Ludwig wittgenstein

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (Vienna, April 26, 1889-Cambridge, April 29, 1951), known as Ludwig Wittgenstein, was a philosopher, mathematician, Austrian linguist and logician, later British national. He published the Tractatus logico-philosophicus , which greatly influenced the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle, a movement of which he never considered himself a member. Some time later, the Tractatus was severely criticized by Wittgenstein himself in The Blue and Brown Notebooks and in his Philosophical Investigations, both posthumous works. He was a student of Bertrand Russell at Trinity College, Cambridge University, where he too later became a professor.

Biography

"Revolutionary will be the one who can revolutionize himself."

“Revolutionär wird der sein, der sich selbst revolutionieren kann. ”

Vermischte Bemerkungen, 252

By 1890, Karl Wittgenstein had loved one of the greatest fortunes in the world.

Ludwig Wittgenstein was born in Vienna on April 26, 1889, the son of Karl Wittgenstein and Leopoldine Kalmus. He was the youngest of nine children, born into one of the most prominent and wealthy families in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Her paternal grandparents, Hermann Christian and Fanny Wittgenstein (who was a first cousin of the famous violinist Joseph Joachim), were both born into Jewish families but later converted to Protestantism and, after they moved from Saxony to Vienna in In the 1850s, they assimilated into the Viennese Protestant professional classes.

Ludwig's father became an industrialist and made his fortune in the steel industry. By the late 1880s, Karl controlled an effective monopoly over iron and steel resources within the empire and was one of the richest men in the world. Karl later transferred much of his capital into real estate, stocks of capital, precious metals, and foreign exchange reserves, all of which were scattered throughout Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, and North America. Consequently, the family's colossal wealth was insulated from the inflation crises that followed in later years.

His mother, Leopoldine Kalmus, was the daughter of a Jewish father and a Catholic mother. Despite their paternal grandparents' conversion to Protestantism, the Wittgenstein children were baptized Catholic—the faith of their maternal grandmother—and Ludwig received a Catholic burial after his death.

Ludwig's sister, Gretl, painted by Gustav Klimt for her wedding portrait in 1905.

She grew up in a home that provided an exceptionally intense environment for artistic and intellectual achievement. Her parents were music lovers and all of her children had intellectual and artistic gifts. Ludwig's older brother, Paul Wittgenstein, became a world-renowned concert pianist who continued his concert career even after losing his right arm in World War I (1914-1918), prompting Maurice Ravel to compose for him in 1931. his famous Piano Concerto for the left hand.

The Wittgenstein household attracted educated people, especially musicians. The family received frequent visits from artists such as Gustav Mahler. All of Ludwig's musical education would be very important to him. He even used musical examples in his philosophical writings. Another not-so-fortunate inheritance that he may have had was a suicidal tendency: three of his four male brothers took their own lives.

He studied at the beginning of the 20th century in Linz at the Realschule Bundesrealgymnasium Fadingerstrasse in Linz. At that same school he was also studying Adolf Hitler at that time. There is a photo dated 1901 in which you can see both of them, along with the rest of the students and one of their teachers, posing for the annual school photo. He belongs to a book written by the Australian Kimberley Cornish entitled The Jew of Linz: Wittgenstein, Hitler and Their Secret Battle for the Mind (1998). According to this writer, the young Ludwig was the Jewish boy to whom Adolf Hitler would later refer in his work Mein kampf (My fight), although this theory is disputed.

Wittgenstein's first intellectual interest was not philosophy but engineering. His studies took him, firstly, to Berlin and later to Manchester (United Kingdom), where the vanguard of aeronautical engineering was located. As a result of his early work, he filed a patent for a jet engine in 1911 which appears to have had some influence on future helicopter engine design. While in England, he became interested in the philosophy of mathematics and came into contact with Bertrand Russell, with whom he would begin a stormy relationship. However, it was this English environment that launched his intellectual career, with friends like George Moore or the economists John Maynard Keynes and Piero Sraffa.

He maintained a very critical position on his fellow philosophers and even on what other figures in the scientific field could think of him:

It is indifferent to me that the typical Western scientist understands or values me, as he does not understand the spirit with which I write. Our civilization is characterized by the word 'progress'. Progress is their form, not one of their qualities, progress. It's typically constructive. His activity is to build an increasingly complicated product. And even clarity is at the service of this end; it is not an end in itself. For me, on the contrary, clarity, transparency, is an end in itself.

Aphorisms. Culture and value30.

Wittgenstein tombstone in Cambridge.

In 1919 he gave up the part of the family fortune he had inherited when his father died. The money was split between her sisters Helene and Hermine and her brother Paul. Ludwig insisted that they promise never to pay him back.

Ludwig Wittgenstein died in Cambridge, at the home of his physician, Dr. Bevan, on April 29, 1951, after refusing medical treatment for prostate cancer. Before losing consciousness, he begged Dr. Bevan's wife to reproduce his last words: "Tell everyone I've had a wonderful life." He was working on a manuscript discussing the assumptions and conditions of certainty, published posthumously by the heir to his work, Elizabeth Anscombe, under the title On Certainty.

Thought

Wittgenstein's philosophical thought is usually divided into two periods: the first period revolves around his first important work, published in 1923: the Tractatus logico-philosophicus. After its publication, Wittgenstein left philosophy, believing that he had solved all philosophical problems. Several years later, after some missteps, Wittgenstein returned to teaching and philosophizing, but in a very different spirit from the one that guided his previous work. From this second period resulted the Philosophical Investigations, published posthumously in 1953. These two works are so different that sometimes one speaks of a “first Wittgenstein” or “Wittgenstein of the Tractatus» and a «second Wittgenstein» or «Wittgenstein of Investigations».

First Wittgenstein: the Tractatus logico-philosophicus

View of the central courtyard of Trinity College.

The Tractatus logico-philosophicus was the first book written by Wittgenstein and the only one he saw published during his lifetime. The first publication was in the German journal Annalen der Naturphilosophie (XIV, 3-4, pp. 185-262), under the title Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung. One year Later (in 1922) the first bilingual edition (German-English) would appear at the Kegan Paul publishing house in London, accompanied by an introduction by Bertrand Russell, and already under the Latin title with which he is best known. It is the main text in which Wittgenstein expresses his thought of the so-called "first period".

The Tractatus is a complex text that lends itself to various readings. In a first reading, it is presented as a book that tries to explain the operation of logic (previously developed by Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell, among others), trying to show at the same time that logic is the scaffolding or structure on which which our descriptive language (our science) and our world (which is what our language or our science describes) rises. The fundamental thesis of the Tractatus is this close structural (or formal) link between language and the world, to such an extent that "the limits of my language are the limits of my world" (Tractatus: § 5.6). Indeed, what the world, language and thought share is the logical form (logische Form), thanks to which we can make figures of the world to describe it.

In the Tractatus, the world (Welt) is the totality of facts, that is, of what is the case (what happens, what is actually given) (Tractatus: §§ 1-2). Facts are "states of affairs" (Sachverhalt), that is, objects in a certain relationship (Tractatus: §§ 2-2.01). For example, a fact is that the book is on the table, which is revealed as a relationship between "the book" (which we can call object "a") and "the table" (which we can call object "b"). According to Wittgenstein, facts have a logical structure that allows the construction of propositions that represent or represent (from the German Bild) that state of affairs. "The book is on the table", transcribed into logical language, is expressed: "aRb". Just as a fact is a relationship between objects, a proposition will be a concatenation of names (which will have the objects as reference). For Wittgenstein, the descriptive language works the same as a model, in which we represent the facts by placing pieces that act as the represented objects. In the Tractatus, language is fundamentally made up of names (we naturally speak of language once it is logically analysed).

From this fundamental idea, Wittgenstein extracts his entire theory of figuration (or signification) and of truth. A proposition will be significant, or make sense (from German Sinn), to the extent that it represents a logically possible state of affairs. Another different thing is that the proposition is true or false. A proposition with sense figures out a possible state of affairs. For the proposition to be true, the fact it describes must actually occur (must be the case). If the described fact does not occur, then the proposition is false. But in this case, whether true or false, the proposition makes sense, because it describes a possible state of affairs. "The world is whatever the case is" (Tractatus: § 1); reality (Wirklichkeit) will be the totality of possible facts, those that occur and those that do not occur (Tractatus: § 2.06 and § 2.202).

Another fundamental thesis of the Tractatus is the identity between meaningful language and thought, implying that our thoughts (the mental representations we make of reality) are also governed by the logic of propositions, then: «The logical figure of facts is thought» (Tractatus: § 3) or «Thought is the proposition with meaning» (Tractatus: § 4). In this way, if something is thinkable, it must also be possible (Tractatus: § 3.02), that is, it must be able to be collected in a meaningful proposition (whether it is true or false). Thought is a representation of reality. Reality is what can be described with language (in this sense, it can be appreciated that reality in the Tractatus is an image that results from a descriptive language, and not a reality in itself; that is why the limits of my language are the limits of my world).

This is Wittgenstein's way of determining what we can and cannot talk about meaningfully. We can speak, that is, say truths or falsehoods, as long as we use language to represent states of affairs or possible events in the world. It is only possible to speak with a sense of reality. This is the point at which the Tractatus is interpreted as an advocate of empiricism or as an apology for science, since only science is capable of saying something with sense; and "What cannot be spoken of must be kept silent" (Tractatus: § 7). Now, the true and original thought of Wittgenstein begins here. If, as the Tractatus says, it is only possible to speak meaningfully about the facts of the world: what happens with philosophy texts and, in particular, with the propositions of the Tractatus itself? >? Indeed, the Tractatus does not describe possible facts or facts of the world, but rather speaks of the language and logic that govern our thought and our world, etc.

This is how the controversial -but fundamental- distinction between saying and showing that Wittgenstein himself considered the core of philosophy comes into play. The logical form and logic in general cannot be expressed, that is to say: you cannot create a meaningful proposition in which logic is described, because logic shows itself in propositions with sense (which express the occurrence or not occurrence of a state of affairs.). Logic is present in all propositions, but is not said by any of them. In this sense: "Logic is transcendental" (Tractatus: § 6.13).

Logic establishes the limit of language, thought and the world, and in this way shows the limit itself, which no longer belongs to the world, remaining outside that scope of the thinkable and expressible. That is why, as Wittgenstein indicates: «There is, certainly, the inexpressible. It shows itself, it is the mystical” (Tractatus: § 6.522). The task of philosophy is, then, precisely, to reach the extreme cases of language, where we no longer speak of the world but, nevertheless, the inexpressible is shown. This is the case of tautologies, contradictions and, in general, the propositions of logic.

Similarly, as pointed out towards the end of the Tractatus, ethics (that is, what tries to talk about what is good or bad, what is valuable, the meaning of life, etc.) is also inexpressible and transcendental (Tractatus: §§ 6.4-6.43). Ethics, whatever is good or valuable, does not change the facts of the world at all; value must reside outside the world, in the realm of the mystical. One cannot speak of the mystical, but over and over again it shows up in each of the events we experience.

In a letter he wrote to his friend Ludwig von Ficker (circa 1919), he says that the ultimate meaning of his Tractatus logico-philosophicus is ethical; and then add:

My work is made up of two parts: from which here appears, and of all that I have not written. And precisely this second part is the most important. My book, in fact, delimits inwardly the ethical, so to speak; and I am convinced that, strictly, alone. It can be defined. I believe, in a word, that everything about what many today are plotting I have put into evidence in my book keeping silent about it. [...] I would now advise you to read the prologue and the end, since it is they who express the sense more immediatly.

Fragment collected and translated into the "Introduction" of Isidoro Reguera and Jacobo Muñoz (1986)
of Tractatus logico-philosophicus, Madrid: Alliance, 2002; p. ix

Second Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations

Wittgenstein in 1947.

The Philosophical Investigations are the main text in which the thought of the so-called second Wittgenstein is collected. The most important feature of this second period is a change of perspective and paradigm in his philosophical study of language. If in the Tractatus he adopted a logical point of view for the scrutiny of language, this second Wittgenstein came to the conviction that the appropriate point of view is of a normative character contrary to the pragmatist point of view: it is not about of looking for the logical structures of language, but of studying the rules that speakers use when they express themselves in a specific way, it is necessary to analyze the type of grammar that they use, which is closely linked to learning itself, which configures a certain way of life. Therefore, the linguistic priorities in the use of language exhibit the ways of life of the speakers.

In the Investigations, he maintains that the meaning of words and the meaning of propositions lies in their function, their use (Gebrauch) in language. That is to say, asking for the meaning of a word or for the meaning of a proposition is equivalent to asking how it is used. On the other hand, since these uses are many and multiform, the criteria for determining the correct use of a word or a proposition will be determined by the rules that each one of the speakers has learned and that are exhibited in the way of life of the speakers. This context is called a language game (Sprachspiel). These language games do not share a common essence but maintain family resemblances (Familienähnlichkeiten). From this it follows that the absurdity of a proposition will lie in using it outside the language game that is proper to it.

A fundamental thesis of the Investigations is the impossibility of a private language. For Wittgenstein, a language is a conglomerate of games, each of which will be governed by its own rules. The issue is to understand that these rules cannot be private, that is, we cannot privately follow a rule. The reason is that the only criterion to know that we are correctly following the rule is in the habitual use of a community: if I get lost on a deserted island, and I set up a game to entertain myself, the next day I cannot be sure if I comply with the rules. Same rules as the day before, because my memory could well fail me or I might have gone crazy. The same thing happens with language games: they belong to a community and never to a single individual. This will have important consequences for the later philosophy of mind, for what happens to those terms that refer to our private experiences, the so-called mental terms, such as "pain"? The meaning of the word "pain" it is known to all. However, I cannot tell if you call "pain" the same as me, since I cannot experience your pain, but only mine. This leads Wittgenstein to understand that the use of the word "pain" is associated with another series of attitudes and behaviors (complaints, gestures or faces of pain, etc.) and that only based on this we end up associating the word "pain" to what we feel privately.

On the other hand, from this same perspective, the so-called "philosophical problems" they are not really problems, but perplexities. When we do philosophy, we get entangled in a language game whose rules are not determined, since it is philosophy itself that tries to establish those rules; It's a kind of vicious circle. Hence, the mission of philosophy is, for Wittgenstein, "fight against the spell of our understanding through language".

Differences between the first and second Wittgenstein

October 1914 notes in the Witgenstein newspaper, on display at the Wren library, Trinity College (Cambridge).

While for the first Wittgenstein there was only one language, namely: the ideal language composed of the totality of significant propositions (descriptive language), for the second Wittgenstein language is expressed in a plurality of different " language games" (of which the descriptive is only one case). It is possible to say that the first Wittgenstein emphasizes the substitution "explanatory" versus the "inductive" -characteristic of the second Wittgenstein- in a second, more introspective part of the exact language, qualifying it in a way more appropriate to use, as has been said of the first and second Wittgenstein; while the inversion of the meaning, an inversion produced by the reiteration of the meaning opposite to the direct one, can change the context of the proposition and also admit it. On the other hand, the first Wittgenstein defined the absurd or senseless of a proposition as long as it exceeded the limits of significant language, while the second Wittgenstien understands that a proposition is absurd to the extent that it tries to be used within a game. of language to which it does not belong. Hence, for the first Wittgenstein, the meaning was determined by the reference, which is equivalent to saying that if a word does not name anything or in a proposition does not appear any fact, it lacks meaning insofar as it is impossible to assign a determinate thing to it. truth value. But the second Wittgenstein recognizes that in ordinary language the descriptive function is one of the many functions of language and that, therefore, the domain of meaning is much vaster than that of reference. Thus, for the second Wittgenstein, the sense of a proposition or the meaning of a word is its function, that is, it is determined by the use that is made of it. In short: the referential criterion of meaning is replaced by the pragmatic criterion of meaning.

Regarding the notion of truth, the first Wittgenstein simply adopted the correspondence criterion, since, by virtue of the isomorphic relationship between language and world, truth is constituted as the correspondence between the meaning of (what is represented in) a proposition and a fact. But since the second Wittgenstein postulates different possible uses of language beyond the descriptive, the application of the semantic criterion of truth seems to be restricted to the field of merely descriptive language.

Original works

• Tractatus logico-philosophicus (Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung). 1921.
• Some comments on formal logic (Some Remarks on Logical Form). 1929.
• The Blue and Brown Books. 1935.
• Philosophische Untersuchungen Research. 1953.
• About certainty (Über Gewissheit). 1961.

Spanish translations

• Philosophical research. Translation, introduction and critical notes of Jesus Padilla Gálvez. Madrid: Editorial Trotta. 2017. ISBN 978-84-9879-674-2.
• Philosophical research. Translation, introduction and critical notes of Jesus Padilla Gálvez. Madrid: Editorial Trotta. 2021. ISBN 978-84-1364-020-4.
• Dictation for Schlick - Diktat für Schlick. Translation, introduction and critical notes of Jesus Padilla Gálvez and Margit Gaffal. Madrid: Ápeiron. 2017. ISBN 978-84-17182-42-7.
• Tractatus logico-philosophicus-Philosophical Research. Translation, introduction and critical notes by Isidoro Reguera Perez. Madrid: Editorial Gredos. 2017. ISBN 978-84-249-3774-4.
• Logical-philosophical treaty. Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung. Critical Edition of TS 204. Introduction and translation of Jesus Padilla Gálvez. Valencia: Tirant lo Blanch. 2016. ISBN 978-84-16349-91-3.
• [The big typescript] [TS 213]. Introduction and translation of Jesus Padilla Gálvez. Collection Structures and Processes. Philosophy. Madrid: Trotta. 2014. ISBN 978-84-9879-559-2.
• Isidoro Reguera, ed. (2009). Complete work. Collection Library of Great Thinkers (German/Spanish bilingual edition). Madrid: Gredos. ISBN 978-84-249-3619-8 / ISBN 978-84-249-3622-8.
  • Volume I: Tractatus logico-philosophicus. Philosophical research. About certainty.
  • Volume II: Philosophical Journal (1914-1916). Secret journals. Movements of thinking. Journals (1930-1932 / 1936-1937). Letters to Russell, Keynes and Moore. Notes on logic. Notes issued to g.E. Moore in Norway. Conference on ethics. Observations to Frazer's golden branch. Miscellaneous remarks. Culture and value. Lessons and conversations about aesthetics, psychology and religious belief. Zettel. Color observations.
• Light and shadow. A nocturnal experience(-sleep) and an epistolar fragment. Valencia: Pre-texts. 2006. ISBN 84-8191-760-5.
• Movements of thinking. Madrid: Pre-Textos. 2005. ISBN 84-8191-644-7.
• Latest talks. Salamanca: Follow me. 2004. ISBN 84-301-1490-4.
• About certainty. Barcelona: Gedisa. 2000. ISBN 84-7432-295-2.
• Aphorisms. Culture and value. Madrid: Espasa Calpe. 1995. ISBN 84-239-7381-6.
• Comments to Frazer's golden branch. Madrid: Tecnos. 1992. ISBN 9788430921584.
• Lessons and talks about aesthetics, psychology and religious belief. Translated by Isidoro Reguera. Barcelona: Paidós. 1992. ISBN 84-7509-807-X.
• Ethics Conference. Barcelona: Paidós. 1989. ISBN 84-7509-525-9.