Pantheism and Sin in a Tractarian World

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Contents

1 Introduction

Our concern will presently be with the proper localization of sin in the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein. It will be argued that the notion of sin can only be accounted for in the light of a proper understanding of a pantheist God, and is then seen to consist of the unwillingness of the sinner to conform him- or herself to the stance of the so-called 'eternal life' (a term that gets interpreted in a quite unique way in order to make it stand in line with the notion of pantheism).

It is evident that – for Wittgenstein – religious and ethical matters were so much intertwined that, in his philosophy, neither of them seems to make sense without the other.[1] The interconnectedness runs somewhat as follows: the religious aspects, becoming manifest in the pantheist God, put forward a very specific notion of sin, from which the determination of the good life results.

We shall in our treatment of the matter be primarily basing ourselves upon the Tractatus (abbreviated as TLP from now on), since this is the only work of Wittgenstein that both deals – to some extent at least – with the subject-matters that we are concerned with, and – in addition to that – was published with the author's consent. This is not to say that all of the other works, many of which touch upon the topics of religion and ethics too, should be disregarded; our intention is just to put the focus upon the TLP's stance and then use the other – more scattered – works and/or remarks in order to illuminate this stance.[2]

Since the topics of religion and ethics are only touched upon slightly in the closing passages of the TLP, an explicit characterization will inevitably have to resort to a certain level of interpretation of those few passages that are presented, and – in addition to this – a (re)construction of the many passages that are absent. In order to find a sufficient basis for both of these undertakings, it thus becomes inevitable to resort to these other sources besides the TLP, and even to some biographical aspects of Wittgenstein's life. The larger part of the argument will however be integrally based upon the work itself, i.e. based upon the passages that are presented, namely by seeking to follow the unuttered notion of sin and pantheism through the parts of the theory that are explicitly formulated.

The TLP has been called an ethical work, or a work whose point is an ethical one, whereas the theory that it embodies seems to defy any such a work (itself included), as explicitizing matters that ought to be left implicit, rendering them completely senseless and – under a certain interpretation of the word – sinful. We shall therefore first of all investigate how both of these predications can be applied to the TLP without losing consistence (sections 2-3.2 of this essay). We shall then see that the apparent contradiction in the appreciation with respect to the religious and ethical matters treated of in the TLP is mitigated by the recognition of forms of philosophical practice (section 4) that are linked to two phases in the (correct) reading process of the TLP (sections 5.1-5.3). We shall thereafter introduce an interpretation of the tractarian God-concept in a decidedly pantheist fashion (section 6.1), putting this concept to use in our general discussion on ethics, via a treatment of the eternal life (section 6.2). In order to strengthen the pantheist interpretation of the God-concept, we shall show the alternative conception of an transcendental God violates the strictures of the TLP (section 7.1-7.3). In the closing passages we shall be concerned with explicating the notion of sin by incorporating it into the religious views that have been elaborated upon by then (section 8), and its connection with rationality and a specific sort of philosophizing (section 9).

2 The Tractatus as a work of sin

It might be objected that there is a slight air of perversity to explicating matters that were, in the original work under discussion, explicitly left implicit. For did not the theory of the TLP take on a clear stance against any explicitization of matters ethical? And does, therefore, an explication of those very matters, as is attempted in the present essay, not run counter to the intentions of the theory's author? But surely such considerations might only alter the extent to which the original author's conceptions are successfully mimicked, ascertaining ourselves that our reconstruction would have obtained Wittgenstein's sign of approval. This is clearly a question of historical aptitude then, and not one of theoretical rigor, and shall thus not concern us at the present.

One, after all, might claim to just seek to provide a treatment of the ethical implications of sin flowing from the proper conception of God (and the appropriation to this authority, that is made manifest in living the so-called 'eternal life') as being based upon the system espoused by the TLP, not making the additional claim that it precisely reconstructs the ideas employed therein. But then a second, and more fundamental, objection may be raised according to which the very legitimacy of an explicitization (any explicitization) of matters ethical might, principally, run counter to the very tractarian theory onto which it claims to be, either firmly or loosely, based. And this is thus no longer a consideration of historical aptitude, but one of philosophical coherence.

Such a line of argument might run in the following way: Wittgenstein sought to establish a division between – on the one hand – the sayable and contingent aspects of language and thought, comprising the sciences, and – on the other hand – the unsayable and necessary aspects, comprising logic, ethics, aesthetics and religion. A further exploration of the ethical component of the TLP will therefore, most evidently, violate this clear delineation, and will thus not only run counter to the author's original intention, but will also – in a most fundamental manner – violate the structure of the tractarian ideas upon which it nevertheless claims to be based. And yet it is our ambition to develop the elucidations regarding ethics, and the other domains that are comprised under the somewhat obscure header of 'the unspeakable', according to lines laid out in the TLP.

The supposed problem at hand could then be somewhat casually described in the following way: We have a certain theory that is put forward in a certain manner, i.e. within a certain medium and according to certain representational properties, that are themselves under the attack of that very same theory that seeks to posit them. Or, putting things slightly more dialectically, if a person maintains “One shouldn't speak on ethics.”, then the other person might point to an inconsistency in the former's behavior.

But if these, and similar, objections are rightly put forward here, i.e. if the very core of the TLP indeed does run counter to the view upon ethics that is expounded therein, then the TLP could only perversely be called an 'ethical work'[3], an exclamation that – by the way – would itself transgress this very ethical view that one feigns to uphold. Rather, one might argue, such judgments should be left unspoken in the first place, and are thus to be taken as – themselves – exclamations of a decidedly unethical nature. The TLP is then the epitome of an unethical rather then an ethical undertaking, and the very judgment that we are engaging in right now, in depreciating both the TLP and those that call it an ethical work, are themselves utterly unethical too.[4]

3 Ethics

3.1 The ladder metaphor and the concept of sin

The above interpretation, although mildly absurd upon first observation, might prove to make some sense after further exhortations into several passages of the TLP have been undertaken. We shall therefore, first of all, point to the passage that, in the present context, most naturally comes to mind, i.e. 6.54:

My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.)
He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly.

This passage, together with the correct reading of passage 7 (“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”), might further be elucidated by appealing to the concept of 'indirect communication' that we find in the work of Kierkegaard:

In all eternity it is impossible for me to compel a person to accept an opinion, a conviction, a belief. But one thing I can do: I can compel him to take notice.[5]

What is important here is not the exact way in which Kierkegaard thought this making a person take notice of a certain kind of belief as related to the literary genre of polemical writing that he thought to be most fit for pursuing this end, for such a mode of writing cannot sensibly be ascribed to Wittgenstein. But the important point here is that the transition into the thought-to-be-superior belief cannot be forcefully established. This already suggests several of the prime characteristics of ethics in a tractarian framework, namely the impossibility to either speak about those topics (where Kierkegaard uses the elaborate workaround of polemic to establish this) or to think about them, so that the conversion from the old into the new belief cannot be – solely – determined by a linear process of rational explication (e.g. a proof, or an argumentative exposition). The same strategy, of compelling people to take notice of a new stance towards life, instead of forcing such a moral stance upon them through the strictures of rationality, can also be found in the work of Tolstoy.[6]

But even thought the TLP shares the above stated properties with Kierkegaard's notion of 'indirect communication', it also differs from them in a most fundamental way, so that it would not concede to the negation of the need for a completely rationalistic approximation of the ethical point (the grasping of which, however, still remains irrational, or unrational).

Let us first treat of some more stylistic differences, for several important distinctions between the more literary (including the polemic) way in which Kierkegaard and Tolstoy sought to attain their goal of conversion-by-compelling, and Wittgenstein's intention in writing the TLP, indeed do exist. His endeavors to make people take notice is, first of all, much more elitist than both of the other authors'. So the TLP is written especially for those who have already preconceived its contents[7], and its exposition never seems to be oriented towards the establishment of an opening up to a broad audience of the material treated therein. Moreover, in the introduction it is explicitly related that the book should not be seen as a textbook[8], thus most evidently avowing its noneducational, and thus, in a certain sense of the word, elitist character.[9]

Wittgenstein's target in writing the TLP is thus sufficiently distinct from Kierkegaard's incentives in writing in his professed polemic way. The reason for this is that the point of the TLP is not to push as many people as possible into a certain direction by the means of a sufficiently accessible mode of mediating one's ethical stance. Moreover, the way in which the TLP seeks to establish a non-rational conversion lacks precisely those aspects of accessibility and ease of understanding that are so characteristic for the work of Tolstoy[10], and at which Kierkegaard also aimed. The TLP, in contrast to the thus stipulated educational properties of accessibility and ease of understanding, prioritizes the way in which the exposition itself is performed, not as an undertaking oriented towards a possible audience, but solely seeking to establish an as clear as possible structuring of the internal considerations concerning language and thought, logic and ethics.[11] It is clear that this prioritization could not, at the same time, be oriented towards any other purpose. Had Wittgenstein intended to write an account that could be considered to be the most successful in making people conceive of ethics in the way he in his tractarian framework intended to set forth, he might better have written a novel in the style of Tolstoy.

The point of the TLP is, rather, to seek to establishes the justificatory basis for the very 'ideas' that one might come to through those very works of literary, pedagogical distinction (like those written by Tolstoy and Kierkegaard). Therefore the TLP is a philosophical work in the most stringent conception of the word. Although arguably a literary work also, it must at least be conceded that the TLP is not a literary work in the same sense as e.g. The Brothers Karamazov is a work of literature.[12] The reason for this is that the collection of aphorisms that constitute the TLP, is not primarily oriented towards the goal of making people see the world aright, something that is – instead – much more a precondition for its readers[13], but rather rests upon a systematic exposition of the views that one might attain through other works or through other experiences in life.[14] And this is exactly the way in which the TLP might be considered a work of literary importance. For there is not a generation of new ideas, but rather already existing ideas are put in a completely perspicuous collection of aphorisms, so as to meld the true world-picture one already employed, but that is now displayed in a stringently clear picture.

Given the above juxtaposition of the TLP with the more literary works of a Tolstoy or a Kierkegaard, it should become clear that the statements of the TLP cannot simply be taken to show their meaning, for this would not specifically distinguish it from any of the more easily accessible literary works that seek to establish the same thing. In addition to showing the correct stance toward life an all that, then, the statements of the TLP must be seen to have an important philosophical contribution too, and must – therefore – be seen as an important theoretical-argumentative benefaction, leading up to the eventual ethical point (although not completely touching it). Had the TLP only consisted of a loose collection of aphorisms, it then could not have had the stringent structural properties of a ladder. I.e. it could not have forced the conversion toward the correct moral stand upon us. But at the same time the rational aspect of the TLP seems to be defied by its closing remarks (and by the saying-showing distinction in general).

This apparent contradiction is only resolved whenever the ladder, thus symbolizing the discursive import of the statements of the TLP, does not have to be done away with because it constitutes some inferior system of language that has to be overcome by sidestepping it with the notion of showing. Quite on the contrary, just because these statements are all of them true[15] and just because they cover all there is to say on the topic[16], do they have to be overcome; for these statements say their own sin[17], they not (merely) show it. Just because one has ascended the ladder, i.e. just because one has reached a state of perfect clarity, is the very road that lead onto this point finally seen in its right light, namely it is seen as embodying the most apparent nonsense[18], and – as a corollary to its falsity – shown to be ethically defiant too.[19] There are, therefore, two phases in the reading of the TLP, the first is a rational discursive one, the latter – prompted by the former – is an irrational (or, again, unrational one), in a sense to be made clear in section 5.1 below.

3.2 Contrary voices: the TLP as ethical

At the same time, however, there are various authors who call the TLP an ethical work.[20] According to this stance, the statements of the TLP are to be interpreted as showing everything they at first glance seemed to say.[21] These two views with regard to the ethical nature of the TLP seem to contradict one other quite bluntly, but as a matter of fact they do not. For they can be calibrated by recourse to the already hinted at distinction in the moments that might be isolated from the transient understanding that accompanies the (correct) reading of the work. A proper understanding of this phased reading process can only be gained after a corresponding distinction between two forms of philosophy has been put forward. We shall, therefore, first delve into the distinction between the traditional view of philosophy-as-theory, which is intimately connected to rationality, and the antagonistic view of philosophy-as-stance, which is much more tied up with ethics. Thereafter shall we be in a position to mitigate the apparent discrepancy that arises from predicating the contrary terms 'sin' and 'ethical' onto the TLP.

4 Philosophy-as-theory and philosophy-as-stance

Wittgenstein was doubtlessly a philosopher, at least that is how he is still known to us today, but at the same time the early Wittgenstein of the TLP is committed to a minimization of the philosophical franchise as traditionally conceived[22], and it is similarly well known that, in his latter period, Wittgenstein, on various occasions, explicitly seemed to depreciate the very idea of philosophy.[23] And yet this picture is not at all complete, and this debunked notion of philosophy is not what we will be using in our expressing the eventual conception of ethics and religion in a tractarian framework.

We might call the heavily criticized notion of philosophy, philosophy-as-method. It aims at the laying bare of certain fundamental and unshakable truths, which are supposed to consist of unchanging singular essences that, due to their uncovering, allow us to unravel the true meaning of everything particular there is in life, etc.[24]

The other notion of philosophy, which is not attacked and which must be the very form of philosophy that Wittgenstein himself practiced (for otherwise he surely wouldn't have returned to philosophy in later life[25]), I will call philosophy-as-stance, and this form of philosophizing is, as will become clear, intimately related to the ethical stance.

The two distinguishing characteristics of the traditional philosophy-as-theory are (1) that it has a domain of its own, and (2) that it has a specific method (or a limited collection of methods) that allow it, by applying these methods as 'tools' to the 'material' of the field, to attain knowledge with respect to that domain.[26] Now these two characteristics work in parallel, for also the distinguishing philosophy-as-stance might be argued to have a domain of its own, namely the mystical or the unspeakable.[27] The problem with this statement is, however, that the very domain of the mystical does not really exist (in the ordinary sense of the word at least), it lies outside of the world and to it language does not apply. The problem thus being that the cogwheels of rationality, and along with it the mechanisms of theory (whatever theory), will not function in that domain no more, thus clearly violating the second condition. And so it is clear that in philosophy-as-stance we cannot talk about proofs of truths either.

On the other side of the equation, in the earlier work of Wittgenstein the notion of philosophy-as-stance, when constituting a method, is at the same time explicitly shown to be bereft of its own domain, thus violating condition (1) of the traditional conception of philosophy-as-theory:

The right method of philosophy would be this: To say nothing except what can be said, i.e. the propositions of natural science, i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy: and then always, when someone else wished to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had given no meaning to certain signs in his propositions. This method would be unsatisfying to the other -- he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy -- but it would be the only strictly correct method.[28]

Here it is explicitly proclaimed that to philosophy a method still pertains: it consists of a clear understanding of the logic of language, by which the language of oneself and that of others might consequently be corrected whenever it is applied to an unauthorized domain.[29] But still the traditional philosopher would not feel at home with this method, for even though it does proclaim to establish truth (since once one has obtained this method, one has already 'seen the world aright'[30]), this is a very meager truth, due to the absence of a proper philosophical domain over which these truths could subsequently be thought to range. Since, as is clear from the closing remarks of the TLP, the topics that are traditionally taken to constitute the domain to which the theory (or theories) of the philosopher are to be applied – i.e. ethics, religion, ontology, epistemology, aesthetics, logic – are out of the reach of this newly proclaimed philosophical method. It is, instead, concerned with defying the construction of thoughts and utterances concerning any one of these traditionally philosophical topics.

In the later work (we shall here focus onto the Philosophical Investigations, named PI hereafter) we will see a much more elaborate exposition of what the philosophical method (or practice) does and does not consist of. But, similar to the account given in the earlier work, the two criteria of philosophy-as-theory are never to be met here either. In the later work the emphasis lies upon the absence of a theory. And, as in the previous case, there again is a strong bond between the two characteristics that we have defined to be fundamental for the notion of philosophy-as-theory. For since in the later work there is no such thing as a uniform logic (as in the earlier work is accounted for by the truth function and the way it applies to states of affairs etc.), there is thus no way in which the sphere of rationality and language can be rigorously limited from the inside. And thus the two apparently unrelated characteristics here come to coincide once more, in that due to the absence of a stringent theory, the specific domain is found to be absent too.

One might argue, however, that philosophy still has a domain of its own, namely the one that is determined by its language game. But this is not Wittgenstein's position. According to Wittgenstein philosophy cannot itself constitute a language game, since philosophy is the point at which the ordinary embedding within a language game (any language game whatsoever) seems to be absent, thus:

A philosophical problem has the form: "I don't know my way about".[31]

A last possibility would be its constituting a so-called meta-language game. But this is defied also[32], probably since there is no sense to be made of such an infinite regress. So the right notion of philosophy does not constitute a language game, which is – after all – (primarily) to be defined in terms of its use in practical context, and philosophy is taken to have no clear use:

Philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language; it can in the end only describe it.[33]

Although the thus proclaimed inability for philosophy to constitute a language game of its own is sufficiently clear from the above mentioned passages (and other ones besides them), this role is not (at none of these locations that is) explicitly argued for. Maybe such an explicit argumentative structure might be taken to be out of line with the nature of the PI. Nevertheless it is my opinion that an additional rationale, sufficiently eases the understanding in this regard, can be provided here.

The core of the PI might be taken to be the dissolution of many a traditional philosophical stance, all of which are eventually brought down to one or another appeal to practice. So, just to give an example, the meaning of a term does not reside in a cognitive state that is associated with the term, but – instead – resides in the use that is made of the term.[34] The question of whether a philosophical language game might exist, is then turned into the question of whether we can find an appropriate use for the expressions that accompany such a philosophy. The argument might be easily circuited by stating these expressions to not be related to some real use (or uses). The problem with this is that we are then inevitably drawn into a fruitless discussion over what a fictitious and what a real use consists of. But still we feel that something necessitates us to invalidate these suggested philosophical language games.

Let us, in order to find a more successful solution, attend to an arbitrary other language game whose validity is not to be contested, e.g. that of measuring the weights of bags of apples (now that surely must be a proper use!). What we have here is a certain practice which clearly limits the characteristics that any language game that seeks to shape it could come to take on. And although there certainly exists a certain area of stretch (allowing for slightly more or slightly less accurate measurements, etc.), this cannot be taken too far since then the purpose of the very notion of measurement would evidently loose its usefulness, and the language game would dissolute (or else become a mere ritual). Now let us turn again to our purported philosophical language game, say that of ascribing an aura to a certain object (the ascription is taken to be validated whenever the ascribed-to object is a work of art). Surely we could institute such language games, such is to be achieved quite easily indeed. But is there a similar restriction onto the consequent shape that this language game is supposed to take on? We might imagine that just in case the ascription of an aura applies to any object whatsoever, this automatically dissolutes the language game as such. But this, although a very real restriction to its practice, is only concerned with the meaningfulness of the linguistic terms that feature in it. We were however after some restriction related to practice, and such a restriction might not so easily be thought of here.

The reason why no such philosophical language games exist, then, would be that they seem to revert the normal sequence of language game construction. For in the example of weighting bags of apples in a fruit store, a certain practice was already present, e.g. there were apples, there was a store, there were people who were in principle prepared to buy them, I was prepared to sell them, etc. And then, given this practice (or this collection of practices), a language game is laid on top of it, in order to ease matters a bit. The might seem a bit strange an argument at first, but it seems to have strong reminiscences to the following passage, in which the linguistic expression is also treated of as something that is to replace (or complicate / elaborate) a nonlinguistic preexisting act:

On the contrary: the verbal expression of pain replaces crying and does not describe it. [Wittgenstein1953, section 244]

In contrast to this, as is argued for in the so-called private language argument, I am not in a position to introduce a new, private feeling into the language. So if I am to introduce the name for some feeling into the language, then this would have to be based upon a preexisting nonlinguistic basis, residing in life. In the philosophical language game, just as in the trying to introduce a term for a private feeling, the linguistic expression is primary, in that only the linguistic expression can function as the normative stronghold with respect to which the language game is formed, and with respect to that we are, thus only secondarily instituting some real, actual (nonlinguistic) use. But the use would not have been possible without the introduction of the newly made up language game, and it is therefore that in the philosophical language game all structural restrictions refer us back onto the meaningfulness of the terms used to express those very games (as was made clear in the above example).

By thus violating the construction sequence for a genuine language game, reversing the linguistic and nonlinguistic components, such a game would lack a proper grounding in practice, filling no real human need. Instead inaugurating an entirely new practice that is not (principally) related to the human life form (but to a contingent aspect of the grammar).

5 The Tractatus as a philosophical work

5.1 Reading the TLP: a structured reading and a structured ascend from saying to showing

We can recognize two different phases in the process of understanding the TLP. In the first phase, one takes these sentences as saying all of the things they – indeed – seem to say, according to the common scheme of philosophy-as-theory. But since the thus construed scheme of thought comes to disqualify itself, one is inevitably lead into the second phase, in which one has recognized that the expressions one first held to be stating this or that a theory are, actually, altogether nonsensical (in the sense that they do not adhere to the picture theory, thus having no meaning and constituting no thought[35]), but that they nevertheless seem to belong to what we have, in the above, called a philosophy-as-stance.

According to the happy person – a description Wittgenstein uses to designate the person who has understood the TLP in a proper way, and who has thereby reached the 'happy life'[36] – the statements of the TLP have shown him or her the way, and on this view the statements of the TLP do themselves not constitute an ethic, i.e. not an ethical theory. Therefore the work, although it has shown one the way into the ethically right light, itself is left behind as an unethical stepping stone. Or, to use yet another formulation: one has to recognize the TLP as unethical in order to make it show one the way into the ethical.

To the unhappy person the TLP does not show anything, but constitutes a theory instead. He or she might wonder at the apparent inconsistencies that can be deduced from it, without however being compelled to proceed into the second phase (of philosophy-as-stance).[37] That the statements of the TLP refute themselves seems to be clear to any reader, and so they cannot say what they purport to say.[38] But then, after this has been established, there is apparently a hurdle to be taken, which explains why some readers proceed into the second phase of understanding, whereas others do not seem to be able or prepared to take this step. Whether one takes the hurdle or not is basically the question of whether one takes the saying/showing-distinction to be a meaningful one.[39]

The statements of the TLP do not show the ethical directly. Instead, they show themselves to be senseless. This is in no way, as of necessity, related to maintaining the correct ethical stance, for the process of showing itself to be senseless is taken up from within the sphere of language, and ethics lies outside. Therefore the unhappy person might, upon reading, confirm to the nonsensical character, without – at the same time – committing him- or herself to the happy life. One might take as (another) example the members of the Vienna Circle. For it be evident that they understood the account of language and logic, together with the abolition of metaphysical and religious speculation, without yet feeling the urge towards the mystical which is needed to get (or accept) Wittgenstein's point.

5.2 The senselessness of the TLP statements in the light of their ethical purpose

In line with the above problematic connection of the two reading phases is the fictitious discussion concerning the disagreement between those who hold the TLP to be entirely meaningless[40] and those who claim this to be too radical a stance, pointing to Wittgenstein's prolonged interest in the contents of the TLP[41], for example the topic of color exclusion, the notion of simplicity, the form of the proposition, the saying-showing distinction, etc. For all of these topics return, either in an altered or in a negated form, in the later work, which seems to presuppose their meaningfulness. The problematic settles, however, as soon as one recognizes the distinction between finding oneself in the former or in the latter state of reading, and thus both views can be related to the same work, although under different perspectives.[42]

That one is, time and again, urged to re-approach the philosophical topics from a theoretical point of view does not negate their meaninglessness. For Wittgenstein's aim, also in the later period, has always been the attainment of complete clarity.[43] And this does not reside in some fancy theory explaining things as of yet unknown, but instead resides in a viewing the things in the right light as it where (the view that we have called philosophy-as-stance). This view is always available and omnipresent, and thus it does not lie in the accumulation of knowledge nor in the uncovering of truth, but resides in the ultimate cure that allows to stop philosophizing. Wittgenstein's continual returns towards the topics that were already treated of in the TLP does not invalidate this view, since – apart from the fact that he did leave all of these topics for thirteen or so years – the human life-form is continually drawn towards a theoretical treatment of the problems of philosophy, time and again (this is, so to say, the concomitant re-enactment of sin).[44]

6 On a pantheist God

6.1 Pantheism in the Tractatus

Since the conception of God, as espoused in the TLP, is quite hard, wherefore our understanding of the matter runs, quite easily, the risk of falling into falsity, we shall start off by using a sufficiently documented instant of the confusions that might occur.

Garver1994 puts forth an argument that is meant to show that the duality of ontology that we find in the TLP, in conjunction with Wittgenstein's choice for giving facts the priority over objects in the theory of meaning (the latter being defined in terms of the former), can be properly understood by an appeal to pantheism. He thus maintains that the world ought to be seen as the aggregate of facts (and not of objects), since only in that way might God be thought of as the meaning of the world. This argument works as follows:

[...] the totality of objects cannot help us to understand the meaning of this particular world – which is what we need to know, since it is with this particular word rather than with other possible ones that we must, through our apprehension of God, reconcile ourselves. [...] For it is the world with its actual miseries, not the world with its possible glories, that we must come to understand and to reconcile ourselves with. It is the world of facts, not of objects.[45]

Except for the queerness of explicating the priority of facts over objects by way of the conception of God (whereas the matter is clearly supposed to be the other way round, i.e. only through a rigorous understanding of the structure of language and thought can we hope to receive as much as a glimpse of the ethical and religious topics), the argument leaves unexplained why we should reconcile ourselves with this particular, actual world and not with any other. A point that a mere appeal to pantheism does not explain, but only postulate.

We shall now attempt to argument for a pantheist conception of God in a tractarian framework. Such an argument might be quite skeptically approached, since the only statement of the TLP that explicitly makes mention of God, seems to run counter to the very idea of pantheism:

God does not reveal himself in the world.[46]

But when this apparently anti-pantheist idea is contrasted with the remarks on God that are to be found in the Notebooks[47], the TLP statement too can be fitted into a quite specific view of pantheism. We shall start our argument by remarking that there seems to be no (too apparent) reason why I should conform myself to the present world-state. For why should we console ourselves with that, if we might just change one or another state of affairs' truth value by our performing some act within the world. We do have a body in order to bring about such changes after all.

The point is that even if I would find myself into a world-state that was entirely to my like, i.e. one in which no misery of whatever kind were threatening me, then still the actuality of this heavenly perfect world-state would be a contingency (in that it might as well have not been the case).[48] This state can therefore not be the endpoint of ethics, which requires the to be strived for salvation to come about as of necessity. This is expressed most clearly in A Lecture on Ethics[49] In this lecture the adjusting the world so as to fit my desire is called the trivial or relative sense of the word 'good'. This is opposed to the ethical or absolute sense of the word.[50] The former is merely concerned with contingencies, which is expressed by the possibility to rephrase them all into statements of facts, in whom any appeal to 'good' has entirely disappeared.[51]

Why ethics needs to be necessary is, to my knowledge, never particularly argued for in the work of Wittgenstein. Although one might claim this to be shown by the appeal to the mystical, this surely cannot be regarded as a philosophical argument. We nevertheless need not be utterly discontented by the absence of an explanation here, since clearly what can be said must be grounded, at some point, in what can only be shown (in the same manner as words must run to an end somewhere in the later work). This endpoint, where the said turns over into the shown, then apparently lies just here. Nevertheless there are some passages that might be thought of at least hinting at some considerations as of why the notion of ethics is to be taken as absolute (although they cannot be taken to be philosophical arguments):

Ein Notschrei kann nicht größer sein, als der eines Menschen. Oder auch keine Not kann größer sein, als die, in der ein einzelner Mensch sein kann.
Ein Mensch kann daher in unendlicher Not sein und also unendliche Hilfe brauchen.
Die christliche Religion ist nur für den, der unendliche Hilfe braucht, also nur für den der unendliche Not fühlt.[52]

Now this leads up to the same adage that we can find in Garver1994, namely that we should reconcile ourselves with the world-state that we find ourselves in. But this is not because we should seek to withstand 'actual miseries' (as Garver has it), for we might as well lift them up (for this purpose many a political ideology has been proposed), but because we need to find the state of unconditioned consolation. The fundamental insight that is needed here, is the recognition that we will never be able to arrive at such a state by trying to bring about yet another contingent – and thus conditional – world-state.[53] But then our reconciliation to the actually presented world-state is not due to a concern for the actual situation at all, let alone the 'actual miseries', but is motivated exclusively by a concern for the attainment of unconditional safety and, through that, infinite consolation.[54]

And yet God is not to be understood as the mere conjunction of everything that is the case (comprising the world), for the concept of God is related to the that, not to the how.[55] Therefore the pantheistic God of the TLP is not simply to be identified with the actual world, but is instead taken to be this actual world under the proper understanding that we should take this world to be the law to which we are to conform ourselves, this latter condition being essential, since to the unhappy person the world is also presented, but it is not God, and therefore the unhappy person cannot be sensible said to live in a pantheist world. Thus the world becomes God, pantheism is established, provided that one view the current world-state in an absolutist and normative respect.[56]

To recapitulate the above: in order to attain the sate of absolute ethics one has to recognize that one should conform oneself to the actual situation, any actual situation whatsoever. This is also the reason why the depiction of God as a father is, in the Notebooks, thought to be justified.[57] For the recognition of the necessity to conform oneself to the world as it is given me, is to accept fate and to subject oneself to the arbitrary form that this fate just happens to take. The problem that then arises is that this way of subjecting one's will to the will of God, i.e. to fate, cannot be taken to be an act within the world, for then the act would lose its necessary character and could no longer be thought of to account for the ethical state of unconditional redemption: No state of affairs has in itself, what I would like to call the coercive power of an absolute judge.[58]

The allegorical representation of God as an absolute judge is therefore needed in order for my following of His (since Wittgenstein always takes God to be represented by a father, never a mother[59]) laws, that are laid out in fate, to be of the necessity that is required here. And this necessity is similar to a logical necessity in that it cannot be spoken (for then it would be a contingent fact again), but can only be shown in life (through the regarding of this image of God as admonishing one's every move and one's every act).

6.2 Connecting the pantheist God to the notion of eternal life

We are now introducing the closely connected notion of the eternal life, which is also touched upon in the TLP. The proper explication of this notion, in connection to the above described conception of the pantheist God, should further elucidate the total picture and the way in which the notion of sin relates to it.

Continuing the argument just where we left off in the last section, once I recognize that my body may no longer be actively concerned with the bringing about of a different world-state through a certain action that is coordinated in both space and time, it thus becomes possible to see the world as a so-called 'limited whole'.[60] This is the situation in which we wonder not at the specific constellation of the world, but rather at there being a world at all. In other worlds: not how the world is given me strikes me, but that it is given me (as was already touched upon in the above). In this state of wondering at the existence of the world, I – because of my disregarding its exact constitution and structure – no longer look at it as an instant within a continual progression of constantly changing world states. In wondering at the existence of the world I thus perform the will of God, but due to my resignation to the fate that God bestows upon me I retreat into a timeless and spaceless realm into which the material (or factual) aspects of the world have become irrelevant to me (since it has become apparent that they cannot add to the ethical, which needs necessity).

Wittgenstein's casual identification of the eternal life with the notions of timelessness and limitlessness of the visual field can only be made sense of by an appeal to Schopenhauer's theory of time and space as he put forward in his Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, in which matter (i.e. 'the world as representation') is taken to consist of the intertwining of both time and space:

Erst indem der Verstand von der Wirkung auf die Ursache übergeht, steht die Welt da, als Anschauung im Raume ausgebreitet, der Gestalt nach wechselnd, der Materie nach durch alle Zeit beharrend: denn er vereinigt Raum und Zeit in der Vorstellung Materie.[61]

Compare this to TLP, 6.4311:

If by eternity is understood not endless temporal duration but timelessness, then he lives eternally who lives in the present.

Only when we read this against the background of the Schopenhauerian theory, does it become clear what Wittgenstein must have meant here. For if eternity is understood as timelessness, then, according to the definition of matter (and representation) as espoused by Schopenhauer, this must be taken to mean the abolition of matter. And in this very way the 'life in the present' cuts oneself loose from the factual vision upon the world, and brings one to the ethical conception of the world as a limited whole. The validity of this interpretation is further corroborated by the latter part of statement 6.4311, which reads: “Our life is endless in the way that our visual field is without limit.” For it is clear that when we, in a Schopenhauerian framework, step outside of time, we abolish the view according the which the world is matter (or representation), and then – at the same time – we step outside of space also (for these two components, taken together, constituted matter). In this way the resignation of matter, encompassing the resignation of the (own) body, and the entering of the state of eternal life, both coincide with the performing of God's will.

7 On a transcendental God

7.1 The absence of ascent

Some commentators have read the above discussed TLP passage 6.54, and most notably the ladder-metaphor occurring therein, as supporting the idea that the ethical view, as brought forth by the TLP, is to be attained through some kind of ascend (a move that is taken to have at least some reminiscences with the more traditional christian doctrine on the matter). Such interpretations seem to stand in sharp contrast to the above interpretation, in which a pantheistic God-view was argued for. It is our purpose in the following sections, then, to show that an ascend into a transcendental realm is disqualified by the TLP, and that thus the pantheist interpretation is corroborated due to showing the notion of ascent to miss the mark (where it is, for matters of convenience, assumed that there are no other alternatives open to us here).

Thompson2002 is, like us, concerned with the ethical view in a tractarian framework.[62] He therein draws the as of now classic, although not unassailed[63], distinction between the earlier and the later work (represented by the TLP and the PI respectively). He thereupon tries to explain this distinction in terms of a change in the notion of philosophical activity: The difference [...] is roughly between a conception of philosophical activity as bringing about a linear ascent to perfect clarity and a conception of philosophical activity as an on-going struggle against the temptation to confusion. Thompson then goes on to say:

On the face of it, there is a great difference in both style and content of the TLP and the Investigations.[64]

He then wants to try to describe this purported difference 'in both style and content' in terms of the different stances towards philosophical activity, in the sense of a work-on-oneself.

Let us start off with questioning the purported difference in style between the earlier and the later work, and thereafter treat of the more important questioning of the argued difference in content (acknowledging that, naturally, these topics somewhat overlap).

7.2 On stylistic differences

On the stylistic properties of the TLP Kroß1993 has said:

[...] daß auch die Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung – entgegen dem Prima-facie-Eindruck – nicht als jene systematisch-'geschlossene', abstract-logische Abhandlung zu lesen ist [...][65]

So for example the number system that accompanies the TLP statements, seems to suggest a certain argumentative structure to exist between them, in which the statement x.y would 'support', in whatever sense of the word, statement x. But this is not really the case, for although one can distinguish several parts of TLP with respect to their purported contents[66], as is – by the way – still possible in PI[67], there is no strict ordering to be deferred from the number system.[68]

7.3 On the non-ascending character of the tractarian ladder

Then let us now turn towards the difference in content between the earlier and the later Wittgenstein, in terms of a 'linear ascent' as opposed to a horizontal, 'on-going struggle':

In the first passage [= TLP 6.54], Wittgenstein expresses the impulse to transcend his condition, the condition presumably of a user of ordinary language, a condition in which he may be gripped with philosophical confusion. In the latter passage [= “Anything I might reach by climbing a ladder does not interest me.”, Wittgenstein1980, p. 7e], in contrast, he expresses an acceptance of (a resignation to, perhaps) that condition.[69]

Although it is clear that the program of logical rigor that the TLP proposes is meant to ease philosophical matters a bit, its elucidatory character does not aim to dig up a new, 'ascended' kind of language, claiming to be able to fundamentally improve upon ordinary language. For all of the characteristics that are to be made fully explicit in the perfect logical language, whose construction is to be undertaken in order to mitigate philosophical confusion, are already presented in the original, every-day variant also. It is in this light that we should read 3.323, in which a specific example of a confusion incited by natural language is treated of:

Thus the word 'is' appears as the copula, as the sign of equality, and as the expression of existence [...][70]

This is, however, not to say that the natural language, nor the casual way in which the word is used in every-day discourse, is fundamentally wrong in conflating these two appearances of the word 'is'. For that matter, these two appearances might be characterized in the ordinary language by pointing to their entirely different uses, linked to the entirely different contexts in which they both occur. 3.323 therefore continues by expressly distinguishing these two uses: “[...] 'to exist' as an intransitive verb like 'to go'; 'identical' as an adjective [...]”.[71] And so the difference is made clear by, for example, substituting the phrase 'is equivalent to' for the word 'is' in the contexts in which it functions as an adjective, as opposed to the contexts in which it functions as an intransitive verb. A similar example:

(In the proposition 'Green is green' – where the first word is a proper name and the last an adjective – these words have not merely different meanings but they are different symbols.)[72]

The italics are from Wittgenstein, thereby further pinpointing the importance of this thought, namely that already in the natural language, to which the sentence 'Green is green' surely belongs, these symbols are, irrespective of their initial appearance, already different ones. The logical formalism, i.e. the ideal language, is meant to explicitize this by giving both of these different symbols a perceptibly unobfuscated mark of their own.[73] It is important to note that the construction of this formal language is entirely dependent upon the distinctions that already exist between the symbols as they occur in the natural language.[74] The only aspect, therefore, in which the to be constructed formal language will differ from the already available natural language, is that where in the latter case the symbols are sometimes only to be individualized by an appeal to their occurrence in the sentences that contain them (and the subsequent uses that are made of them)[75], that in the former case the individuation of every symbol is already apparent from the representation of the symbol itself. It is clear that there can be no such thing as a logic ascending over or above a natural, common-sense, every-day language (and its purported use), a logical language adding convenience only.

On the other side, the later work is misrepresented when Thompson claims that it embodies “an acceptance of (a resignation to, perhaps) that condition [= a condition in which one is gripped with philosophical confusion]”[76]. It shows the tendency to read the later work as the epitome of relativism, which it of course is not. That in the later work Wittgenstein does not mean to 'accept a condition of philosophical confusion' is made sufficiently clear by (amongst many others) the following passage:

For the clarity that we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear.[77]

Whether the notion of ethics in the later work is the same as in the earlier is quite a hard question, an answer to which will not be attempted here. Only two casual observations on the matter are made. The first observation is that the totality of the speakable is, in the PI, no longer limited from the inside, i.e. there is no rigorous mechanism that nicely delineates the sayable from the unsayable no more. And yet the distinction between saying and showing is still left intact. And it is clear – and this is our second observation – that the ethical, to Wittgenstein, always remained into the sphere of the unsayable, strongly connected the notions of showing, absoluteness, necessity, and a 'stance towards life'.

8 Rationality as sin

Whenever the problems of life are formulated into questions, when they are 'pulled' into language as it were, i.e. whenever the suggestion arises that we, as a species, are able to solve these problems by formulating these questions in our language, e.g. by putting those questions under the scrutiny of philosophers (the people that are supposed to be the most capable of thought), that – in short – when we assume that such an explicit treatment will solve the problems of life for us, we are not only mislead by entirely fictitious thoughts, but are also committed to a state of hubris of the most gruesome kind. As a consequence God's nemesis is irrevocably invoked upon us whenever we hold such a view. For the only thing that a system of philosophy-as-theory (any manifestation of it) might establish is yet another distribution of truth values among the states of affairs, but this can never lift their contingent character, and can thus never be thought of as to provide an answer to the questions of life, which can only be resolved, though not solved, by an appeal to viewing the world as a limited whole.[78] Or so was argued in the above.

And only such an interrelation of rationality (made manifest in philosophy-as-theory) with sin could come to explain the extreme negativity of Wittgenstein's verdict on traditional philosophy.[79] For this constitutes the most complete manifestation of human pride, brought about by the pulling the problems of life into the realm of language and thought, thus leading to a misuse of thought, in the supposition that the human intellect – after all nothing more than an accidental end-product of an unguided biological process – be able to grasp the essence of all there is to life. The sin of uncontrolled rationality has clear reminiscences to the kantian undertaking as expressed in:

I had to abolish knowledge in order to make room for fate.[80]

A similar abolition of knowledge can be observed in the philosophy of Wittgenstein, for the cognitive capacities of the philosophers and the scientists are shown to be mistakenly appreciated whenever they are thought to be capable of successfully coping with the problems of life. In actuality they are as apt to undertake this task as is the layman or the inhabitant of a (more) primitive society; superior thought does not avail one in these realms, but might even run contrary to the finding of a 'solution' here.

A specific example of Wittgenstein's resentment against such misuse of rationality is to be found in his antipathy with respect to the modern ideology of (scientific) progression, which seeks to brings about an unwarranted schism in mankind, namely one between those who have lived in the past, and were bereft of the light of reason, and those that are to live in a fictitious future world, in which the problems are assumed to – finally – have been made sense of:

If there were a 'solution' to the problems of logic (philosophy) we should only need to caution ourselves that there was a time when they had not been resolved (and even at that time people must have known how to live and think).[81]

So even though several differences between the cognitive capacities of various individuals, and between different cultures and times, might be established, these capacities in cognitive aptitude are always restricted by the domain of the contingent, to which they must necessarily apply. This is where the earlier account of the saying/showing distinction touches upon the later notion of a life-form, for in the PI it is the life-form that both shapes and restricts the use of language (and thought), although no longer in a clearly delineable way (as was still the case in the TLP). The only thing that can determine our possibilities of solving whatever problem is instituted by our 'form of life'. And those sharing the same form of life also have the same number of things that they can – in principle – solve and – again, in principle – not solve.

From these remarks it follows that thought is not the most successful, nor the most important vehicle for solving the problems of life. Intelligence, when – as in philosophy – applied to the fundamental problems of life, might be a measure for the amount of time that one is able to steeve off the point at which one runs into utter despair. So the philosopher is able to come up with still new theories and new and more elaborated arguments, whereas the lay person has already conceded to the unsolvability of the problem at hand, or has already sidestepped fictitious considerations into an unremitting practice. But with regard to the matters of life there is no final answer to be given by the intelligently most bestowed ones either. Thus there is not a single substantial problem that has ever been successfully solved by the philosophers.[82]

And this is indeed not remarkable at all, since these problems are what shape life, and thus their solution does not lie in life (for then the shape of life, instituted by the form-of-life, would dissolute). To the contrary, life is always a living with and a living through the problems that are imposed upon us, as becomes manifest in view of God as both pantheistic and authoritative (in the sense of a father). And thus not: all life is problem-solving, as Karl Popper has it, continually trying to bring about a thought to be superior world-state, but instead: all life (or all good life at least) is the acknowledgment of the problems of life – as, again, made manifest in the pantheist God, or fate (described in section 6.1 in the above) – and be content with that.

To live the good life is therefore not to solve any of the problems of life at all, i.e. not by bringing about a world-state in which the problematic aspects have all been effaced, but instead the good life is attained by changing one's stance with respect to the problems of life, and thus to change one's stance with respect to the world as such, and to accept it as being given me, without rationality making any fictitious claims.[83]

9 The itch and the scratching

In the last section we established the dismissal of philosophy as problem-solving and – along with it – the dismissal of rationality as the prime vehicle for solving the problems of life. It is in this light that the following passage, occurring in the preface to the TLP, is to be understood:

[...] the value of this work secondly consists in the fact that it shows how little has been done when these problems have been solved.

For the TLP shows that the problems of life, as far as they are regarded to be problems of a philosophical nature, to be coped with in discursive thought, will eventually come to dissolute.[84] This is not to claim, however, that the problems are then all solved however, since the happy life and the unhappy life are still completely different. But one cannot sensibly hope to reach the happy life through a philosophy-as-theory. Such a kind of philosophy is clearly oriented towards problems that it can never cope with.

But the urge to philosophize is still very deeply rooted into the intellectual mindset. And this might be termed a historical accident maybe, since – as is often claimed – it seems to be the case that philosophy originated from religion at some point in time. Religious texts became increasingly more elaborate and the writers of those text, possibly driven to these acts by the urge of defending the one religion against the other, began to provide 'evidence' and 'proofs' for their religious views. And this is where everything went wrong, for the tools for coping with the problems of life were always already in place, namely in religious and aesthetic experience (there not being a very clear distinction between the two in the earlier stages of human development).

The traditional philosopher is still driven by these very same problems, for they are the problems that matter in life. And it is Wittgenstein's main purpose, in his alternative philosophy, to illustrate to the traditional philosopher that he or she should turn back to the primordial state again, retracing the long and weary road of logical (in the later work: grammatical) mistakes that have been made, until he or she finally ends up at the beginning of the whole quest again, i.e. to a point at which no questions were formulated regarding the problems of life, no theses were proposed and no arguments arranged for. So, basically, what Wittgenstein wants the traditional philosopher to do, is to retrace his or her speech back to a use again:

When we do philosophy we are like savages, primitive people, who hear the expressions of civilized men, put a false interpretation on them, and then draw the queerest conclusions from it. [85]

The traditional philosopher must be reminded of his too 'primitive' behavior with respect to the problems of life. A situation which is, queer enough, brought about by a feigned notion of civilization, namely the unbridled esteem for ratiocination treated of in the above. The new philosophy would then consist of the repudiation of any such philosophical claims that transgresses the logic (or the grammar) of our language. But the misguided philosopher would not (immediately) understand this 'method'. He or she would be unwilling, at first, to retrace the ill-laid path of philosophy. And this is expressed most eloquently and most poignantly in the metaphor of the fly that tries to get out of the fly-bottle:

What is your aim in philosophy?--To shew the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.[86]

This metaphor describes quite exactly what is at stake here. Just in the way in which the human animal has language as its chief trick, and is – because of pure vanity – lead to believe that this trick will solve, after sufficient effort has been put into it at least, all of the problems that this animal will ever come to face (the modern western conception of science to which Wittgenstein is so decidedly antipathetic[87]); so just in the way in which the human animal is mislead by the trick of language, so – in an exactly identical manner – is the fly being mislead by the peculiar trick that its form of life exhibits, namely flying. The solution of getting out of the fly bottle for a non-fly, e.g. a human being, is actually quite easy. So it is not a prolonged effort that would eventually free the fly form its captivity, because no prolonging of the effort could ever come to help it to find the exit.[88] It is therefore restricted to the condition of not finding about its way.[89] The reason why it is doomed is not because it does not apply a certain scheme, nor because it lacks a certain method according to which it alternatively would have been able to succeed in its mission, but – instead – it is restricted to this condition by its very constitution, i.e. by its very form of life, by its biology.

But then it seems unnatural to follow Wittgenstein's thoughts, since it is in accordance with our biology to stay put within the fly-bottle of our language. And this indeed is our human condition. What of it if the fly stopped buzzing, started thinking, came to the conclusion that it had to exit through the tiny hole that it could never have reached by flying about randomly, etc.; would this still be a fly?

Since philosophy-as-theory seems to have been done away with, and philosophy-as-stance seems to be concerned with the viewing the world in a particular way (intimately connected to the concept of showing), we might come to regard any a philosophical writing as a mere manifestation of claptrap of the clearest kind. And this, no doubt, is what Wittgenstein envisaged as the final, perfect state of being in accordance with fate (i.e. the immanent, pantheist God). But at the same time it is recognized that this ultimate state, as one might call it, is not very easily to be attained, and is maybe even more difficult to hold on to. Therefore, the striving towards this ultimate goal, thus implying one's present immersion into an imperfect and sinful state, is suggested to be a principle characteristic of the human life-form; and, moreover, even if one be able to reach the goal state, the attainment of this could never have been possible without the sinful stepping stone of rationality, language and thought running up against their own boundaries[90]:

The results of philosophy are the uncovering of one or another piece of plain nonsense and of bumps that the understanding has got by running its head up against the limits of language. These bumps make us see the value of the discovery.[91]

This passage seems to hint at the sheer necessity of the state of philosophizing for the human life form. Because this mode of behavior is taken to be an essential characteristic of the humane way of life, no progression could ever be made here, for this would not improve the human state, but would – instead – lead to an entirely different life-form:

Philosophy hasn't made any progress? - If somebody scratches the spot where he has an itch, do we have to see some progress? Isn't genuine scratching otherwise, or genuine itching? And can't this reaction to an irritation continue in the same way for a long time before a cure for the itching is discovered?[92]

But even though the sinful state might be thought of as inevitable, the ideal situation must nevertheless still be aimed for. This becomes clear from the mentioning of the 'cure' to the itching (which clearly constitutes a much better state than the one in which one continually has to scratch). Therefore:

The real discovery is the one that makes me capable of stopping doing philosophy when I want to.—The one that gives philosophy peace, so that it is no longer tormented by questions which bring itself in question.[93]

Philosophy would, then, not be finding one's way out of the fly-bottle, but would have to make the fly sit still at the bottom of the bottle, and be content with that, i.e. something which its life-form does not permit.

10 Concluding remarks

The matter is thus misunderstood whenever one claims that talk on ethics (and similar topics) is in general, just due to the mentioning of these very terms, is unethical behavior. This is aptly illustrated by the following example:

[...] die Tendenz, das Anrennen, deutet auf etwas hin. Das hat schon der heilige Augustin gewußt, wenn er sagt: Was, du Mistviech, du willst keinen Unsinn reden? Rede nur einen nsinn, es macht nichts![94]

From this it is easily observed that the notion of sin is not related just to talk on ethics, i.e. it is not related to the sheer act of uttering words like 'God' or 'soul'. The notion of sin sets in only when these exclamations pretend to establish a stringent theory within an argumentative frame, from which the proper ethic and the proper stance towards life and the proper treatment of metaphysical problems are all claimed to be derivable. The sin committed consists of the application of the tool of rationality to a domain to which it cannot be justifiably applied.

Only if the statements constituting the tractarian argument are considered to have a meaning does it become apparent that they – actually – cannot be claimed to have a meaning after all. From the viewpoint of the happy person, the conception of the TLP as meaningful, is clearly a sign of sin. For it can only show what it proclaims to say. So – contradictorily – only through the full exposure to said sin does it become possible to be shown salvation.

Since Wittgenstein's primal focus is not to make as many people as possible come to this point (argued for in section 2), his intention in writing the TLP now becomes clear as the necessary going through the world of rational sin in order to come to see the boundaries of that stance, and to augment it by a different, unrational one (expressed in the feeling the mystical). It has therefore mainly a justificatory purpose, which the more literary works must lack.

Russell wrote in his autobiography:

[Wittgenstein] seems to have grown tired of serious thinking and to have invented a doctrine which would make such an activity unnecessary.[95]

But this is, in some respect, too positive a characterization of Wittgenstein's work, for the 'doctrine' which would make philosophizing unnecessary was never found by him. It was even argued that such a total escape might be impossible and unfitting to the human life-form (see section 9). In another sense, recognizing the inappropriate use of the phrase 'invented a doctrine', the ambition of Wittgenstein's project is much bigger than Russell in this passage suggests, for it aims to show the fundamental inability of the human species to perform philosophy-as-theory. There is shown to be no way in which an 'essence' might be found, according to which our problems of life might ever be sufficiently solved or resolved. Rationality must return to its domain of contingent facts again and humility in the face of God take its place.

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References

  1. ↑ The additional identification of the aesthetic with the ethical, as stated in TLP 6.421, although unquestioningly a very interesting one, shall, due to considerations of space, not be dealt with in the present essay.
  2. ↑ The decision to use the corpus of Wittgenstein's writings in this specific way is, beside the considerations put forward in the above, based upon the presupposition that, with respect to the ethical and religious ideas at least, Wittgenstein's position has stayed fairly constant throughout both his early and his later period (although the way he sought to argue for these ideas has come to change substantially).
  3. ↑ “Der Traktat ist Ethik.” [Kroß1993, p. 24] This goes well beyond Wittgenstein's own statement, according to which the point of the TLP is an ethical one (as in the letter to Ficker, quoted from in ff17).
  4. ↑ It is assumed here that the 'muss' in TLP, statement 7 is to be taken in its normatively ethical sense.
  5. ↑ Cited by Janik&Toulmin, p. 159.
  6. ↑ For a treatment of the influence of both Kierkegaard and Tolstoy upon Wittgenstein, see Janik&Toulmin1973, p. 157-161 and Edwards1985, p. 30-32 for Kierkegaard; and see Janik&Toulmin1973, p. 161-164 and Edwards1985, p. 28-30 for Tolstoy.
  7. ↑ The preface to TLP starts thus: “This book will perhaps only be understood by those who have themselves already thought the thoughts which are expressed in it – or similar thoughts.”
  8. ↑ Again, taken from the preface to TLP: “It [= the TLP] is therefore not a textbook.”
  9. ↑ Compare to this to the 'Zu einem Vorwort', written in 1930:
    Die Gefahr eines langen Vorworts ist die daß der Geist eines Buches sich in diesem zeigen muß und nicht beschrieben werden kann. Denn ist ein Buch nur für wenige geschrieben so wird sich das eben dadurch zeigen daß nur wenige es verstehen. Das Buch muß automatisch die Scheidung derer bewirken die es verstehen und die es nicht verstehen. Auch das Vorwort ist eben für die geschrieben, die das Buch verstehen.
    Es hat keinen Sinn jemandem etwas zu sagen was er nicht versteht, auch wenn man hinzusetzt daß er es nicht verstehen kann. [Wittgenstein2000, MS109, p. 208]
  10. ↑ To see the contrast with Tolstoy, who most fervently objected towards elitist works of art, and who – along with that conception – put forward a decidedly non-elitist conversion to a Christian ethic, which – subsequently – shows a clear overlap with the literary genre that Kierkegaard professed:
    These tales [= those published under the name Twenty-Three Tales] are extremely simple parables about simple people, and they exemplify men's major virtues and vices in a very direct, often very moving manner. As such they are beautiful illustrations of what Kierkegaard had meant by 'indirect communication'. [Janik&Toulmin1973 p. 163]
  11. ↑ It is therefore rightly maintained in the introduction to the TLP, that its proficiency at these levels has been of secondary importance and that the author's endeavors could, in these respects at least, be considerably elaborated and sufficiently improved upon (“Here I am conscious that I have fallen far short of the possible.”, Wittgenstein1922, p. 29).
  12. ↑ For a treatment of this notion of philosophy, of which the TLP is here taken to be an instant, see section 4.
  13. ↑ This book will perhaps only be understood by those who have themselves already thought the thoughts which are expressed in it – or similar thoughts. [Wittgenstein1922, p. 27]
  14. ↑ An example of such an experience in life, leading to a seeing the world – in a tractarian manner – aright, can be found in the experience of the proximity to death, as described in the sections of the notebooks 1914-1916 that were not originally published, i.e. in Wittgenstein2000, MS101-103 (although they later appeared in the so-called Hidden Notebooks). The topic is extremely interesting and has, as I would argue, some similarities to Heidegger's conception of Angst in Sein und Zeit. A treatment of the experienced proximity to death in a tractarian setting would surely deserve an essay of its own, and is instigated by the following words of Wittgenstein:
    I can well understand, what Heidegger means by Being and Angst. Man has an impulse, to run up against [anzurennen] the limits of language. [Janik&Toulmin1973, op cit. p. 194]
  15. ↑ In the preface of the TLP it is said that “[...] the truth of the thoughts communicated here seems to me unassailable and definitive.”
  16. ↑ Again, in the preface of the TLP, it is said that “[...] the problems have in the essentials been finally solved.”
  17. ↑ As was made clear in section 2 in the above.
  18. ↑ This topic shall be slightly elaborated upon in section 5.2 in the below.
  19. ↑ Again, by interpreting the 'muss' in statement 7 in an ethical way.
  20. ↑ We have already seen that Kroß states is to be ethics. And although this position is quite unique, there are many who claim that the TLP has an ethical purpose. And even Wittgenstein himself seems to claim this in his 1919 letter to Ficker: “[...] the point of the book is an ethical one.”, taken from Stokhof2002, p. 5.
  21. ↑ In Stokhof2002, p. 103, we read:
    [...] the sentences of the Tractatus themselves do not describe, but show: they show the logical properties of the world, of language and of thought, by being consciously misguided attempts to say these things.
  22. ↑ As can be seen in TLP section 6.53, which will be elaborately treated of in the below.
  23. ↑ E.g.:
    I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again 'I know that that's a tree', pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and observes this, and I tell him: 'This fellow isn't insane. We are only doing philosophy.' [Wittgenstein1969, section 467]
  24. ↑ It is my personal conviction that the stringent notion of essence in philosophy is, by both Wittgenstein and his propagators, quite too often turned into a straw man by simplifying certain aspects of the theories of certain essentialist thinkers, like e.g. Husserl. I myself am not one of the twenty first century freaks in 'philosophy' who applaud themselves in the overcoming of 'big stories', a success which shows that it might not even be needed to burn the books of the tradition one defies, since one can simply stops reading them. Thus the highly simplified distinction that I institute in this section is only made in order to ease the rest of the discussion, I do not maintain that any philosopher ever fell under this category.
  25. ↑ See Monk1991, chapter 9 for Wittgenstein's so-called 'lost period' in which he abstained from philosophizing almost exclusively; and chapter 10 narrating his subsequent return, via conversations with Ramsey, Schlick, Waismann, and others, eventually driving him back to academic life in Cambridge again.
  26. ↑ Again, I do not think there is any philosopher who ever fitted to this description, but I am quite sure people like Richard Rorty would be able to produce a substantial list of names here.
  27. ↑ For this is the realm to which those notions that traditional philosophical endeavor was concerned with (e.g. the soul, the will, God, the beautiful, the good, etc.), are taken to belong.
  28. ↑ TLP, 6.53.
  29. ↑ And maybe one even must be corrected and must correct others, if one – again – takes statement 7 to be an ethical imperative.
  30. ↑ See TLP 6.54.
  31. ↑ Wittgenstein1953, section 123.
  32. ↑ One might think: if philosophy speaks of the use of the word "philosophy" there must be a second-order philosophy. But it is not so: it is, rather, like the case of orthography, which deals with the word "orthography" among others without then being second-order. [Wittgenstein1953, section 121]
  33. ↑ Wittgenstein1953, section 124.
  34. ↑ Just to illustrate matters a bit we quote the following passage, taken from the opening section:
    Explanations come to an end somewhere.—But what is the meaning of the word "five"?—No such thing was in question here, only how the word "five" is used. [Wittgenstein1953, section 1]
  35. ↑ An understanding of the basic constellation of the theory of meaning that the TLP puts forward will be assumed here, and is explained in every introduction to the work, a particularly lucid example of which being Stokhof2002, chapter 2.
  36. ↑ Although the 'happy person' is mentioned once in the TLP, the term is not explicitly defined there. In the Notebooks however such 'definitions' can be found, and they can be shown to be in accordance with their use in the TLP (which will, for considerations of space, simply be assumed here). An example of the description of the term in the Notebooks might be the following, the precise meaning of which will only become apparent in section 6.2 below:
    Only a man who lives not in time but in the present is happy.
    [...]
    In order to live happily I must be in agreement with the world. And that is what 'being happy means. [Wittgenstein1961, p. 75e]
  37. ↑ An example of such an 'unhappy' reader might be found in Russell, as is apparent from the introduction he wrote to the Ogden translation of the TLP (see Wittgenstein1922, p. 7-23). Another unhappy reader might be found in Frege, as can be observed in his correspondence with Wittgenstein about his reading experience of the TLP, as described in Monk1991, p. 163, e.g. “[...] Frege wrote, 'from the very beginning I find myself entangled in doubt as to what you want to say, and so make no proper headway.'”
  38. ↑ It is essential to understand the inconsistencies that the TLP harbors to be consciously construed, as Stokhof2002 makes clear:
    [...] the sentences of the Tractatus themselves do not describe, but show: they show the logical properties of the world, of language and thought, by being consciously misguided attempts to say these things. [Stokhof2002, p. 103]
  39. ↑ So for example Russell never effectively understood or appreciated this distinction: “It was not that Russell did not understand the distinction, but rather that he thought it obscure and unnecessary [...]” [Monk1991, p. 162-163].
  40. ↑ E.g. Diamond1998:
    [...] talking may be useful or even for a time essential, but it is in the end to be let go of and honestly taken to be real nonsense, plain nonsense, which we are not in the end to think of as corresponding to an ineffable truth. [Diamond1998, p. 7-8]
  41. ↑ E.g. Stokhof2002, p. 274-276, ff. 101.
  42. ↑ Stokhof's view is therefore not so much faulty, but incomplete, in that it does not recognize the conditionality of his explication on the basis of the constitution of the reading process that the proper understand of the TLP requires. For the same reason, however, the view that the TLP statements must be all utter nonsense is committed to the same misrecognition of the structured moments of understanding (but this view resides on the other side of the spectrum, basing itself solely on the stance of the happy person).
  43. ↑ See Wittgenstein1953, section 133. Quoted in section 7.3, ff77.
  44. ↑ See section 9.
  45. ↑ Garver1994, p. 143.
  46. ↑ TLP, 6.432.
  47. ↑ There are various occurrences in the Notebooks that support this claim, one of them – illustrative for the others as well – being:
    The world is given me, i.e. my will enters into the world completely from outside as into something that is already there....
    That is why we have the feeling of being dependent on an alien will.
    However this may be, at any rate we are in a certain sense dependent, and what we are dependent on we call God. [Wittgenstein1961, p. 74e, 8.7.16]
  48. ↑ The contingent character of any world-state whatsoever, also the one that we actively want to realize, is expressed in the following:
    For it is a fact of logic that wanting does not stand in any logical connexion with its own fulfillment. [Wittgenstein1961, p. 77e, 29.7.16]
  49. ↑ To be found in Wittgenstein1993, p. 37-44.
  50. ↑ Idem, p. 38.
  51. ↑ Idem, p. 39.
  52. ↑ Wittgenstein2000, MS128, p. 49. An additional point of interest in this passage is that the phrase 'endless help' refers to something that is only needed by those that feel an 'endless distress' (and only to those is the Christian faith claimed to be oriented). It is not entirely clear whether the thus lifted-out subset of humanity is intended to coincide with the collection of happy people. I truly believe this to be the case, although the point shall not be argued for at the present.
  53. ↑ Wittgenstein's disregard for concern with the 'actual miseries' of the world, and how they might be mitigated, is illustrated by the following anecdote:
    When, in the twenties, Russell wanted to establish, or join, a 'World Organisation for Peace and Freedom' or something similar, Wittgenstein rebuked him so severely, that Russell said to him: 'Well, I suppose you would rather establish a World Organisation for War and Slavery', to which Wittgenstein passionately assented: 'Yes, rather that, rather that!' [Monk1992, p. 211]
  54. ↑ The topic of complete safety is related to a full understanding of ethics in Wittgenstein1993, p. 41.
  55. ↑ As in ethical experience I wonder at the existence of the world, not at any of the concretely manifest facts that are harbored in it. See also TLP 6.44: “Not how the world is, is the mystical, but that it is.”
  56. ↑ It is clear now why God does not reveal himself in the world (as passage 6.432 put forward), since the proper conception of God is not brought about by God, who comes to us in a factual form to tell us what to do, but instead God is only instituted whenever we have gained the insight that the extra-linguistic necessity is the thing we should strive for in order to live the good life. And this insight, due to which the pantheist God is constituted, lies perfectly outside of the world.
  57. ↑ The same thing is brought up in the Lecture on Ethics, where the feeling of guilt is provided as a prime example of a religious experience: “described by the phrase that God disapproves of our conduct.” (taken from Wittgenstein1993, p. 42). Similar thoughts are expressed in Barrett1991, p. 53-56, where the image of the Last Judgement fulfills the admonishing role.
  58. ↑ Wittgenstein1993, p. 40.
  59. ↑ It is of course very interesting and of the highest philosophical import to try to find out whether this affiliation with a masculine God can be traced back to some aspect of Wittgenstein's biography. For it is well documented that Wittgenstein's father was not a very easy person, putting a lot of pressure upon his sons in his attempt to turn them into successful businessmen (like himself). Such an investigation must, sadly, be postponed to some future occasion.
  60. ↑ TLP 6.45: “The contemplation of the world sub speci aeterni is its contemplation as a limited whole.” And here it may not be merely accidental that the Spinozian phrasal is used. Then explication of how the Wittgensteinian pantheism that we described in the previous section is to be precisely related to Spinoza's metaphysics, shall not be pursued at the present.
  61. ↑ Schopenhauer1996, p. 42.
  62. ↑ In his article this is compared to the apprehension of ethics in the later work (most notably the PI).
  63. ↑ We do not wish to thread the longwinded discussion of weighting the similarities and differences between the earlier and the later work here, it seems to suffice to point to Wittgenstein's statement in the introduction if the PI, that only in the light of his TLP would the later views be able to attain their right meaning. And indeed, in order for there to be differences at all, there first ought to be an overarching coordinate system into which the disparate theories (or views) can be positioned in order to be able to compare and contrast them at all.
  64. ↑ Thompson2002, p. 154.
  65. ↑ Kroß1993, p. 15.
  66. ↑ So the sections residing under 1 are on ontology, those under 2 are on the picture theory, those under 4 and most of those under 5 are on the truth function, the latter part of 6 and statement 7 are on ethics, etc.
  67. ↑ So there are section taken to treat the topic of 'rule-following', while others cover the 'private language argument', etc.
  68. ↑ This too is claimed by Kroß1993, p. 20: “Vollends dementiert sich Wittgensteins Ordnungsschema [...]”. Although Kroß might be considered to go too far in stating that this compositional characteristic of TLP is directly prescribed by the rule that all statements of logic are of equal value (there being no axioms nor derivative statements in logic, as is stated in TLP section 6.127). Kroß says: “Wittgenstein überträgt das Postulat von der logischen Geichgewichtigkeit seiner Sätze auf die textuelle Gleichgewicktigkeit und d.h. Nicht-Hierarchisierbarkeit der Sätze des Traktates.” [Kroß1993, p. 24] This is beside the point, since it is unclear how a property, taken from logical space, could be thought to apply outside of this space. Rather, as I see it, the absence of a criterion of rationality with respect to the TLP sentences does, at the same time, abolish the ability to arrange them into a hierarchy (of whatever nature). And then we do not need the notion of logical 'Gleichgewichtigkeit' to explain this.
  69. ↑ Thompson2002, p. 154.
  70. ↑ TLP, 3.323.
  71. ↑ Idem.
  72. ↑ Idem.
  73. ↑ This is asserted in TLP 3.325:
    In order to avoid these errors [= those indicated in 3.323], we must employ a symbolism which excludes them, by not applying the same sign in different symbols and by not applying sign in the same way which signify in different ways.
  74. ↑ Just to give an example of this: Through the exchange of the proper name 'Green' for another proper name 'John' in 'John walks', we end up with yet another meaningful sentence, whereas it is equally evident that this is not the case for 'green walks', in which the adjective is used.
  75. ↑ The importance of the use of a term, in this respect, is illustrated by TLP 3.326: “In order to recognize the symbol in the sign we must consider the significant use.”
  76. ↑ Thompson2002, p. 154 (same passage as in the above).
  77. ↑ Wittgenstein1953, section 133.
  78. ↑ TLP, 6.51-6.521 explains the upheaving of such questions, since a question can only be raised where an answer might be given (this is taken to be an essential characteristic for something to be question), which is here – due to the coupling of language with the contingent – most evidently not the case. TLP 6.521 thus states: “The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of the problem.”
  79. ↑ The PI can easily be read as consisting of a full-blown attack upon traditional philosophy.
  80. ↑ Although it should be pointed out here that to Kant the thematic of rationality is still thought of as a good in itself.
  81. ↑ Wittgenstein1980, p. 4e. A similar dissatisfaction with the schism that is formed by the fiction of (scientific) progression, can be found in the beautiful Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough (to be found in Wittgenstein1993, p. 118-155), in which the primitive societies that Frazer describes are shown to be misrepresented by his assuming their irrational rituals to have by now been overcome by modern scientific methods, that are thus taken to have solved those aspects of life that were still problematic to the primitives.
  82. ↑ The inability of philosophy to solve any of these questions is quite wittily illustrated by Wittgenstein's following remark:
    I read: “... philosophers are no nearer to the meaning of 'Reality' that Plato got, ...” What a strange situation. How extraordinary that Plato could have got even as far as he did! Or that we could not get any further. Was it because Plato was so extremely clever? [Wittgenstein1980, p. 15e]
  83. ↑ To all this is evidently related the 'treatment' of solipsism, which is conducted in passages 5.62 through 5.64 of the TLP. But, alas, a full exposition of how this material adds to the here provided picture of sin and pantheism deserves an essay of its own, and is therefore presently discarded.
  84. ↑ Again we point to TLP, statement 6.521.
  85. ↑ Wittgenstein1953, section 194
  86. ↑ Wittgenstein1953, p. 309.
  87. ↑ For example:
    It is all one to me whether or not the typical western scientist understands or appreciates my work, since he will not in any case understand the spirit in which I write. [Wittgenstein1980, p. 7e]
  88. ↑ There is of course a very little chance that the fly will, due to sheer luck, get out at some point. And so in the human case a life without philosophy might be attainable too, but this would still – and this is the important point to convey – be contrary to the human life-form, which – due to its being immersed into language, cannot clearly capture the nonlinguistic.
  89. ↑ This is precisely the description of the philosopher in Wittgenstein1953, section 123 (which was already quoted in section 4).
  90. ↑ The view on sin within the philosophy of Wittgenstein has therefore some resemblance to the christian notion of original sin. A full treatment of this most interesting linkage shall not be elaborated upon at the present.
  91. ↑ Wittgenstein1953, section 119, italics added.
  92. ↑ Wittgenstein1980, p. 86e-87e.
  93. ↑ Wittgenstein1953, section 133. This section relates back to the above discussion (in section 5.2), in that here again it is made clear that the ultimate cure would consist of the total dissolution of philosophy, and since this point cannot be reached at by solving the problems in a discursive way, the whole enterprise has to be looked at as completely and utterly senseless.
  94. ↑ Wittgenstein1984, p. 69.
  95. ↑ Russell1959, p. 160f.

Publication history

This article was written between the 4th and the 9th of July 2008, for a course on Wittgenstein's ethics, taught by Prof. Dr. M. Stokhof. It has been somewhat altered since.

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