The Argument of the 'Tractatus'. by Richard M. McDonoughReview by: Lynn StephensNoûs, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Jun., 1990), pp. 492-494Published by: WileyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2215778 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 04:06

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Wiley is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Noûs.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 62.122.73.250 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 04:06:42 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

492 NOUS

should have advanced a nonexistent epistemology. It is less satisfying to find that even after vicarious attempts to excavate a consistent, coherent analysis from the golden mountain of the Meinongs Gesamtausgabe, there still exists no Meinongian theory of knowledge.

Richard M. McDonough, The Argument of the 'Tractatus' (Albany: State University of New York Press), xii + 311 pp., $39.50 (cloth), $12.50 (paper).

LYNN STEPHENS

UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM

Richard McDonough presents the Tractatus as a work of systematic metaphysics in the tradition of Aristotle's Metaphysics and Kant's Critique. As with many metaphysicians, Wittgenstein believes that logic holds the key to ontology. But this is surprising in his case since he maintains that the propositions of logic are tautologies, mere analytic truths.

6.1 The propositions of logic are tautologies. 6.11 Therefore the propositions of logic say nothing. (They are the analytic

propositions.)

How can reflection on 'empty' tautologies provide insight into the nature of reality?

Nevertheless, Wittgenstein suggests that such insights follow from a proper understanding of the tautologies.

6.12 The fact that the propositions of logic are tautologies shows the formal-logical-properties of language and the world.

McDonough's chief interpretative thesis is that the project of the Tractatus is to derive a systematic account of the structure of language and the world from the tautologies: or, more precisely, from the fact that cer- tain propositions are tautologies. Other commentators have noted that Wittgenstein thinks that inferences from logic to ontology are possible. But they have failed to recognize the centrality of this project in the Tractatus and have missed the argument. McDonough aims to work out the argu- ment in detail and restore its central place in the text.

The result is an admirable example of philosophical scholarship. His interpretation pulls together the major themes of the text, presenting Wittgenstein's views on logic, language, thought, and the philosophical enterprise as an interdependent whole. He locates the work in its historical context. His comments on the relation of Wittgenstein to Russell, to Brentano and to the German Idealist tradition are particularly illuminating.

This content downloaded from 62.122.73.250 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 04:06:42 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

McDONOUGH'S "TRACTA TUS" 493

He also discusses at length the import of the Tractatus for contemporary work in linguistics, philosophy of language, philosophical psychology and metaphilosophy. His discussion of Wittgenstein's account of intentional- ity in Chapter VI deserves to be read as an independent contribution to the continuing debate on the nature of representation. McDonough has produced a difficult book-one which repays only a painstaking reading. But it offers a rigorous and plausible interpretation of a formidable work of philosophy.

How is it possible to derive metaphysically significant conclusions from the fact that the logical propositions are tautologies? McDonough argues that in order to understand how this is possible we must understand the nature of the tautologies. In 6.13 Wittgenstein remarks:

It is the peculiar mark of logical propositions that one can recognize that they are true from the symbol alone, and this fact contains in itself the whole philosophy of logic.

McDonough argues that this is possible only if everything "which is rele- vant to the determination of their truth value is internal to the symbol." (p. 45) In that case, a tautology cannot represent anything external to its own symbol. It represents neither some special, logical sort of fact nor what is normally represented by its constituent propositions. (p. 52) The job of a tautology is not to "say" anything, but rather to "show" or make explicit certain structural features implicit in non-logical, "genuine" propositions, (p. 56) The tautologies reveal the logical possibilities inherent in the "general propositional form."

Among the things thus revealed are, for example, that every genuine proposition is contingent, that representation involves a "pictorial" rela- tionship, and that genuine propositional symbols "present with themselves the conditions of their own meaningfulness." (p. 193) I shall comment on the first of these in order to illustrate the sort of argument McDonough finds in the text, and because the argument for this thesis raises special problems.

McDonough writes: "Genuine propositions are, according to the Tractatus, contingent. Every genuine proposition is possibly true and possibly not true." (p. 72) He contends that this conclusion can be demonstrated from the fact that, for any proposition 'P', 'P v -P' is a tautology. That every genuine proposition is contingent is non-trivial and, indeed, very controversial. Given Wittgenstein's other views, it en- tails that the only necessary truths are tautologies, i.e., analytic truths. Kant and Kripke, for example, both argue that some non-analytic or non- tautologous statements express necessary truths. If Wittgenstein's con- tingency thesis follows from a proper understanding of the law of the ex- cluded middle, then we have an impressive demonstration of the power of his method.

McDonough reconstructs Wittgenstein's argument as follows:

In any instance of excluded middle, one is presented with a propositional symbol which is both affirmed and negated. That means that it must be

This content downloaded from 62.122.73.250 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 04:06:42 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

494 NOUS

in virtue of its own general form, affirmable and negatable. . . . That it is possible to say that the given proposition is true, and that it is possible to say that it is false, are implicit in the general form of the proposition. In other words, that there are two possible truth values for that proposition is implicit in the general form of that proposition. (p. 77)

The above argument presents a serious problem. If taken as an argu- ment for the significant metaphysical thesis that every genuine proposi- tion is contingent, the argument is fallacious. One may infer from the law of the excluded middle that every proposition has one of two possible truth values, true or false: not that every proposition is possibly true and possibly false. On the other hand, if the intended conclusion is simply that every proposition is affirmable and negatable, the argument's metaphysical interest seems much reduced. McDonough finds a second, "less direct" argument for the contingency thesis in Wittgenstein's prin- ciple that "there can be no superfluous or avoidable applications of logical operations on propositions." (p. 78) The idea is, I take it, that unless a proposition is possibly true/not true the operation of affirming/negating the proposition would be "superfluous or avoidable." But even assuming this principle, I do not see how it follows from the fact that a proposition is non-contingent that it would be "superfluous or avoidable" to af- firm/negate that proposition.

My reservations concerning the above arguments do not lessen my admiration for The Argument of the Tractatus. McDonough works harder and succeeds better than any previous commentator at illuminating the systematic foundation of the text. He provides the best account available of the problems and promise of Wittgenstein's early philosophy.

REFERENCES

Wittgenstein, Ludwig 1961 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, translated by D.F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness (London:

Routledge and Kegan Paul).

David Hoekema, Rights and Wrongs. Coercion, Punishment, and the State (London and Toronto: Associated University Presses), 153 pp., $28.50.

JUDITH WAGNER DECEW

CLARK UNIVERSITY

This is an excellent book on the nature of coercion, its relationship to freedom and responsibility, its moral status, and its application to punish- ment. Rights and Wrongs argues for a distinctive account of coercion, its presumptive wrongness but justified use by the state. The book is

This content downloaded from 62.122.73.250 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 04:06:42 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions