Backgrounds

INTRODUCTION

This book concerns itself with the relation between ontology and ethics in Wittgenstein's Tractatus and defends a particular interpretation of Wittgenstein's ontological views, arguing that such an interpretation is required by his views on ethics and their consequences for everyday moral behavior. If we regard the Tractatus as a coherent whole, that is, as a work whose component parts are systematically related, then a proper interpretation of the ethical part forces us to consider this interpretation of its ontology.

This book's argument is part of a broader investigation concerned with the question of realism in Wittgenstein work. In what sense and to what extent is Wittgenstein a realist? How do the early and the later works compare in this respect? We want to defend the following position: both Wittgenstein's early works (the Notebooks and the Tractatus) as well as his later writings (the Philosophical Investigations, the Remarks of the Foundations of Mathematics, and On Certainty) are uniquely characterized by a commitment to what is essentially human in the subjects they address. Ultimately, the content and role of various key notions, such as meaning and rule but also world and value, depend on what we are: on our nature as human beings as well as on our physical and social surroundings, and on the ways in which these interact. Our experience as humans, both of the world and of ourselves, is the starting and end point of almost all of Wittgenstein's investigations. And he primarily concerns himself with the role various notions play in our human experience.

This argument positions Wittgenstein's early and late work differently than is commonly assumed with respect to the issue of realism. According to prevailing opinion the Tractatus can be regarded as a prototypical realistic theory. By contrast, the Philosophical Investigations are widely considered to be one of the sources of modern antirealist thinking. The problem with this received view is that it fails to take into account the characteristics of both the early and the later work. This is not to deny that there are substantial differences between the early and the later work. One of the most important differences is that whereas the early work is monistic and absolutistic, the later work is pluralistic and, to some extent, relativistic. The Tractatus is an enterprise that seeks to unravel one, unvarying, necessary, common core in all of language. In the later work this goal is abandoned, and description of "the motley of language" takes its place. But it is important to notice also that despite this fundamental difference in outlook there is a subtle "undercurrent" common to all of Wittgenstein's work: it maintains an emphasis — at some points more and at others less explicitly — on what is decisively human in many of the topics that it addresses.

The challenge, then, is to show that such an undercurrent does indeed exist. This book addresses itself to this challenge, aiming to show that for various reasons, one of which is provided by a proper interpretation of the ethical part, the ontology of the Tractatus has to be read in a distinctly nonrealistic way. The ontology is not intended as a theory of the fundamental components and structures of reality per se, but rather as a description of the structure of reality that is presupposed by language and thought. It does not characterize reality as it ultimately is, but rather how reality appears in the medium of human language and thought. To put it differently, the Tractatus deals with reality so far as it can be accessed by the discursive mind. Complementary to that, the ethics provides a model of the world as it bears on value, which is tied to human action. However abstract the analyses in the Tractatus may be, they are informed by concerns with what is human.

The basic tenet of the Tractatus is monism: there is only one way in which mind, language, and reality harmonize. In his later work Wittgenstein leaves room for more than one way of dealing with "reality," each particular way constituting within its own sphere a system of concepts, meanings, and rules not applicable outside. This transition from monism to pluralism certainly constitutes a major difference between Wittgenstein's early and later work. But it is important to notice that the later work is not radically relativistic. Wittgenstein stresses that external factors, notably nature in the two senses indicated above our human nature and physical nature — place important restrictions on the systems of rules and concepts of which we can avail ourselves. Hence, in terms of a "realism-antirealism" opposition it seems that the earlier work cannot be classified as straightforwardly realistic while the later work cannot be said to be completely antirealistic either. The positions defended in each phase differ, but in more subtle ways than this dichotomy allows us to express.

With regard to Wittgenstein's views on ethics, it seems that a similar story can be told. However, it is more difficult to tell. For one thing, since he has not given any really systematic treatment of this topic, it is hard to establish the exact contents of Wittgenstein's views. In the earlier work remarks on ethics are relatively many, at least compared with the later work. Here we can draw on the Tractatus itself, the Notebooks and the "Lecture on Ethics," which dates from 1929. Other sources are the conversations with Engelmann (see Engelmann 1967) and with Schlick and Waismann, recorded by Waismann. As for Wittgenstein's later ideas, what we have at our disposal are the "Lectures on Religious Belief" and scattered remarks from various manuscripts and notebooks, a selection of which were published as Culture and Value. Apart from that we have to make do with indirect evidence, mainly to be drawn from the recollections of various people. However, despite the fact that it is hard to get a comprehensive view on what Wittgenstein's thoughts on these matters are, it seems clear that here, too, there is much continuity between the earlier and the later work. This continuity derives from the same undercurrent pointed out above: Wittgenstein's interest in, we might almost say "devotion" to, what is human.

In short, there are both important resemblances and major differences between Wittgenstein's early thought and his later work. The differences are many and they have received a lot of attention in the literature. That is not to say that the resulting picture of "two Wittgensteins" has been universally adopted. The resemblances are less, both in number and in perspicuity. The essentially language-dependent character of reality, traditionally a self-sufficient category, is one. The insight that our cognitive capacities are constrained by external factors, and yet do not exhaust our human nature, is another. One reason to think that the...