Document Type : Research Paper
Author
Assistant Professor of Contemporary Intercultural Philosophy Department, Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, Tehran. Iran.
Abstract
According to Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, propositions of natural science are all meaningful propositions of language therefore there is no ethical proposition because alleged ones do not fulfil the criterion of meaningfulness of propositions, which is empirical verifiability. In addition, Wittgenstein somewhere considers Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus to have an important ethical point. There seems to be a conflict between Wittgenstein's recent claim, on the one hand, and the meaninglessness of ethics, on the other. In the face of this apparent conflict, we try to ponder the question of what is the ethical point of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. In answer to this question, we will pay attention to Kevin Cahill's interpretation of Wittgenstein. In Wittgenstein's view, modern culture prevents what he calls the experience of the wonder of the world. Cahill interprets the ethical point of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus in connection with Wittgenstein's view on modern culture. What objection would Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus be subject to if Cahill's interpretation were correct? How defensible is the dependence of Cahill's interpretation of Tractatus on other Wittgenstein's works? At the end of our study, we will answer these questions.
Keywords
Main Subjects
- Anscombe, G. E. M. (1959) An introduction to Wittgenstein's Tractatus, New York: Harper & Row Publishers.
- Bloor, David (2018) “The Question of Linguistic Idealism Revisited” in: The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein. 2nd Hans Sluga and David G. Stern (ed) United Kingdom. Cambridge University Press: pp. 332-360.
- Cahill, Kevin (2011) The Fate of Wonder: Wittgenstein’s Critique of Metaphysics and Modernity, New York: Columbia University Press
- Cahill, Kevin (2018) “Tractarian Ethics” in: The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein, 2nd Hans Sluga & David G. Stern, Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom. pp. 96-125
- Friedlander, Eli (2001) Signs of Sense: Reading Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press.
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1971) Prototractatus, ed. Brian McGuinness, Tauno Nyberg, and G. H. von Wright, trans. David F. Pears and Brian F. McGuinness, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 2nd 1996.
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1922) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness (translation). London and New York: Routledge.
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1998) Culture and Value, Blackwell Publishers Ltd
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1965) “A Lecture on Ethics” in: The Philosophical Review, Vol. 74(1): 3-12
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1979) Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle, Conversations, recorded: Friedrich Waismann, trans. Joachim Schulte and Brian McGuinness, Ed. Brian Mc Guinness, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1958) Philosophical investigations, G. E. M. Anscombe, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1961) Notebooks, 1914–1916, H. von Wright & G. E. M. Anscombe, eds., G. E. M. trans. Anscombe, Oxford: Blackwell.
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2009) Philosophical Investigations, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe, P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, Revised 4th P. M. S. Hacker & Joachim Schulte. United Kingdom: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
)
Send comment about this article