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Redalyc.A Hertzian Interpretation of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Eidos: Revista de Filosofía de la Universidad del Norte ISSN: 1692-8857 [email protected] Universidad del Norte Colombia Bizarro, Sara A hertzian interpretation of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Eidos: Revista de Filosofía de la Universidad del Norte, núm. 13, julio-diciembre, 2010, pp. 150-165 Universidad del Norte Barranquilla, Colombia Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=85418392008 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative A hertzian interpretation of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Sara Bizarro resumen abstract En este artículo se compara a In this paper I will compare Hertz y a Wittgenstein para pro- Hertz and Wittgenstein in order poner una nueva interpretación del to bring forth a new interpretation Tractatus. Revisaré las ideas de Witt- of the Tractatus. I shall look at genstein sobre los objetos simples Wittgenstein’s ideas about simple y las compararé con las partículas objects and compare them with materiales de Hertz. Luego afirmaré Hertz’s material particles. I shall que si uno entiende las partículas then claim that if one understands materiales de Hertz como entidades Hertz’s material particles as logical lógicas que parecen más coordena- entities that are more co-ordinate das que físicas, se puede lograr una like than physical, one can reach interpretación del Tractatus que an interpretation of the Tractatus calla deliberadamente acerca de la that is deliberately silent about the naturaleza de la realidad y que por nature of reality, therefore escaping tanto escapa a las interpretaciones both objectivist and subjectivist objetivista y subjetivista del libro. interpretations of the book. This, I Pienso que este es solamente uno de think, is just one of the great results los grandes resultados de repensar of re-thinking Wittgenstein’s ideas las ideas de Wittgenstein a través through Hertz’s. de las de Hertz. keywords palabras clave Wittgenstein, Hertz, physics, philo- Wittgenstein, Hertz, física, filosofía sophy of science, history of philosophy de la ciencia, historia de la filosofía. eidos issn: 1692-8857 Fecha de recepción: septiembre 10 de 2010 Fecha de aceptación: septiembre 14 de 2010 [150] eidos nº13 (2010) págs. 150-165 A hertzian interpretation of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Sara Bizarro* Universidad de Lisboa «As a matter of fact, we do not know, nor have we any means of knowing, whether our conceptions of things are in conformity with them in any other that this one fundamental respect». Heinrich Hertz, The principles of mechanics (2007, p. 2) Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and the Vienna Circle T raditionally, references to the Vienna Circle and to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus have appeared hand in hand. Wittgenstein’s impact in the Vienna Circle was unquestionably overwhelming. The Tractatus was extensively discussed by the members of the Cir- cle and some of its ideas where seminal for the development of the Circle’s philosophy. For instance, Carnap, in his notes about the Tractatus, said that it was «carefully read in the circle and everything talked through»1 and listed as positive influences the importance of language analysis for philosophy and the idea that the origin of philosophical pseudo questions was in the misuse of language. However, the paring up of Wittgenstein and the Vienna Cir- cle often lead to serious misinterpretations of the Tractatus. One example is the interpretation of Wittgenstein’s ideas about simple objects. In the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Paul Edwards (which by the way I think is still one of the best philosophy ency- clopedias around) Nicola Abbagnano writes: *[email protected] 1 Carnap’s paper at the Arquives for Scientific Philosophy. eidos nº13 (2010) págs. 150-165 [151] Una interpretación hertziana del Tractatus de Wittgenstein The sense-impressions spoken of by Pearson and the sensations spoken of by Mach, Avenarius, and Petzoldt as neutral elements that constitute all the facts of the world, both physical and psy- chical, correspond exactly to the objects (Gegenstände) spoken of by Ludwig Wittgenstein in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus as the constituents of atomic facts and to the elementary experiences (Elementarerlebnisse) spoken of by Rudolf Carnap in Der logische Aufbau der Welt (Abbagnano, 1967, p. 223). This interpretation of simple objects as sense impressions might have been suggested by Wittgenstein’s own allusion to color examples when referring to simple objects. For example, in 2.0131, while talking about objects, Wittgenstein says «A speck in the vi- sual field, though it need not be red, must have some color» and in 2.0251 he writes «Space, time, and color (being colored) are forms of objects». Although the meaning of these color examples might be vague, they seem to indicate that objects might have something to do with sense impressions if a speck in the visual field can be brought up in the context of discussing objects. However in 2.0232 Wittgenstein says «In a manner of speaking, objects are colorless». Therefore one must conclude that the use of color while speaking about objects should not lead one to sense impression interpreta- tion of Wittgenstein’s simple objects. In fact, if one reads 2.0131 and 2.0251 carefully one sees that Wittgenstein underlines he is not claiming that objects are patches of color, but that objects are the form that permits having some color or being colored. We shall return to this in the end of the paper. A Hertzian interpretation of objects will allow us to make perfect sense of these passages. Now I just want to underline that even if it might have been possible to interpret objects as sense impressions, it is not clear whether such interpretation holds at all. The question about how objects are to be interpreted is relevant when analyzing how the Tractatus relates to the philosophy of the Vienna Circle. One of the main ideas propagated by the Circle is the Verifiability Principle. This principle claims that a sentence [152] eidos nº13 (2010) págs. 150-165 Sara Bizarro has meaning only if it is in principle verifiable. This principle is usually claimed to have been inspired in Wittgenstein’s ideas since Wittgenstein defended that a proposition could be decomposed into elementary propositions whose names stand for objects. In this vein a proposition is true if it corresponds to the fact which it depicts. The Verifiability Principle is said to have been originated in these ideas. But, in order to know how to verify the meaning of a sentence, it seems that in the end, one must know which are the simple objects that correspond to the simple names. The idea that sense-impressions are such objects is an empiricist way of looking at them, but it is quite doubtful that this is what Wittgenstein had in mind when he talked of simple objects. Two traditional ways of understanding Wittgenstein’s objects In 1964 James Griffin’s “Wittgenstein’s Logical Atomism” and George Pitcher’s “The Philosophy of Wittgenstein”, presented what was then called a new interpretation of the Tractatus (Keyt, 1965). These books offered arguments against understanding objects as sense-impressions or sense-data and for understanding them as something like Hertz’s material particles. I shall present their arguments in this section but before that, I want to make clear what is at stake when one is trying to interpret what is meant by simple objects in the Tractatus. There are two different traditional ways of interpreting the Tractatus. These two interpretations were probably debated in the Vienna Circle and appear in Rose Rand’s2 notes, she writes: Logical Form and Form of Reality is considered by Wittgenstein to be Identical. How should this be understood? One cannot say that language and reality are similar. But should the described content have similarity with reality, so that the form 2 Rose Rand was a member of the Vienna Circle and later she was one of Witt- genstein’s students in Cambridge. eidos nº13 (2010) págs. 150-165 [153] Una interpretación hertziana del Tractatus de Wittgenstein of the content and the form of reality are the same? But even if that what is perceived and that what is thought are by comparison similar, can one equate reality with that what has been perceived? There are two possible interpretations: A. The content of my sen- tence is similar to Objective reality. B. The content of my sentence is similar to perceived reality and the rules which rein the contents of my sentence are superimposed to reality. The Tractatus does not have on it an explicit viewpoint. Neither is assumed that the real has a structure on its own and it is identical with the content of the sentences, nor that its structure is superim- posed by language. Only the general statement that logical form is the form of reality is said in the Tractatus (Rand, series 5, box 9, folder 11-18). So it seems to be a fundamental vagueness in the Tractatus as to the nature of reality and therefore also as to the nature of objects. However, commentators have tried to read the Tractatus in one way or the other. Interpretation A brings forth an objective reading of the Tractatus that makes the propositions of science propositions about Objective reality. Interpretation B creates a reading in which the world is constructed by language leading to a subjective view that can go as far as claiming that Wittgenstein is a solipsist. Each of these interpretations will also yield a specific view of what Wittgenstein’s simple objects are. In interpretation A objects can, for instance, be something like the particles postu- lated in physical theories, while in interpretation B objects could be subjective language laden with sense-data.
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