Contingentism versus Necessitism: The Tractatus Standpoint

The paper provides an interpretation of section 2.013 of the Tractatus which casts light on the strategic role that that section plays in the early Wittgenstein’s version of the ontology of logical atomism. The far‐reaching consequences that the proposed interpretation has on the issue of the metaphysical nature of objects are spelled out, and the identification of Tractatus objects with phenomenal qualities, that is with phenomenal abstract universals, is shown to be fully consistent with those consequences. As a by‐product of the analysis, the standpoint of the Tractatus with respect to both contingentism and necessitism is clarified.     

The Disenchantment of Nonsense: Understanding Wittgenstein's Tractatus

This paper aims to argue against the resolute reading, and offer a correct way of reading Wittgenstein's Tractatus. According to the resolute reading, nonsense can neither say nor show anything. The Tractatus does not advance any theory of meaning, nor does it adopt the notion of using signs in contravention of logical syntax. Its sentences, except a few constituting the frame, are all nonsensical. Its aim is merely to liberate nonsense utterers from nonsense. I argue that these points are either not distinctive from standard interpretations or incorrect. Instead, the Tractarian elucidations help to shed light on the nature of language and logic, and introduce the correct method in philosophy. Philosophy deals with philosophical utterances and Tractarian elucidations by pointing out that they are nonsensical. By doing this, one is helped to see that what they appear to be saying is shown by significant propositions saying something else.     

The Tractatus System of Arithmetic

The philosophy of arithmetic of Wittgenstein's Tractatus is outlined and the central role played in it by the general notion of operation is pointed out. Following which, the language, the axioms and the rules of a formal theory of operations, extracted from the Tractatus, are presented and a theorem of interpretability of the equational fragment of Peano's Arithmetic into such a formal theory is proven.     

意义的体系——维特根斯坦的《逻辑哲学论》与形式语义学

人们把一般形式语义学的起源追溯到弗雷格、塔尔斯基、蒙塔古和戴维森等哲学家。但是人们忽略了维特根斯坦的《逻辑哲学论》。维特根斯坦在这本著作中提出了一种特定的关于语言、意义和世界的看法,它牵涉到普遍论、内涵指称论和组合原则等重要的哲学假定,而这样的哲学假定也是形式语义学先驱的著作中所假定的。因此,维特根斯坦的意义理论对于形式语义学的基本原则和哲学假定的确立是至关重要的。斯托克霍夫教授的研究不是历史性的,而是系统地比较了维特根斯坦的意义理论和形式语义学的先驱的著作。     

The Philosopher's Baedeker: Wittgenstein's Tractatus as Guidebook

The Wittgenstein of the Tractatus is committed to four central and interlocking claims: a limit to sense and nonsense can be drawn in logic; a limit to meaningful and meaningless language – to meaningful and meaningless nonsense – cannot be drawn in logic; whether nonsense is meaningful is shown in its use rather than its form; the Tractatus consists largely of meaningful nonsense. Undergirding these commitments is an account of language‐to‐world picturing in which shared “mathematical multiplicities” play a key role. Picturing as a global phenomenon – language‐to‐world, rather than proposition‐to‐fact – has not been well understood. The Tractatus is not a textbook. No doctrines are developed in it. No problems solved. Instead, it is a kind of Baedeker, a guidebook for those who want “to see the world aright.”     

The Tractatus on Logical Consequence

Abstract: I discuss the account of logical consequence advanced in Wittgenstein's Tractatus. I argue that the role that elementary propositions are meant to play in this account can be used to explain two remarkable features that Wittgenstein ascribes to them: that they are logically independent from one another and that their components refer to simple objects. I end with a proposal as to how to understand Wittgenstein's claim that all propositions can be analysed as truth functions of elementary propositions.     

The Tractatus and the Riddles of Philosophy*

The notion of the riddle plays a pivotal role in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. By examining the comparisons he draws between philosophical problems and riddles, this paper offers a reassessment of the aims and methods of the book. Solving an ordinary riddle does not consist in learning a new fact; what it requires is that we transform the way we use words. Similarly, Wittgenstein proposes to transform the way philosophers understand the nature of their problems. But since he holds that these problems are ultimately unsolvable, rather than attempting to solve the riddles of philosophy, he aims to dissolve them.     

Part III: The Hidden Dialogue in Spinoza's Tractatus

The intellectual relations that render Spinoza's groundbreaking Theological-political Treatise intelligible are explored by a reading of contemporary works by Christian authors, beginning with Ludwig Meyer's advocacy of a philosophical hermeneutic and continuingwith three critical responses to it, the last being Spinoza's Treatise itself. Spinoza's engagement in a Christian debateputs his exploitation of Christian terms and categories in sharperfocus. Spinoza's scathing critique of Maimonides is in part a critiqueof Meyer, and Spinoza's new historical and critical approach to theBible is projected as much in opposition to a philosophical hermeneuticas to a theological one.     

The Unity of Language and Logic in Wittgenstein's Tractatus

The purpose of this paper is to offer an interpretation of the Tractatus’ proof of the unity of logic and language. The kernel of the proof is the thesis that the sole logical constant is the general propositional form. I argue that the Grundgedanke, the existence of the sole fundamental operation N and the analyticity thesis, together with the fact that the operation NN can always be seen as having no specific formal difference between its result and its base, imply that NN is intrinsic to every elementary proposition. I also argue that the picture theory of proposition is an account of the generation of propositions via naming, and that its crucial idea is that naming is the instantiation of the form of a name, which consists in arbitrarily picking out an object as the meaning of the name from those objects sorted out by the form of the name. It follows that the existential quantifier, that is, NN, is intrinsic to naming (and therefore to every elementary proposition). It is then proven that the sole logical constant is the general propositional form. This, together with the truth‐functionality of logical necessity, implies that logic and language are unified via a general rule – logical syntax.     

The Proofs Of The Grundgedanke In Wittgenstein's Tractatus

The Tractatus contains twodifferent proofs of the Grundgedanke, or thenonreferentiality of logical constants. In thispaper, I explicate the first proof in TLP 5.4s andreconstruct the less explicitly stated second proof. My explication of the first proof shows it to beelegant but based on an invalid inference. In myreconstruction of the second proof, the main argumentis that the sign of a logical constant does not denotebecause it possesses the punctuation-mark-nature. Andit possesses the punctuation-mark-nature because,given the analyticity thesis in TLP 5, one canestablish for everyday language an adequate symbolismwith N as the sole fundamental operation such that itssign is a bar indicating merely the order and scope ofits application.