Wittgenstein on Propositions

Wittgenstein on Propositions

The Tractatus is a hymn to propositions. It is all about propositions. Wittgenstein is an unabashed propositional realist: propositions exist outside human minds, capture the structure of the world, have a hidden real essence, determine determinate meaning, divide up the space of logical possibilities, are isomorphic with facts. They are logical pictures, articulate and crystalline. I could cite many quotations, but the following two will suffice to give the flavor: “A proposition shows its sense. A proposition shows how things stand if it is true. And it says thatthey do so stand” (4.022); “A proposition must restrict reality to two alternatives: yes and no. In order to do that, it must describe reality completely. A proposition constructs a world with the help of a logical scaffolding, so that one can actually see from the proposition how everything stands logically if it is true. One can draw inferences from a false proposition” (4.023) Wittgenstein doesn’t argue for this kind of realism, as opposed to other possible views; he simply assumes it as self-evident. For him, propositions are basic constituents of reality, sharp as a knife, clear as daylight. And they are with us always.[1]

But the Investigations will have none of this: we could describe that book as advocating an eliminative view of propositions in the sense accepted in the Tractatus. There are simply no such things as propositions as there expounded. The book is then about what happens if you reject propositional realism. This theme is not announced as such, but it emerges clearly as we proceed. Again, I will quote selectively; you need to read the whole text to get the message. In section 92 we read: “This finds expression in questions as to the essence of language, of propositions, of thought…For they see in the essence, not something that already lies open to view and becomes surveyable by a rearrangement, but something that lies beneath the surface. Something that lies within, which we see when we look into the thing, and which an analysis digs out”. Section 93 elaborates: “One person might say “A proposition is the most ordinary thing in the world” and another: “A proposition—that’s something very queer!”—And the latter is unable simply to look and see how propositions really work. The forms that we use in expressing ourselves about propositions and thought stand in his way. Why do we say a proposition is something remarkable? On the one hand, because of the enormous importance attaching to it. (And that is correct). On the other hand this, together with a misunderstanding of the logic of language, seduces us into thinking that something extraordinary, something unique, must be achieved by propositions. A misunderstanding makes it look to us as if a proposition did something queer.” This we are told leads to the “subliming of our whole account of logic” by “sending us in pursuit of chimeras” (94). Clearly, the ontology of propositions advanced in the Tractatus is being abandoned root and branch in the Investigations. There are no such entities.

Exegetically, this prompts an interpretation of Wittgenstein’s text that bears thinking about: for what happens to our theory of language if we reject propositions as so construed? The answer is that the job performed by propositions is now left in other hands—particularly rule-governed use. On the old model, propositions determined or forced a use (see section 140 on “force”). But if there are no such things, it looks as if nothingforces a use. All the sections on rule-following revolve around this question: if propositions don’t determine a use, what does—and can anything? For it seems that nothing but propositions could—no propositions no meaning, constant and secure; hence no correct use. Future use used to be fixed by the hidden internal structure of propositions, but they have gone by the wayside, leaving nothing substantial—just use up to a certain time; an extended series of uses not a specific proposition existing at a given moment; and a flux of mental happenings not a logical object. Language totters (to paraphrase Frege). The argument isn’t about “facts” in general, as in Kripke’s interpretation, but about propositional facts in particular, which are now said to be the result of misunderstandings. We have hypostatized propositions, but they alone can provide the kind of foundation for use that we hanker after; so, we have to give up this hankering and stick to the surface. There is really no foundation, no explanation, no analysis, no philosophy. And this means there is no logic either—not as the Tractatus understands logic (and other people shared). Of course, it is notoriously obscure what the later Wittgenstein wants to put in its place—hence the intimations of skepticism. But the reasons for this revisionary approach are clear enough: the rejection of propositions as traditionally conceived (we can still talk about speech acts). Propositions were once everything; now they are nothing—mere chimeras. It isn’t just that Wittgenstein came to reject the picture theory of propositions; he also rejected propositions themselves. That, as they say, was the turning point, the crux. The beloved propositions of the Tractatus were too queer to tolerate, even though rejecting them opened up an abyss.[2]

[1] The Notebooks 1914-1916 are even more proposition-centered: “The proposition is a measure of the world” (p.41), “My whole task consists in explaining the nature of the proposition” (p.39), etc.

[2] This might even have a bearing on the private language argument. If there were such a thing as the proposition that I am in pain, perhaps in the form of a picture, what is to stop me from grasping it, irrespective of whether other people can observe my pain and correct me? But if there is no such proposition, we need to fall back on community correction and validation, because that is all that’s left.