy is a logical outcome of his conception of language. In both the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, and the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein attempts to articulate a conception of language by exploring its essence - that is, its structure and function. What this amounts to is giving an account of the limit of language - an account of which types of expression count as meaningful. So doing, the bounds of sense would be drawn. To use Wittgenstein's terminology, 'what can be said' and 'what cannot be said' would be clearly delineated. Since language is the expression of thought, an account of the limit of language amounts to an account of the limit of thought. And an account of the limit of thought is an account of the limit of what can be done intellectually. The boundary, we come to see, is drawn differently for different reasons in the two books. The Wittgenstein of the TLP believed that the logical structure of language lies beneath its surface structure. It is something hidden and not perspicuous to language users. By excavating its structure, he would thus reveal the limit of language and hence the limit of thought. On the TLP account of language, philosophical propositions come out as an attempt to go beyond the bounds of sense. Philosophy, as it is traditionally practised, does not, according to Wittgenstein, fall within the limit of thought. It does not fall within the bounds of what can be done intellectually. Philosophical propositions are attempts to say what cannot be said. They are attempts to transcend, in language, the limit of language, and hence the limit of what we are able to do intellectually. Any attempt to transgress the bounds of sense ends, according to Wittgenstein, in nonsensical discourse. That is, it does not qualify as meaningful discourse. Philosophical propositions, being such attempts, are thus meaningless or nonsensical. They are not false, but simply lack sense. They are pseudo-propositions. As with the TLP, where Wittgenstein's views on philosophy were seen to be the logical consequences of this account of language, so too with the PI. However, the PI endorses a conception of language different to that of the TLP. But the conception of philosophy remains, in essence, the same. And his task is the same: to draw the limit of sense - to indicate what can be said and what cannot be said, and hence draw the limit of what we can do intellectually. Whereas the early Wittgenstein believed that he had discovered the essence of language and thus revealed the limit of language, the later Wittgenstein (post-TLP Wittgenstein) does not speak of the language but of different uses of language or 'language-games'. Consequently, there is no such thing as the limit of language, but limits of language. There are thus no absolute criteria of meaningful propositions. What qualifies as a nonsensical proposition - one that cannot be said - is now given relative to a particular language-game or use of language. On the PI's account of language, philosophical propositions come out meaningless relative to a particular language-game, namely, factual discourse. That is, taken as factual statements (which is how philosophers take them), they are meaningless. In the PI philosophical propositions tum out to be attempts to pass off non-factual propositions as factual ones. It is in this sense that they transgress the bounds of sense. They go beyond what can be meaningfully said in the language-game they purport to belong to.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of Philosophy

Year dc:date.issued

1999

Author dc:creator

• Isaacs, Ielhaam

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/13415

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/13415