display all the ideas for this combination of texts
9 ideas
| 23482 | The 'form' of the picture is its possible combinations [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: The form of depiction is the possibility that the things are combined with one another as are the elements of the picture. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1921], 2.151) | |
| A reaction: This is why 'model' (or even 'simulation'?) is a better term than 'picture' for his proposal. Pictures are fixed, but models can be adjusted. |
| 8172 | To understand a proposition means to know what is the case if it is true [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: To understand a proposition means to know what is the case if it is true. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1921], 4.024) | |
| A reaction: This established the Frege truth-conditions theory of meaning, which was expanded by Davidson, and then possible worlds semantics. You can't assess truth without knowing meaning. Dummett says the two go together. |
| 7086 | Good philosophy asserts science, and demonstrates the meaninglessness of metaphysics [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: The correct method in philosophy would be to say nothing except what can be said, i.e. propositions of natural science, and whenever someone wanted to say something metaphysical, to show that he had failed to give a meaning to signs in his propositions. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1921], 6.53) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the germ of logical positivism, picked up by the Vienna Circle, and passed on the Ayer and co. How, though, do you 'show' that a sign is meaningless? Very abstract ideas are too far away from experience to be analysed that way. |
| 23511 | Propositions use old expressions for a new sense [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: A proposition must use old expressions to communicate a new sense. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1921], 4.03) | |
| A reaction: A nicely expressed affirmation of the principle of compositionality. It entails that the propositions can be either true or false, according to LW. |
| 23488 | Propositions are understood via their constituents [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: A proposition is understood by anyone who understands its constituents. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1921], 4.024) | |
| A reaction: The 'constituents' had better include the grammatical relationships. Otherwise it's 'rearrange these words to make a well known saying'. That said, this strikes me as an important truth about language. We assemble sentence meanings. |
| 20787 | A proposition is what can be asserted or denied on its own [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: A proposition is what can be asserted or denied on its own, for example, 'It is day' or 'Dion is walking'. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.65 | |
| A reaction: Note the phrase 'on its own'. If you say 'it is day and Dion is walking', that can't be denied on its own, because first the two halves must each be evaluated, so presumably that doesn't count as a stoic proposition. |
| 23486 | Pictures are possible situations in logical space [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: A picture represents a possible situation in logical space. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1921], 2.202) | |
| A reaction: This seems pretty close to the idea that propositions are sets of possible worlds (though that seems to add unnecessary extra baggage). If they just picture situations, why does he mention logical space? Within the limits of possible picturing? |
| 23497 | Solipsism is correct, but can only be shown, not said, by the limits of my personal language [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: What the solipsist means is quite correct; only it cannot be said, but makes itself manifest. The world is my world: this is manifest in the fact that the limits of language (of that language which I alone understand) mean the limits of my world. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1921], 5.62) | |
| A reaction: I take it that LW later showed that the remark in brackets is absurd, using his Private Language argument. Commentators seem unclear about how seriously to take this claim. |
| 23489 | We translate by means of proposition constituents, not by whole propositions [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: When translating one language into another, we do not proceed by translating each proposition of the one into a proposition of the other, but merely by translating the constituents of propositions. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1921], 4.025) | |
| A reaction: This seems opposed to Quine's later holistic view of translating whole languages. Is he objecting to Frege's context principle? |