Wittgenstein in his early work viz. Tractatus argued that there is a common, essential, underlying structure that links logic, language and the world. He also argued about the need for an analysis of ordinary language in terms of a perspicuous symbolism that would display a one to one relationship between a proposition and a fact – when both of them are broken down to their simplest components – viz. to atomic propositions and atomic states of affairs. All propositions are ultimately truth-functional combinations of atomic propositions – thus all language is resolvable to a unique constant. So for early Wittgenstein, though there is an apparent complexity and diversity of propositions still there lies a uniform, essential structure of truthfunctional propositions and that can be reduced to a single constant. And language to have a determinate sense must be ultimately based on objects – the absolutely simple logical atoms of the world. These objects imbibe their range of combination with other objects, which implies that any genuine propositions – however unusual and unconventional it may seem to be – must ultimately be constrained by the permissible range of combination of the objects. In this way early Wittgenstein sought to secure an essential metaphysics via an essential structure of language. However in Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein attacked essentialism by rejecting the picture theory, and the search for commonality and uniformity. He denied essence, the universal, the common element present in all the objects of a class and accepted only an indeterminate and incomplete flow of the criss-crossing, the overlapping features. For him language is constituted by an ever expanding flow of uses, which he called language-games. The significance of the term ‘language-game’ lies in the fact that like games language too is not based on any ontology that would confer a common essence across all the widely divergent uses. Nor did Wittgenstein accept any hidden essence behind appearance. In PI the later Wittgenstein denied both analysis and essence and propagated description of usage and behaviours as the only method of philosophy. Later Wittgenstein will neither commit himself to ontological necessity, nor to necessity being a matter of scheme-relative propositions in the Quinean sense. For later Wittgenstein all attempts to establish essences, or the contrary exercises to relativise them to a particular set of presumptions, are themselves language-games – they boil down to usage and practices that do not rest on any foundation.
| Published in | International Journal of Philosophy (Volume 11, Issue 2) |
| DOI | 10.11648/j.ijp.20231102.15 |
| Page(s) | 46-50 |
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Tractarean Essence, Language & Reality, Later Wittgenstein on Essence, Tractatus vs Philosophical Investigations
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APA Style
Sagarika Datta. (2023). Wittgenstein’s Interpretations of Essences: Both in Tractatus & Philosophical Investigation. International Journal of Philosophy, 11(2), 46-50. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijp.20231102.15
ACS Style
Sagarika Datta. Wittgenstein’s Interpretations of Essences: Both in Tractatus & Philosophical Investigation. Int. J. Philos. 2023, 11(2), 46-50. doi: 10.11648/j.ijp.20231102.15
AMA Style
Sagarika Datta. Wittgenstein’s Interpretations of Essences: Both in Tractatus & Philosophical Investigation. Int J Philos. 2023;11(2):46-50. doi: 10.11648/j.ijp.20231102.15
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Download@article{10.11648/j.ijp.20231102.15,
author = {Sagarika Datta},
title = {Wittgenstein’s Interpretations of Essences: Both in Tractatus & Philosophical Investigation},
journal = {International Journal of Philosophy},
volume = {11},
number = {2},
pages = {46-50},
doi = {10.11648/j.ijp.20231102.15},
url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijp.20231102.15},
eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijp.20231102.15},
abstract = {Wittgenstein in his early work viz. Tractatus argued that there is a common, essential, underlying structure that links logic, language and the world. He also argued about the need for an analysis of ordinary language in terms of a perspicuous symbolism that would display a one to one relationship between a proposition and a fact – when both of them are broken down to their simplest components – viz. to atomic propositions and atomic states of affairs. All propositions are ultimately truth-functional combinations of atomic propositions – thus all language is resolvable to a unique constant. So for early Wittgenstein, though there is an apparent complexity and diversity of propositions still there lies a uniform, essential structure of truthfunctional propositions and that can be reduced to a single constant. And language to have a determinate sense must be ultimately based on objects – the absolutely simple logical atoms of the world. These objects imbibe their range of combination with other objects, which implies that any genuine propositions – however unusual and unconventional it may seem to be – must ultimately be constrained by the permissible range of combination of the objects. In this way early Wittgenstein sought to secure an essential metaphysics via an essential structure of language. However in Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein attacked essentialism by rejecting the picture theory, and the search for commonality and uniformity. He denied essence, the universal, the common element present in all the objects of a class and accepted only an indeterminate and incomplete flow of the criss-crossing, the overlapping features. For him language is constituted by an ever expanding flow of uses, which he called language-games. The significance of the term ‘language-game’ lies in the fact that like games language too is not based on any ontology that would confer a common essence across all the widely divergent uses. Nor did Wittgenstein accept any hidden essence behind appearance. In PI the later Wittgenstein denied both analysis and essence and propagated description of usage and behaviours as the only method of philosophy. Later Wittgenstein will neither commit himself to ontological necessity, nor to necessity being a matter of scheme-relative propositions in the Quinean sense. For later Wittgenstein all attempts to establish essences, or the contrary exercises to relativise them to a particular set of presumptions, are themselves language-games – they boil down to usage and practices that do not rest on any foundation.},
year = {2023}
}
TY - JOUR T1 - Wittgenstein’s Interpretations of Essences: Both in Tractatus & Philosophical Investigation AU - Sagarika Datta Y1 - 2023/06/27 PY - 2023 N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijp.20231102.15 DO - 10.11648/j.ijp.20231102.15 T2 - International Journal of Philosophy JF - International Journal of Philosophy JO - International Journal of Philosophy SP - 46 EP - 50 PB - Science Publishing Group SN - 2330-7455 UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijp.20231102.15 AB - Wittgenstein in his early work viz. Tractatus argued that there is a common, essential, underlying structure that links logic, language and the world. He also argued about the need for an analysis of ordinary language in terms of a perspicuous symbolism that would display a one to one relationship between a proposition and a fact – when both of them are broken down to their simplest components – viz. to atomic propositions and atomic states of affairs. All propositions are ultimately truth-functional combinations of atomic propositions – thus all language is resolvable to a unique constant. So for early Wittgenstein, though there is an apparent complexity and diversity of propositions still there lies a uniform, essential structure of truthfunctional propositions and that can be reduced to a single constant. And language to have a determinate sense must be ultimately based on objects – the absolutely simple logical atoms of the world. These objects imbibe their range of combination with other objects, which implies that any genuine propositions – however unusual and unconventional it may seem to be – must ultimately be constrained by the permissible range of combination of the objects. In this way early Wittgenstein sought to secure an essential metaphysics via an essential structure of language. However in Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein attacked essentialism by rejecting the picture theory, and the search for commonality and uniformity. He denied essence, the universal, the common element present in all the objects of a class and accepted only an indeterminate and incomplete flow of the criss-crossing, the overlapping features. For him language is constituted by an ever expanding flow of uses, which he called language-games. The significance of the term ‘language-game’ lies in the fact that like games language too is not based on any ontology that would confer a common essence across all the widely divergent uses. Nor did Wittgenstein accept any hidden essence behind appearance. In PI the later Wittgenstein denied both analysis and essence and propagated description of usage and behaviours as the only method of philosophy. Later Wittgenstein will neither commit himself to ontological necessity, nor to necessity being a matter of scheme-relative propositions in the Quinean sense. For later Wittgenstein all attempts to establish essences, or the contrary exercises to relativise them to a particular set of presumptions, are themselves language-games – they boil down to usage and practices that do not rest on any foundation. VL - 11 IS - 2 ER -
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