Pictures and Nonsense Wittgenstein

John Locke Father of Classical Liberalism (civil liberties, economic freedom, limited government) Along with Descartes, most important 17th Century Western philosopher.

Resemblance Theory According to the resemblance theory of representation, ideas represent things by resembling them– sort of like how painting works.

Painting

The Nature of Ideas According to Locke, ideas are “the pictures drawn in our minds” (Essay, II.x.5).

The Nature of Ideas An idea of a horse, then, is very much like a picture, image, or painting of a horse. Compare Hume: “By ideas I mean the faint images of [perceptions] in thinking and reasoning” (Treatise, I.i.1).

Resembles Sees Mind Dagger Idea of a Dagger

Resemblance This means that even though what you see are ideas, the ideas are close copies of the real things, the way a realistic painting is a close copy of a scene.

Locke on General Terms “It is not enough for the perfection of language, that sounds can be made signs of ideas, unless those signs can be so made use of as to comprehend several particular things…”

Locke on General Terms “…for the multiplication of words would have perplexed their use, had every particular thing need of a distinct name to be signified by…”

Locke on General Terms “To remedy this inconvenience, language had yet a further improvement in the use of general terms, whereby one word was made to mark a multitude of particular existences.”

Particular Terms Locke

General Terms Dog

Abstract Ideas If we accept the idea theory, then, we have to accept that there are “abstract ideas”– not mental pictures of a particular person, but mental pictures that resemble equally a group of things. These abstract ideas are the meanings of general terms.

Berkeley vs. Abstract Ideas The abstract idea of a man is supposed to apply equally to a tall man and a short man; a black man and a white man; a skinny man and a fat man; etc. Can there be such pictures?

Concepts Concepts are representations of things or qualities: so I can have a concept of Obama, or a concept of red, or a concept of a horse, or a concept of a concept. Importantly, concepts are not truth-evaluable. My concept of red isn’t true, and it isn’t false either. It might be more or less accurate.

Propositions We can say that when I think of a thing, or think about a thing, then I am entertaining a concept. However, when I think that such-and-such, I am entertaining a proposition.

Propositions For example, I can think that Obama is the US president, or think that grass is red, or think that the concept of a horse is not a concept. Propositions are truth-evaluable: when I think that grass is red, my thought is false. (Not so when I just think of red.)

Dilemma The idea theory seems to have trouble distinguishing concepts and propositions. According to the idea theory, thought is having ideas, and ideas are like mental pictures. Are mental pictures truth-evaluable? If they are, then concepts aren’t ideas. If they aren’t, then propositions aren’t ideas.

Berkeley and Resemblance For Berkeley, only ideas could resemble ideas: a physical world of matter was wholly unlike an idea. This led Berkeley to embrace idealism, and view the “physical world” as actually made of ideas.

The Picture Theory

Wittgenstein’s Picture Theory Logical “pictures” Unity of the proposition/ fact Abstracta Concepts vs. propositions Resemblance

Logical Pictures A spatial picture has the same spatial structure as the thing it represents. A logical picture has the same logical structure as the thing it represents. (All pictures are logical pictures.)

Logical Pictures The elements of a logical picture stand in for (represent) the elements of a state of affairs. The way the elements of the logical picture relate to one another represents how the objects they represent relate to each other.

Logical Pictures What makes the elements of a picture and the relations they stand in candidates for representing something? They share a logical form. Compare: ‘is red’ can combine with ‘the square’ to form ‘the square is red’ just like redness can combine with a square.

The Unity of the Proposition 2.141 A picture is a fact.

Concepts vs. Propositions Since Wittgenstein has abandoned ideas for propositions (meaningful declarative sentences) he has a distinction between concepts (predicates) and propositions (sentences).

Berkeley and Resemblance Revisited For Wittgenstein, it wasn’t true, for example, that only ideas can resemble ideas, or only physical things can resemble physical things. 2.161 There must be something identical in a picture and what it depicts, to enable one to be a picture of the other.

Berkeley and Resemblance Revisited 2.17 What a picture must have in common with reality in order to be able to depict it– correctly or incorrectly, in the way it does, is its pictorial form. [Pictorial vs. logical form]

Resemblance/ Identity Reflexivity: for all x: x R x Symmetry: for all x, y: if x R y, then y R x Transitivity: for all x, y, z: if x R y and y R z, then x R z

Spoilers

Wittgenstein’s Man on the Hill “A picture which corresponds to a man walking up a hill forward corresponds equally, and in the same way, to a man sliding down the hill backward.”

Wittgenstein’s Man on the Hill “Perhaps a Martian would describe the picture [as the man sliding down]. I do not need to explain why we do not describe it so.” -- Philosophical Investigations

Nonsense

Peter Geach (1916-2013) British philosopher at Leeds Fellow of the British Academy Awarded the papal cross “Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice” (aka “Deocration of Honour”)

Wittgenstein on His Own Nonsense 6.54 My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them—as steps—to climb up beyond them.

Wittgenstein on His Own Nonsense 6.54 (cont’d) (He must, so to speak,throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.) He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright.

Wittgenstein on His Own Nonsense 7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.

Wittgenstein on His Own Nonsense Things to discuss: The concept horse problem Logic as nonsense Theory of meaning as nonsense Category mistakes

Same Easy Ones! What did you have most trouble understanding in the reading? Describe a parallel between Wittgenstein and Carnap’s views. What part of the reading did you find really agreeable (or disagreeable)? Why?