TIME AND MULTIPLICITY IN T H E TRACTATUS Martin Kalin DePaul University An important principle, nowhere explicitly formulated by Wittgenstein but implied by much of his discussion, is that all complexity is contingent . . .

Max Black

On Reading the Text The Tractatus is hard to read. At least three factors make the book

difficult: first, its clipped and almost rambling style; second, its tough and diverse issues; third, its readers’ varied philosophical expectations. The last factor helps to explain how the very same book can be read as if it had two, or even more, authors. Many readers expect to find in the early Wittgenstein the thinker who helped found the‘analytic’tradition, and who now enjoys an honored place in it along with other pioneers such as Frege, Russell, and Carnap. These readers are drawn mainly to issues such as the tie between name and sentence; the status of mathematics; the place of law in explanation; the contrast between ordinary and ideal language; the gap between philosophy and other intellectual disciplines, notably the sciences. Other readers, by contrast, expect to find in the early Wittgenstein the thinker who helped extend the ‘metaphysical’ heritage of Spinoza, Kant, and Schopenhauer, and who now stands among the more recent members of this tradition. These readers are attracted chiefly to issues such as the link between thinking and its cognitive expression; the transcendental status of ethics; the problem of ineffability; the nonempirical self; the need by philosophy to restrain its own ambitions.

Issues move between ‘analytic’ and ‘metaphysical’ philosophies, of course; the border between them is neither fixed nor clear. Yet the contrast serves to recall how differently the Tractatus still gets read. Some dig into most of the text, only to rush over the surface once it turns to death, happiness, and other topics apparently out of place amid solid ‘analytic’ or ‘linguistic’ issues; others dabble in aphorisms on the ‘metaphysical’or ‘mystical’, hardly bothering with the technical matters on every side.’ Since most formal studies on the Tractatus have been ‘analytic’in background, at times these run out of enthusiasm (and even explanation) once the text moves from, say, quantification to death.*

Professor Kolin is on Associote Professor of Philosophy ot DePoul University. He received the Ph. D. from Northwestern University. He has been the recipient of Fulbright- Hoys and Cornegie Research Gronts. He has writreno book on sociol theoryin Morxond Freud, ond his orticles hove oppeored in vorious journols including: Journal of Value Inquiry, Kantstudien, SJP, Idealistic Studies, International Logic Review, Meta- philosophy, Man and World, Contemporary German Philosophy.

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One commentary seems an exception, for it presents the Tractatus as a book on “transcendental lingualism” in which “logical analysis of 1anguage”mirrors a Kantian transcendental deduction.’ Its author thus suggests that Wittgenstein both raises and resolves issues within the ‘metaphysical’-- in this case, the‘transcendenta1’-- heritage, rather than just drawing some issues out from this tradition for a quite different treatment. The interpretation must ignore, or at least downplay, some crucial differences between Wittgenstein and his metaphysical/ trans- cendental ancestors. Let me illustrate with a note on terminology.

W ittgenstein conspicuously favors Darstellung over Vorstellung, which he uses only twice: once at 2.15 as a verb synonymous with darstellen; a second time at 5.631 as an adjective--and as part of his attack on the self as knower. Vorstellung has a very technical meaning within the transcendental heritage, specifically with respect to the self as knower. Kant, for example, uses the term to cover all mental contents from intuitions tojudgments; and Schopenhauer puts it in the title of his main book. Anyway, the term signals an ‘idealism’ in ontology that is integral t o the transcendental heritage. Within this heritage, the concept of the transcendental rests precisely on that of subject as knower, the very kind of subject that Wittgenstein rejects. Kant’s transcendental deduction of categories intends to show “how subjecrive conditions of thought can have objective validity”4; and Wittgenstein insists “there is not a knowing, representing subject” (5.631). His stand against a concept so basic to the transcendental heritage makes it tricky, a t best, t o place him squarely within this tradition. My suggestion is that he avoids a key term such as Vorstellung because he does not want t o join the metaphysical/ transcendental heritage, but merely to draw key issues from it. In sum, my aim is not to read the Tractatus simply as another metaphysical tract. The book is far too complex for such a reading.

For most readers, though, the Tractatus has more an analytic or linguistic than a metaphysical/ transcendental ring. Although the book strikes some loud metaphysical notes to begin, does it not soon drown these out with a flurry of even louder linguistic ones? Most commen- tators think so. One writes:

Though most of the Tractatus is devoted to the nature of language, its earliest pages contain a series of pronouncements about the world. Both historically and logically the theses on the worldfollowthoseabout language, but their dependence is masked by their presentation at the beginning of the book.5

Another commentator agrees that “the central concern of the Tractatus is the status of propositions,”but warns against a “heavy reconstruction of the text” in which the metaphysics derives from the linguistics.6 At issue is not which sections Wittgenstein first conceived or wrote, as if this in itself were decisive for interpretation. The question is whether the book’s main interests should be characterized as linguistic. Such a reading prejudices the attempt to win equal status of aphorisms on

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death, the will, happiness, and the like. At the very least, this reading turns such aphorisms into remarks on the language of death, the will, and so forth. So the issue is whether the Tractatus must be read as if Wittgenstein had made an early “semantic ascent.’’

My point is not that Wittgenstein’s metaphysics begets his linguistics, or to put forth any genealogy whatever. Such matters seem of no interest in the Tractatus. In the Nores on Logic, he does assert that philosophy “consists of logic and metaphysics, the former as its basis.’q Yet this cryptic remark is followed by the caution that logical claims differ radically from all others; so logic is hardly the same as‘linguistics’ in the familiar sense. If the Tractatus must be kept in a traditional slot--and there is no compelling reason to think that it must be so kept--then perhaps it should be put in metaphysics because of its jargon, dogmatic style, and comprehensive interests.

Further, there is a simple but quite strong textual reason for rejecting the distinction (which, again, is not Wittgenstein’s own) between the book’s metaphysics and its linguistics. Suppose that the problem of analysis (namely, the complex of issues that centers on the determinacy of sense) is central in the Tractatus. If so, then the sentence (Sarz)-as that which expresses sense-must be one of the book’s key concepts. Yet a sentence is, at bottom, a fact (see below). So the ‘linguistic’ issue of sense opens up directly into the ‘metaphysical’ one of facts; indeed, the two issues cannot be separated by placing one either higher or lower than the other. In dispute here is not Wittgenstein’s degree of interest in ‘linguistics’as against ‘metaphysics,’as if this could be measured clearly. At issue is whether even the problem of analysis can be handled apart from the key ‘metaphysical’ concepts, distinctions, and doctrines.

Finally, it is not obvious from the text itself (as distinct from, say, what Wittgenstein later seems to say about it) that its main concerns are linguistic rather than metaphysical. The Preface describes the book in broad, traditional terms: the text deals with “philosophical problems” and sets a limit to the “expression of thoughts”(p. 3, emphasis added). How this aim can be lost or distorted through a too narrowly‘linguistic’ reading will be considered next.

Consider one standard translation from the Preface:

Thus the aim of the book is to set a limit to thought, or rather--not to thought, but to the expression of thoughts; for in order to be able to set a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of the limit thinkable(i.e., we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought).*

The term “thought” here translates both das Denken and der Gedunke. The confusion gets worse when the passage is read along with later remarks, many directed toward Frege, on der Gedanke as a sinnvoller Satr(e.g., at 4). More serious, though, is that this translation misses a key issue, which comes to Wittgenstein straight from the metaphysical/ transcendental tradition. The matter can be illustrated with Kant. However, my intent is not to argue that the Tractatus neatly parallels

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the first Kririk, but rather t o show how Wittgenstein engages a broad issue-which might be called “the problem of the limit”--that is central within the metaphysical, especially the transcendental, heritage.

Kant puts the term Vernunfr to varied, often confusing uses. Sometimes it stands for an embracing faculty or power ( Vermogen) that operates “independently of all experience.” At other times, often when described as “isolated reason,”lO it contrasts with Versrand isolated reason as the faculty of inferences ( Vernunftschlusse), understanding as that of concepts (Begriffe). This contrast underlies the more popular distinction between illicit and licit uses of our theoretical faculty, with isolated reason as the culprit behind dialectical illusion and the understanding as the source of knowledge. The distinction between illicit and licit is reason’s own, of course. Through self-assessment or critique, the broad faculty determines that the understanding properly operates only within the limits of experience. So the understanding, in its proper use, is reason that has a theoretical employment on one side--what might be called the “cognitive” side--of a limit set by reason itself. Reason, in setting this limit for itself, enjoys access to both sides--though the sort of access differs from one side to the other. On the one side, called “nature”or “experience,” reason as the understanding is the power to know in the strict sense and, as such, is limited to knowledge ofempirical objects. On the other side, called “freedom,”it is not the power to know but rather t o limit knowledge for the sake of its autonomous practical (‘moral’) goals.

Even though Kant and Wittgenstein differ on many points, the two d o grapple at length with the issue of setting a limit to the cognitive--and then of characterizing, in language that seems unaviodably cognitive, whatever lies on the other side. For the one, this limit marks off nature or experience (realm of knowledge) from freedom (realm of action): what can be known in the strict sense from what can be postulated only. For the other, the limit separates the world’s variable facts from its abiding form: what can be said from what can be shown only. Both thinkers underscore the contrast between the limit’s sides. For Kant, reason as the understanding differs sharply from reason as the embracing, critical faculty; the one is the power to know, the other the power to limit knowledge. For Wittgenstein, who heeds the limit more scrupulously, all attempted remarks about the limit’s noncognitive side count as nonsensical, not just as problematical. So the two thinkers confront the issue of where the limit to the cognitive falls and, especially, of what lies on the ‘far’ or noncognitive side.

Read against this background, the passage quoted above makes good and even familiar sense; it also states a main concern of the book: setting a limit t o the (cognitive) expression of thoughts requires an activity, thinking, that includes--but also surpasses--the cognitive. The limit at issue for Wittgenstein stands between the expression of Gedanken, which make up the cognitive part of Denken, and the broader activity of thinking. Denken thus stands to Gedunken roughly as (critical)

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Vernunji to Versrand. Wittgenstein draws on the transcendental heritage for other issues as

well, and likewise handles these in his own distinctive way. For instance, both he and Kant highlight the issue of sense rather than truth-value. Kant contends with how any judgment whatever, true or false, is possible; Wittgenstein with how any sentence, true or false, can depict. My aim here is not to draw up a list of similarities, for Wittgenstein does not borrow detail so much as direction from the transcendental heritage. From it he takes a central issue, the limit to the cognitive, which pervades the text and cannot be confined--as is often suggested-- under the single rubric, the mystical. Let me elaborate by talking about strategy.

Time and Multiplicity as Unifying Concepts

So far my aim has been to downplay the contrast between ‘linguistic’ and ‘metaphysical’themes in the Tractatus. While the contrast may be useful at times, it must not become hard. It shows up under other names as well, for instance, under the distinction between the ‘technical’ (analytic, linguistic) and the ‘mystical’ (metaphysical) aphorisms. My next task is thus to argue against any sharp distinction between ‘technical’ and ‘mystical’ remarks in the book, and to suggest a quite different reading. This new reading strikes me as analytic in thrust, but nonstandard in many details. In any case, it involves taking a new look at some old texts. To guard against confusion, and to keep attention focused on the text itself rather than the many competing interpretations of it, let me single out three crucial points:

( 1 ) Even though Wittgenstein may have approved the translation of Sachverhalt as “atomic fact,” it does not follow that he would have accepted, say, Black’s (or anyone else’s) view of atomic facts. So I will use the phrase “atomic fact,” but always with “atomic” guarded by scare-quotes. “Fact” will be used to translate Tarsache and, at times, Sachlage. Finally, “fact” sometimes will be used in a generic sense to cover ‘atomic’ and ‘molecular’ facts together.

(2) The distinction between Satzand Satzzeichen will arise for us, but will not be crucial. So I will translate the former simply as “sentence,” thus avioding (or at least stalling) the problems with “proposition.” Also, the term “multip1icity”as used here is broader than--but covers-- Wittgenstein’s own Mannigfaltigkeit.

(3) At 2.2051 Wittgenstein states that “space, time, and color (coloredness) are forms of objects.”The remarks suggests that the three are distinct, yet the text gives no explicit principle by which they might be individuated and thus distinguished. Further, and more important for us, the passage leaves unclear whether each object has time as a form. The point is not crucial for us. Time will be used here only as an example of form, even if it is only a form for a proper subset of objects.

Now let us return to the main discussion. Even if Wittgenstein’s

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aphorisms seem to fall into one of two groups, the ‘technical’ and the ‘mystica1,’there is still great thematic variety in each. For instance, the first group contains remarks on topics from the role of variables in sentences to the place of causality in explanation; the second group has comparable variety, with comments on such diverse matters as death and the will. Some aphorisms are hard to place, however. Remarks on the world as “the totality of facts” (1.1) presumbly go with the ‘technical,’ while those on the world as “a limited whole” (6.45) apparently belong with the‘mystical.’A more general difficulty with the division comes out in the literature. For some commentators, the Tractatus culminates in aphorisms on the ‘mystical’ 1 1 ; for others, the link between the ‘technical’ and ‘mystical’ is tenuous at best.12

Let me suggest a third reading. In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein already practices--even if not by design--what he later will preach and practice in the Investigations, namely, a “method by examples” (133).l3 The examples themselves may seem unrelated: here the theory of types, there happiness; here death and virtue, there name and sentence. Yet the method aims to help us “see what is common”(72); and it is required because the issue at hand, the limit t o the cognitive, involves a “concept with blurred edges”(71). In short, the limit must be shown rather than said.

Wittgenstein accordingly pursues, from start to finish in the Tractatus, roughly the same theme; and his jumps between ‘technical’ and ‘mystical’ topics are hard, if not impossible, to detect. In any case, such jumps are not between two levels. The ‘technical’ stands neither higher nor lower than the ‘mystical’; so convenience alone recommends the distinction. My aim is t o show that, while he may seem t o wander among unrelated topics, Wittgenstein in fact engages the same family of problems throughout the text; and this family centers on a concept with blurred edges, a concept drawn straight from the metaphysical/ transcendental heritage and introduced in the Preface: the limit t o the cognitive. My strategy will be t o illustrate the book’s unity with aid from two concepts that dominate, if subtly, from start t o finish: time and multiplicity. The choice may seem odd in that Wittgenstein says little about either alone, and even less about them together. Yet time is one among three forms of objects, along with space and color; and form is a--and probably the--major concept in the book because on it rests the contrast between object and fact, which in turn supports so many crucial topics: the world as the aggregate of facts; a sentence as depicting a possible arrangement of objects; the interplay between showing and saying; and so forth. Time also bears heavily on ‘mystical’issues, such as death’s being the end of life and hence of the world (5.621).

It will be hard to clarify how time and multiplicity fit together, and so the rest of my paper will be spent on this task. As a start, recall that time and change long have been paired concepts. Aristotle, for instance, defines time as the measure of kinesis, one sort of change. But if Wittgenstein is largely elusive about time as form, he is nearly silent on

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change. What little he does say on the matter comes out in remarks directed at related concepts and distinctions: the link between death and timelessness; the contrast between the realm of logic and that of facts; the difference between the world’s substance and the facts into which it actually divides. Perhaps he speaks most directly to the issue of change in distinguishing an object from its configuration with others. (Recall that such a configuration is, by definition, a Sachverhalt or ‘atomic’ fact.) So the object/fact distinction might be used as a tool with which to work on Wittgenstein’s concept of change and its relation to time as form. The job will involve two steps: first, a look at key texts; second, a thought-experiment designed to show how the concept of change relates to others such as object and fact. The second step may need clarifying. One way to bring out the importance of change in the Tractatus is to show what would become of the book’s other key concepts, distinctions, or doctrines if this concept were dropped altogether. Even though a thought-experiment brings risks, these seem worthwhile if the experiment sheds light on the murky notion of change and thereby highlights this notion’s ties to time as form.

Some key texts on change run from about 2 to 2.1, though others are found throughout the book. At 2.0271 the objectlfact distinction gets characterized most explicitly with reference to change: “The object is the inalterable, enduring; the configuration is the changing, variable.” A subsequent remark, 2.03 I , plays on the link between Sachverhalt (‘atomic’ fact) and sich verhalten (“to stand in relation to”): objects stand in a (determinate) relation to one another, and thereby constitute an ‘atomic’fact. So an ‘atomic’fact is simply how objects hang together (2.032), and this hanging together in some determinate way is their configuration. Finally, objects in configuration make up an ‘atomic’ fact. If the objects that constitute ‘atomic’ fact F were not to hang together precisely as they do, then F would not be. Since configuration as such is variable or contingent, the world-which breaks down into facts that are ultimately configurations of objects--is open to what might be called “radica1”change. Such change is radical in that it would be the cessation of a particular ‘atomic’fact such as F. Of interest here is not the factual issue of whether radical change does occur in the world, but rather the logical(or ‘metaphysical’) one of whether it could occur. Radical change, if it occurred, would bring about what might be called “ordinary”change, namely, change of whatever ‘molecular’ fact M once had the now deceased ‘atomic’ fact F as one of its members. Since radical change entails ordinary change, our focus will be kept on the former through two questions. First, what role does radical change play in the Tractatus? Second, what (if anything) grounds radical change?

A thought-experiment will help answer the first question. Suppose radical change were not possible. The rationale then would be lost for distinguishing objects from (‘atomic’) facts. Objects alone make up the world’s invariable substance (2.02 1,2.023), while their configuration-- ‘atomic’ facts--are just what can vary about the world. So if ‘atomic’

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facts were to become invariable, namely, if radical change were to become impossible, then such facts would take on a salient feature of objects. Radical change thus must be possible for the objectifact distinction to remain intact. Yet an ‘atomic’ fact is variable precisely as the contingent hanging together of its constituent objects. This suggests that (1) multiplicity within both objects and factsand (2) the possibility of radical change imply one another. The point can be clarified by pursuing our thought-experiment.

Consider first how (2) implies (1). For change to be radical, it must involve (by definition) the hanging together of objects; hence its possibility implies that objects must be multiple, namely, more than one in number. (How many objects there must be, at minimum, is an intriguing question, but one beyond our main concern.) The possibility of radical change also implies that facts must be multiple. For radical change to take place, some objects would have to vary their actual configuration, which is (by definition) an‘atomic’fact. Yet such change does not bring the world to an end, because the world is not any particular ‘atomic’ fact but rather the totality of facts ( Tatsachen); further, ‘atomic’ facts are mutually independent (2.061). So if radical change is possible in a world that thereby would alter its makeup yet continue to exist, then facts must be multiple.

Now consider how ( I ) implies (2), namely, how multiple objects and facts imply that radical change is possible. The point follows straight- forwardly from the definition of a Sachverhalt as a contingent hanging together of objects. If objects are multiple, given that any particular configuration of theirs is variable, then radical change--precisely as variation in such a configuration--is possible. If (‘atomic’) facts are multiple, then objects clearly must be so as well because every such fact has objects as parts. So again it follows that radical change is possible.

In sum the possibility of radical change both entails and is entailed by multiplicity within objects and facts. Further, radical change must be possible if the objectlfact distinction is to stand. Yet radical change is not a primitive concept in the Tractatus; instead it derives from that of form (and, for our purposes, from that of time as the example of form). So how does time as form ground both radical change and multiplicity? Several texts are crucial to the answer. One is 2.033, which states that “form is the possibility of structure.” Another, 2.023, asserts that “objects are just what constitute this invariable form.” A third, 2.032, defines structure as follows: “The way in which objects hang together in an ‘atomic’ fact is the structure of the ‘atomic’ fact.” The middle quote may be confusing in that the Tractatus also talks about objects as having a form (e.g., at 2.0142). Yet the text makes clear, especially in describing objects as the world’s abiding substance, that objects are both “form and content”(2.025). While a few passages may suggest that form is an ‘external’ property of objects, others underscore that form is an ‘internal’ or essential one. So time as form belongs essentially to (at least some) objects as that which first permits such objects to have structure, namely, to hang together as an actual ‘atomic’ fact. Wittgen- stein, in characterizing form as a concept of possibility, harks back to the metaphysical/ transcentental heritage of Kant and Schopenhauer. More important for us, though, is where time as form stands in relation to radical change and multiplicity.

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Time as form is a precondition for (at least some) radical change; and such change both entails and is entailed by multiplicity within objects and facts. For if radical change occurs at the level of ‘atomic‘ facts as change in the actual hanging together of objects that constitutes such facts, then form as the possibility of structure--where structure is just this actual hanging together of objects--at once becomes a precondition for radical change. The point can be put less concisely. Radical change could not occur, by definition, without actual ‘atomic’ facts because it involves change precisely in these. But no such facts would exist without form, which is (again by definition) their possibility--the possibility of the structures that are ‘atomic’facts. So time as form grounds (at least some) radical change, and likewise the multiplicity among objects and facts that corresponds to the possibility of such change.

Wittgenstein leaves the notion of time largely unclarified, avoiding even the usual metaphors: temporal succession, dimensions, and so forth. In the Notebooks he does cite one-directionality as a “logical property of time,” and makes it the condition for an event’s being nonrepeatable or unique. 14 Events (which, presumably, comprise what the Tractatus calls “facts”) are unique in that, despite their sharing even all material properties, they occur a t different or nonrepeatable times. So even in the Notebooks time as nonrepeatable succession is also a condition of multiplicity and hence of radical change as well.

The links among time as form, radical change, and multiplicity need to be summed up. The Tractatus explicitly separates the logical (the invariable objects, including their invariable form) from the factual (the variable ‘atomic’ and ‘molecular’ facts into which the world breaks down). Time as form obviously belongs to the logical. But into which slot d o radical change and multiplicity go? As used here, these notions concern possibility rather than actuality; our interest is with how radical change and multiplicity are possible, not with their factual manifes- tation. As concepts of possibility, the two also belong to the logical. Yet they both have, as theirjoint precondition, time as form. So even within the logical there seem to be levels: the possibility of radical change and multiplicity within objects and facts stand on one level; on a ‘deeper’ level stands time as form, which grounds both. Whether the Tractatus acknowledges still ‘deeper’ levels within the logical can be answered only after we turn to the selected topics ofdeath and the sentence. These topics will be studied indetail, with theaim of illustrating Wittgenstein’s “method by examples” with respect t o the concept of the limit t o the cognitive. The limit itself cannot be expressed cognitively, and so must be shown rather than said. It can be shown by highlighting a conundrum that arises within both the ‘mystical’ and the ‘technical’ example (death and the sentence, respectively): although time and timelessness seem contradictory, their interplay--and perhaps even their identity--is the key to explaining both death and the sentence.

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Death: The Many Shrinks Down to One

sample:

So too at death the world does not change, but rather ceases (6.431). Death is no event of life. One does not live death (6.431 1).

As empty as these remarks first sound, they address the same issue as those on the sentence: the limit t o the cognitive. The aphorisms on death, like most in the Tractatus, include polemics that make them harder still t o interpret. We will start with the polemics, and move from there into more substantive details.

The remarks on death are grouped closely, starting with the very short 6.431 quoted above, and followed by 6.431 1 and 6.4312. O n this numbering system, each of the latter remarks elaborates on the one before it. The last of the three is also the longest, and attacks the notion of eternity as “unending temporal succession.’’ This concept “does not accomplish at all what one always has wanted to achieve with it,” namely, t o answer“the riddle of life.” Both here and at 6.44 Wittgenstein cautions that science, which deals with “how the world is,”cannot break this riddle that rather concerns “that the world is.”Finally, the“so1ution to the riddle of life in space and time lies outside space and time” (6.4312).

The notion of eternity under attack belongs to the Christian tradition, among others; and Wittgenstein knows this tradition through, for example, Augustine. (By the way, Augustine contends with the riddle of how a n atemporal deity can interact with a temporal world. Wittgenstein’s riddle also centers on the time/ timelessness contrast.) What riddle does the concept of eternity as unending duration fail t o solve? It concerns the sense of life (Sinn des Lebens), specifically the sense of our life in time. Since duration characterizes ordinary time, eternity as unending duration would be just this ordinary time infinitely stretched out--simply more and forever more of the same. Eternity thus understood would be part of the riddle, the sense of life in ordinary time, and not of the solution. So the riddle’s answer must lie outside duration, namely, outside time.

After rejecting as a sham the popular concept of eternity, Wittgenstein also must renounce the ordinary account of the life/ death contrast. Indeed, his polemics emphasize how the concept of eternity as unending duration pushes the life/death distinction to the brink of collapse: life occurs in time as finite duration, while death ‘starts’eternity as infinitely more duration. T o make the contrast again sharp, Wittgenstein considers life and death with reference to the world and its end. Some confusion remains, however, because he still uses the verb leben, though not the noun das Leben, in the popular sense. This last point will be retrieved shortly.

Out of context, Wittgenstein’s remarks on death seem trite. Here is a

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Recall that “life and the world are one”(5.621), which insures that an end to one will be the same for the other. What could such an end be? The world is just the totality of Tatsachen, the ‘molecular’ facts composed out of ‘atomic’ ones; and, as shown earlier, facts can be multiple if and only if radical change is possible. Both the multiplicity of facts and the possibility of radical change share, as a precondition, time as form. Time grounds both, and so is shown (in the technical Wittgensteinian sense) by both the world’s being composed out of multiple facts and its being susceptible t o radical change. Since the possibility of radical change distinguishes the world as a multiplicity of facts, and since lifeand the world are the same, “at death the world does not change, but rather ceases”(6.431). In short, death ends timeand all that time grounds--radical and multiple facts.

Duration characterizes life in time; so, a t death, duration must end too. Yet if death as ordinarily understood ‘starts’ eternity, which is supposed to be quite distinct from life in time, then eternity cannot involve duration of any sort--including the unending sort. Eternity, in the genuine sense, must involve timelessness rather than duration (time). Accordingly (and what a relief!), eternity as timelessness does not require death in the ordinary, biological sense. Instead it requires only that onebblive in the present”(6.431 I) , namely, live beyond or apart from the temporal dimensionality--the ever-shifting difference among past, present, and future--that characterizes duration. To live eternally in the genuine sense is thus t o live without duration; and this is t o live without distinction among past, present, and future, the dimensions that mark duration. To live eternally is simply t o live timelessly. Wittgenstein therefore claims that “he who lives eternally lives in the present”(6.431 I ) . So death in the Wittgensteinian sense is the same as living in the present alone, as both involve theend of duration and hence of time. Dying, in this radically new sense, means escaping from time as duration and into timelessness as the eternal present.

The theme of life, death, eternity, and the riddle continues into 6.45, which talks about viewing the world sub specie aeterni or as a “limited whole.” How does living in time (duration) prevent us from viewing the world as a limited whole? In what sense can the world, until now defined as the totality of facts, be viewed as limited?

At 6.431 1 Wittgenstein asserts that “our life is endless in just the way that our visual field is limitless.” Still earlier, a t 5.64, he invokes the image of our visual field to describe the self as the“extension1ess point” at the world’s limit: just as theeye does not (normally) fall within its own visual field, but rather serves as this field’s limit, so the “metaphysical self“ does not belong to its own world as yet another fact, but rather stands as this world’s limit. Recall, yet again, that”1ifeand the world are one.”So the world, like life, must be endless in just the way our visual field is limitless: just as this field always may vary--even drastically-- to encompass new items, so the world always may change radically to

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encompass new ‘atomic’ and hence ‘molecular’ facts. For the world to change radically, however, is for it t o become a new totality of facts; and this requires only that a single ‘atomic’ fact change, since all ‘atomic’ facts are mutually independent. As ‘atomic’ facts change, so does the world as their aggregate; and if‘atomic’facts can change without end, so can the world. Finally, it is the very essence of an ‘atomic’ fact t o be variable; so the world, as the aggregate of facts, is essentially infinite or endless in possible variety.

Yet facts are possibly infinite in variety only because time, as form, permits radical change and the corresponding multiplicity among objects and facts. Time as form, in grounding radical change among (‘atomic’) facts, makes possible new worlds as successive aggregates of facts. So the world in time always may change radically, and hence cannot be grasped as a limited--a fixed or completed--whole. Only a ‘world’ that no longer could change radically, hence only a timeless world, could be grasped as limited. But would this be a world?

The‘world’as a limited whole cannot be the totality of facts grounded in time; and this totality is not the ‘world’viewed sub specie aeterni. Yet what other world could there be? Again, since life and the world are one, the world viewed sub specie aeterni would be the counterpart of life lived in the eternal or timeless present. Both involve escape from time, duration, radical change, and multiplicity. So the ‘world’ grasped as a limited whole would be timeless, changeless, unitary. It would be like a single inalterable object, although the object/ fact and one/ many distinctions collapse apart from time as form and radical change. When life as duration ends and eternity ‘starts,’this is like living in the timeless present--even though the very notion of the present derives from the concept of time as duration, namely, the concept of time as past, present, and future. When the world of multiple facts ends, and the ‘world’as a limited whole ‘begins,’the latter is like a timeless, inalterable object--even though the original definition of the world underscores its multiplicity, composition out of facts, and susceptibility to radical change.

In the end, Wittgenstein is hard pressed to say what admittedly cannot be said. He makes the point in insisting that “the riddle does not exist,”for “when the answer cannot be put into words, neither can the question be put into words” (6.5). The contrast between time and timelessness clearly stands beyond the limit t o the cognitive; in fact, Wittgenstein uses this contrast and the mysteries surrounding it t o illustrate that such a limit exists.

World as a Radically Equivocal Term

The above issues are so tricky that they merit a further look. Here we will focus on how the riddle disrupts Wittgenstein’s concept of the world.

Time as form allows the world to consist of (‘atomic’) facts that can change radically; hence the (‘molecular’) facts that compose the world

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can vary indefinitely. Time as form thus grounds the world as an unlimited whole. Form does not determine into exactly which facts the world breaks down, of course, but only those into it can divide; form, in brief, is only the possibility of structure. So time pertains not to “how the world is,” but rather to “that it is”; time must belong to the world’s abiding substance, not its varied appearance. As a condition of the world, precisely as form, time lies beyond the world as the mere aggregate of facts. Depending on one’s taste in metaphor, time is either higher or deeper than the world as unlimited whole that--as our example of form--it makes possible. This makes time as form the key to the riddle of the world as an unlimited whole. Yet, in recalling once again that life and the world are one, the sense of the world (like that of life) must lie outside time. To solve the riddle thus would be to view the world sub specie aeterni, as a limited or timeless whole. The riddle thus centers on the time/ timelessness contrast. Here the text prompts far more questions than it provides answers. Does timelessness stand even ‘higher’ than time, which in turn ranks ‘higher’ than the world as unlimited whole that it, as form, first makes possible? Or d o time and timelessness, both standing in the category of the logical and so beyond the limit of the sayable, take on on a single identity? What, in fact, is identity of a concept within the category of the logical? Yet if time and timelessness merge beyond the limit to the cognitive, how can life and death, duration and eternity, be contrasted at all? If they do not merge, what marks their difference beyond the limit? Is the riddle’s very core that time and timelessness do merge beyond the limit, where the distinction between them crumbles as does the one between, say, object and fact?

At the very least, the term “world” is radically equivocal in the Tractatus. It means one thing in“the world divides into facts”( 1.2), and quite the opposite in “the world as a limited whole”(6.45). The world that divides into facts is characterized by multiplicity and the possibility of radical change; so this world is grounded in time as form. The world as a limited whole is characterized by unity and the impossibility of any change, radical or otherwise; so this world is one of timelessness. Since ‘atomic’facts as configurations of objects are what can change radically, and objects themselves are what cannot change at all, the world as unlimited must comprise (‘atomic’) facts, while the world as limited cannot comprise facts at all. So the Tractatusleaves us with yet another piece of the riddle: how can the term “wor1d”cover both the multiplicity of temporal (‘atomic’) facts and the unity of a timeless object?

The issues just raised are lumped, for the most part, under the rubric of the mystical; yet they are not unique to the Tractatus, or even to the transcendental heritage of Kant and Schopenhauer. They stand out, for example, in the Platonic tradition to which Augustine belongs. The contrast between time and timelessness, and the parallel one between empirical and transcendent reality, recurs throughout Western thought. What sets the Tractatus apart is its pursuit of one theme through issues

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that, a t first, seem quite removed. So let me now turn from death to the apparently unrelated topic of the sentence.

The Sentence: The Riddle of Facts as Symbols

Wittgenstein removes the issue of sense (Sinn) and the truth-value from its traditional context, for he largely avoids the jargon of psychology, epistemology, and theory of knowledge: “idea,” “image,” “concept,” “judgment,” “representation,” and the like. Terms such as “thinking”come up often enough, but usually without explicit reference to a self in the psychological o r epistemological sense. Indeed, “there is not a thinking, representing subject”(5.63 I ) . So even when the self gets discussed, it is not as a possessor of mental contents (see below). For Wittgenstein the issue of sense and truth-value arises in the context of the sentence--a concept that houses many familiar topics, some of which have great historical interest: whether and how a sentence differs from a name; what its general form is, if indeed it has one; whether some sentences break down into elementary ones; and so forth. Yet the ‘linguistic’ issues surrounding the sentence are likewise ‘metaphysical’ ones, as remarks such as 5.471 I make plain: “To give the essence of the sentence means to give that of all description, and thus the essence of the world.” So the riddle of the sentence coincides with that of the world.

Even the technical ‘linguistic’ account of the sentence plays off the metaphysics. Just as a Tarsache breaks down into Sachverhalte, so a Sarz breaks down into Elementarsatze, which in turn break down into names that hang together as links in a chain. The text uses basically the same vocabulary, and remarkably similar metaphors, t o characterize both ‘atomic’ fact and elementary sentence. For the former it uses the verb zusammenhangen (2.0321) and the noun die Kefte (2.03); for the latter, the nouns der Zusammenhangand die Verkettung. So the image of things’hanging together as if links in chain dominates the description of both a n ‘atomic’ fact and an elementary sentence. Since an elementary sentence is also a fact (see below), and because it consists solely of names rather than of other sentences ( 5 . 5 9 , its constituent parts are presumably objects. A name is, metaphysically, an object. The riddle thus may be posed as the following question: How can a sentence, which is a fact ( Tarsache), serve as a symbol o r “model of reality”(2.12)? Next we will consider the extent to which the Tractatus answers this question.

At first the answer looks easy: a fact is a sentence if and only if the objects ultimately comprising it are names or “primitive signs” (3.26) that, as its simple parts, acquire meaning (Eedeutung) as labels for the objects that ultimately compose a depicted fact (regardless of whether the fact is merely depicted, o r both depicted and actual). Yet this reply just pushes the issue back a step, for the question then arises of what first transforms some objects into names. In other words, why are some objects the constituents of symbolizing facts--and hence objects as names--while others are merely objects?

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This line of questioning leads to the concept of pictorial form. Before analyzing it, we should get clear on what sort of answer will not satisfy the question at hand. In trying to explain what makes a mere fact into a sentence, suppose we appealed to the notion of sense (Sinn): a sentence alone has sense, a nonsymbolizing fact does not. This reply is no good, for it only invites the further question of why’some facts have sense, and so count as sentences, while others do not.

Moreover, the answer is not to be found in any science, including psychology and “modern theory of knowledge” (5.541). Any study of the knower simply fails to explain how a fact can be a symbol; such studies usually take this for granted. Wittgenstein makes the point, among several others, in insisting that “A believes p”is only“ ‘p’says p” in disguise (5.541). The first expression presupposes, rather than explains, a fact’s (namely, p’s) being a symbol and only confuses matters by turning p into one of A’s mental contents. Wittgenstein accordingly dismisses as “superficial” (5.5421) any account of the subject, such as Russell’s, that does not confront the main issue: “that it is impossible to judge nonsense” (5.5422).

To work deeper into the riddle of symbolism, we now must fit the notion of sense together with those of pictorial form and metaphysical self. This can be done by reviewing some basic yet tricky points. For reasons given below, let me render Wittgenstein’s sinnvoller Satz as “sensical sentence.”

Pictorial Form and Metaphysical Self

The phrase “sensical sentence” is redundant, and serves only to underscore that a sentence is a fact that expresses sense. Recall, for instance, that a sentence does not have as its content a sense; content is already of a sensical sentence (3.13). Nor can sense be equated with a thought expressed in a sentence, for a thought too is just a sensical sentence (4). Sense is merely “what a picture depicts” (2.221); and a sentence, as a “logical picture” (2.18), is simply a fact that--purzfy in virtue of its pictorial form-does depict.

What a sentence depicts is “a possible situation in logical space” (2.203); but since a sentence as picture differs from the depicted, namely, because “no sentence can say something about itself”(3.332). a sentence can contain only “the possibility of the situation that it presents” (2.03). A sentence therefore cannot contain (enthulten) its sense, since the latter is just what a sentence does depict; instead a sentence “contains the possibility of expressing its sense . . . the form but not the content of its sense”(3.13). The content of its sense is the fact depicted, which cannot be the fact depicting--the sentence itself. Yet unless a fact actually depicted a (possible) situation, it would not be a sentence at all; and that a fact depicts something automatically makes it sensical. So in place of the pleonasm “sensical sentence” we might put “sensical fact”as a rubric to cover exactly those facts that depict others (perhaps only possible ones) and thereby count as sentences.

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Since a genuine sentence is just a depicting fact, none can be nonsensical. Any putative sentence that did not express sense, such as the equations of mathematics (6.2), would be an illusory sentence (Scheinsarz). Further, because a thought is simply a (sensical) sentence, none can be nonsensical or “illogical” (3.13). Finally, the identity between sentence and sensical fact accounts for why “I understand a sentence without having its sense explained to me”(4.021). To miss the sense would be to miss that a given fact was also a sentence.

Sentences both say and show: say that such and such is the case, which makes them either truth or false; show that they are sentences, namely, depicting or sensical facts (4.022). Yet if sentences cannot say even what they are, much less what first makes them possible, then their riddle--like that of the world to which they belong as facts--lies beyond the limit of the cognitive:

Sentences can present the whole of reality, but they cannot present what they must have in common with reality in order to be able to present it--logical form. In order to be able to present logical form, we would have to be able to station ourselves outside logic, which means outside the world (4.12).

So the riddle of the sentence as a symbolizing fact takes us back to pictorial form, whose definition feeds off that of form in general: “This hanging together of a picture’s elements is called its structure, and the structure’s possibility is called its pictorial form” (2.15). Once again a concept from the ‘linguistics,’ pictorial form, derives straight from one in the ‘metaphysics,’ form. Pictorial form, like plain form, is the possibliity of structure among objects; to this extent, it fits thedefinition of time as form. (Recall that we are using time precisely as an example of form in general.) At the most basic level, time as form can make possible a sentence by first allowing objects to have the structure through which they constitute an ‘atomic’ fact; and an elementary sentence, out of which all other kinds of sentence are composed, is at bottom such a fact. Further, a sentence is a fact that depicts another (perhaps nonactual) fact; and the latter, even as merely depicted, also depends on form in general because its parts, objects, must have at least a depicted structure--and so the possibility of structure. In sum, pictorial form-- like time as form--is basically the possibility of structure.

What distinguishes pictorial from plain form comes out in another definition: “Pictorial form is the possibility that things are related to one another in the same way as the elements of the picture”(2.151). Pictorial form is thus the possibility of a ‘corresponding’ structure between a depicting and a depicted fact. Yet any fact at all could be a sentence, since “a picture can depict any reality whose form it has”(2.17 1); and all sentences are logical pictures, while all pictures are likewise logical ones. Accordingly, any fact (actual or merely possible) of a given form could be depicted by any other fact so long as the latter had the same form. But who do certain facts depict, while others do not, if any of them could?

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Consider exactly what pictorial form accomplishes. It makes possible determinate sense, which Wittgenstein identifies with a sentence’s the same having ( I ) logical multiplicity(4.04) and (2) determinate structure (2.1514) as what it depicts. ( I ) insures that depicting and depicted facts will have the same number of utimate parts: objects as names in the former, mere objects in the latter. (2) insures that each name in the depicting fact will have a unique Bedeutung in the depicted one. In order for depicting and depicted fact to meet condition (2), however, they must have the same form; and since the sole relation between otherwise independent facts is depiction of one by the other, the form in question is pictorial. Pictorial form, then, is a condition of determinate sense, which is a distinctive relation between a picturing and a pictured fact. Such form does not explain how a fact depicts in thejirstplace, and so counts as a sentence; instead the concept presupposes that there are depicting facts already.

This long excursion into pictorial form and related matters was needed to get clear on what the concept does, and cannot, explain. The trip has taken us back to our opening, and still central question: How can facts depict at all, and so be sentences? If pictorial form explains only how a sentence’s sense can be determinate, then what explains how there can be a sentence--a sensical fact--to begin? A likely (in fact, the only) candidate in the Tractatus is the metaphysical self, which one commentator describes as “the intentionality of language itseK”’6 This self must be responsible for somehow transforming certain facts into symbols; it must ground the relation of depicting or picturing, a relation that in turn requires pictorial form for such depicting to result in determinate sense. (At issue here is not Wittgenstein’s insistence, in the Tractatus, that sense as such must be determinate. The point will be raised later.) Without the metaphysical self, language presumably would be absent from a world that would break down instead into nondepicting facts alone.

Wittgenstein talks little about the metaphysical self, except to emphasize that it does not belong to the world as a fact or collection of facts. This self stands outside the world of (‘atomic’ and ‘molecular’) facts, radical change, duration, time; so it must be timeless and, of course, beyond the limit to the cognitive. Once again Wittgenstein’s analysis culminates in the odd interplay between time and timelessness. With respect to the topic at hand, time as form and metaphysical self as timeless limit of both the world and language (see below) are joint conditions for language. Time, as one kind of form, can serve as the condition of structure in both the depicting and the depicted fact; the timeless self accounts for the very depicting of one by the other. But the timeless self would have to transform time as mere form into pictorial form if the depictingfact, the sentence, were to have determinate sense, which Wittgenstein demands of any genuine sentence.

The sentence, like death, involves the strange interplay between time and timelessness. At first glance these two concepts appear

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contradictory, yet they serve as the joint foundation for the riddle, which can be expressed in other topics besides death and the sentence. The riddle deals with issues that, traditionally, would be characterized as metaphysical: what is the ultimate sense of the world (life)? How is language possible at all? Wittgenstein means to show that all such questions are alike in ruling out a cognitively satisfying answer; indeed, he insists even that the questions themselves cannot be put incognitively satisfying terms, In this sense, there is one and the same riddle across topics.

World and Lunguage

The similarity between death and the sentence deserves to be explored a bit further. The first topic concerns the world, since death as life’s end is likewise the world’s end; the second deals with language, which breaks down into sentences in much the way that the world divides into facts (4.001). The world and language generally are viewed as Wittgenstein’s two main interests in the Tractatus. The two interests converge, perhaps most conspicuously in the dictum that “the limits of my language signify (bedeuten) the limits of my world” (5.6) and in related comments on solipsism/ realism. The limits of my language mark off all (possible) facts into which the world might break down (5.5561), which suggests that actual facts--the world at any instant-- constitute a proper subset of depictable ones. This cannot be so, however. A fact, actual or merely possible, is depicted precisely through a sentence, which must be an actual fact. How the world is thus determines which sentences are possible in that world; and sentences, as logical pictures, mark off which worlds are possible. The limits of my language and those of my world are thus the same, and equally ineffable.

The world and language thus have the same limit, which can be displayed through examples drawn from either. Death and the sentence are just two of many possible choices for illustrating the limit to the cognitive and the riddle associated with this limit. The Tractatus, in any case, does not move ‘up’ or ‘down’ among its examples: the ‘technical’ and the‘mystical’stand on the very same level. The labels themselves are but conveniences under which to group examples, all of which cough up the riddle if pressed hard enough. The two examples pressed here, death and the sentence, yielded a version of the riddle in which time and timelessness are bound together in a peculiar, elusive way. Some key questions about their relationship demand, but likewise resist, a clear answer. For example, how do time and timelessness stand within the Tractarian category of the logical? Is one ‘deeper’ than the other? If so, how can the concepts be either contradictory--as they seem at certain times--or equivalent--as they appear at other times? If not, how are they to be distinguished at all on the ‘far’ side of the limit to the cognitive?

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My aim throughout has not been to answer such questions, but rather to indicate how the text prompts the very same ones both in its and its ‘mystical’ ‘technical’ remarks. What varies from one aphorism to the other is not the riddle, but merely its expression. This may be couched in either ‘linguistic’ or ‘metaphysical’ jargon, but in either case draws on concepts first spelled out in the ‘metaphysical’ remarks. For instance, form is a concept that grounds the object/fact distinction, which then grounds--within the ‘linguistics’--the name/ sentence contrast. Form, defined in the‘metaphysics’simply as the possibility of structure, shows up in the ‘linguistics’as pictorial form, the possibility of a ‘corresponding’ structure between a depicting and a depicted fact. The ‘metaphysics’ therefore has a modest priority over the ‘linguistics’ in that the latter adopts the former’s basic concepts and distinctions. With respect to the riddle, however, the distinction between ‘metaphysics’ and ‘linguistics’ collapses. Perhaps this is why Wittgenstein prefers to characterize the Tractatus as a book about neither ‘metaphysics’ nor ‘linguistics’ but, rather, simply about philosophical issues.

Concluding Remarks

In charting Wittgenstein’s move away from the Tractatus, writers usually and rightly emphasize the color-exclusion problem.*7 The issue clearly prods the long, slow trip toward the Investigations, but can be construed as a symptom of other, more general difficulties that Wittgenstein never singles out by name. These merit a look both Wittgenstein handles them at length in the latter book, and because they point up his further break with the metaphysical/ transcendental heritage. Let me sketch one such difficulty, again through a contrast with Kant.

The early Wittgenstein, like even the late Kant, acknowledges something ‘higher’ than the cognitive. Kant talks about this ‘higher’ (e.g., practical reason’s autonomy) in cognitive terms such as “proof,” “knowledge,” and the like--even while conceding such talk as proble- matical. He goes beyond the limit in order to talk about what matters the most philosophically. Wittgenstein, in the Tracrarus, also trespasses into the‘far’side of the limit, but at once catches himself and condemns the venture as yielding only nonsense. He insists that we remain silent on what matters the most philosophically. Kant never gives up the sharp boundary, or the illicit trips to the ‘far’ side. This may be a crucial weakness, yet another example of a thinker’s failure to abide his own injunctions. Wittgenstein, by contrast, goes another way after the Tractatus-one no longer marked by a sharp, or even a recognizable, limit to the cognitive. He does talk again about the most important philosophical matters, and partly to deny the very distinctions that once demanded his silence. Let me review, in conclusion, one such distinction.

The saylshow distinction marks the limit to the cognitive: on the ‘near’ side is what can be said, on the ‘far’ one what can be shown only.

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The distinction has as its rationale the dictum that “what can be said at all can be said clearly”(Preface, cf. 3.251). This dictum gets fleshed out in the doctrine that a sentence must have a determinate sense, which requires that it be composed of names or “simple signs” (3.23) for objects that comprise the depicted fact. In insisting that sense be determinate, Wittgenstein rules out both degrees and types of it: both that any sentence might be either more or less sensical than another, and that any two sentences might be sensical in quite different ways. He also rejects the option that sentences from, say, ethics or metaphysics really have a determinate sense, all appearances to the contrary. Yet if proper sentences are all sensical in the same way, then all improper ones must be nonsensical in the same way, too--whether the nonsense arises within a ‘technical’ or a ‘mystical’ topic. Language in general thus divides neatly into two exclusive and exhaustive categories, the sensical and the nonsensical. Between the two stands the sharp, fixed limit to the cognitive.

In the Investigations, Wittgenstein assails the doctrine of determinate sense. He points out the “referential opacity”’8 even of demonstrative pronouns and proper names ( 1 -35, especially); takes note of the shifting distinction between the simple and the composite (e.g., 4648); attacks as vague and worse the concept of analysis (e.g., 60-64); underscores the uncircumscribed (unbegrenzt) character of language (69); repudiates as futile the search after “the essence of 1anguage”and “super concepts”in which to ground it (97); cautions against our enchantment with “fixed meanings” and “fixed rules” in language (88); looks in vain for “sharp boundaries” within language (79,99); gives up the quest for absolute clarity; and so forth. The sharp contrast between sensical and nonsens- ical language gives way to a host of language-games, which are alike and unlike by degree only; no such game is unconditionally proper, none unconditionally improper. To be sure, Wittgenstein still has doubts about the “strange uses” to which philosophy puts words; and he complains, in the spirit of the Tractatus, that “philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday” (39). Yet he clearly gives up on determinate sense, a doctrine through which he earlier pursued the theme of a fixed limit to the cognitive. Now his “method by examples” illustrates the unbounded variety and flexibility of langauage-games, rather than the pervasive limit and the nonsense on the‘far’side. In sum, the Investigations takes up the theme of the limit only to put it down. So in the Tractatus Wittgenstein courts the metaphysical/ transcendental heritage without ever intending to marry into it. By the Investigations he has jilted the tradition-though, at times, he flirts with its more at tractive issues.

NOTES

My thanks to the referees of SJP, whose remarks were enormously helpful in putting this article into final form. Any shortcomings that remain are mine alone, of course..

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I Compare, for instance, Black’s A Companion ro Wirrgensrein’s Tracrarus (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell, 1964) with LeMoine’s The Anagogic Theory of Wirrgensrein’s Tracrafus (The Hague: Mouton, 1975).

2 Anscombe, for example, finds most of Wittgenstein’s remarks on the mystical simply “odd.” An Introduction ro Wirrgensrein’s Tracrarus (London: Hutchinson, 1959). especially pp. 163-173.

J Stenius, Wirrgensrein’s Tracrarus: A Critical Exposition of I r s Main Lines of Thoughr (Oxford: Blackwell, 1960), p. 172. Cf. H. LeRoy Finch’s Wirrgensrein: The Eurly Philosophy (New York: Humanities Press, 1971), which sees the Tracrarusas Kant’s first Kririk“transposed intoa propositionaland realistic key”(p. 266)! What remains of Kant, the self-proclaimed “critical idealist,” if his central doctrines are “transposed into a realistic key”!

4 Critique of Pure Reason(New York: Macmillan, 1968), trans. Norman Kemp-Smith. A90=B122.

5 A. Kenny, Wirfgensrein(London: Penguin, 1973), p. 72. Cf. R.A. Dietrich, Sprache und Wirklichkeir in Wirrgensreins Tracrarus (Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1973).

R.J. Fogelin, Wifrgensrein (London: Routledge, 1976). p. 2. W.V. Quine, Word and Object (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T., 1960), pp. 270-276.

8 Norebooks, 1914-1916(New York: Harper, 1961). trans. G.E.M. Anscombe, p. 84. 9 Tracrarus Logico-Philosophicus (London: Routledge, 1961). trans. D.F. Pears and

B.F. McGuinnes, p. 3. The earlier translation by C.K. Ogden(London: Routledge, 1922) does distinguish between das Denken and der Gedanke. It also renders darsrellen as “to present”; but it sometimes translates this verb as “to represent,”and further complicates matters by translating both darsrellen and abbilden as “to depict.” Most of the translations in t

10 Cririque o 3” Pure Reason, Axiii. Perhaps the point is made best in the section Transcendental Docfrine ojMethodwithin the first Kritik. For an earlier discussion, see, for instance, A13 I=B170-AI 37=B176.

1 1 E. Zemach, “Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of the Mystica1”in Essays on Wirrgensrein’s Trucrurus, ed. Copi and Beard (New York: Macmillan, 1966), pp. 359-375.

12 P. Hacker, Insighr and Illusion: Wirrgensrein on Philosophy and rhe Metaphysics of Experience (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972).

‘ J Philosophical Invesrigarions (New Y ork: Macmillan, 1958), trans. G. E. M. Anscombe, #133. Numbers in parantheses refer to sections of the Invesrigarions, both in this section and the last one.

paper are my own, and 1 try to keep them as literal as possible.

14 Norebooks, p. 84. 15“On Free Wi1l”in Augusrine: Eurlier Wrirings(London: SCM, 1953). trans. J.H.S.

Burleigh. See, especially, Books I1 and 111. l 6 E. Schlossberger, “The Self in Wittgenstein’s Tracrarus” in Proceedings of rhe 2nd

Inrernarional Wirrgensrein Symposium (Vienna: Holder, 1978). ed. R. Haller er a/., pp. 147-150.

See, for example, Hacker, op.. cir. Of course, this phrase comes from Quine in Wordand Object; but the Invesrigarions

grapples at length with the issue.

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