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Introduction: the meaning of the title of Wittgenstein's book. Wittgenstein's own title for the TLP was Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung ("Logical-philosophical Treatise"). G.E. Moore suggested the Latin title (in the tradition, although not following the pattern, of the titles of Whitehead and Russell's Principia Mathematica and Moore's own Principia Ethica). And so by 'logical' what does Wittgenstein mean -- and by 'philosophical' (Surely it is important that the book is not titled simply Principia Logica), and by 'treatise' what does he mean?
Logical research means the investigation of all regularity. And outside logic all is accident.
Two English translations of Wittgenstein's German language text, the first by Ogden (1922), which Wittgenstein proof-read before it was published, the second by Pears and McGuinness (1971), published twenty years after Wittgenstein's death.
Logical. By the word 'logic' the TLP means 'the study of laws of nature', as in expressions such as "laws of thought" and "the law of contradiction". The "theory of logic" of that book presumes that there are laws of thought, and that philosophy can discover those laws, and that indeed Wittgenstein has discovered them. It is a work of metaphysics.
That earlier definition of 'logic' contrasts with 'logic' = 'the study of rules, conventions', which was Wittgenstein's later (1933-34) use of that word, when he came to view all metaphysical speculation, including his own earlier, as conceptual confusion rather than an investigation of reality.
Although Ogden's translation does not use the word 'law', yet its second sentence ("And outside logic all is accident", meaning that it is not as it is by necessity; cf. 6.37: "The only kind of necessity is logical necessity") suggests that word.
That Wittgenstein had "laws of thought" in mind is shown by this, that "the limits of language" -- which are "the limits of thought" as well (Letter to Russell, 19 August 1919) -- are set by laws of nature, because what else could set those limits? They cannot be conventional, set by man, and therefore subject to flux -- not if they belong to the Wesen der Welt [5.4711] (the "essence of the world").
In contrast to Aristotle, who classifies logic ("Analytics") as a mere tool of philosophy, Wittgenstein in the TLP makes logic the basis of philosophy -- "The limits of the world are also the limits of logic" [5.61], and logic is thus what the philosophical understanding of the limits of language and the world rests on (namely, the study of natural law, or, necessity) and is built with (namely, the laws themselves, or, what is necessary).
So much then for the TLP's use of the word 'logic' -- for 'logic' = 'natural law', and 'logic' = 'the study of natural laws'. As Wittgenstein later used the word, and as I will use that word in what follows, 'logic' = 'conventions', 'rules' (as in Wittgenstein's later jargon, 'rules of grammar' = 'logic') as well as their study.
But logic is the basis of philosophy -- if by 'logic' is meant 'the distinction between sense and nonsense' (which I have christened 'logic of language' in these pages); it is not only the tool of critical thinking, although it is that too.
Philosophical. What does Wittgenstein mean by the word 'philosophical' in his title? In "Notes on Logic" (1913) he wrote, "Philosophy consists of logic and metaphysics: logic is its basis" (Notebooks 1914-1916, 2nd ed., tr. Anscombe), and originally the work was to be about logic rather than about "the world" (metaphysics) -- it was to be a Tractatus Logicus only. But on 2 August 1916 Wittgenstein wrote in his notebooks, "My work has extended from the foundations of logic to the nature of the world."
And so I think the present book could have been titled "Logical-metaphysical Treatise", because the TLP is a work of full-blown metaphysics: its project is to distinguish apparent reality ("the logic of our language is misunderstood") from reality itself. This is very different from Wittgenstein's later project in philosophy -- "A philosopher says: Look at things this way!" (CV p. 61), not how things "really" are.
Treatise. The TLP is a thoroughgoing exposition of both the principles and the conclusions of its topic (namely, the relationship between logic (necessity) and the world (accident) and the consequent limits of language and thought). That meaning of 'treatise' is implied by the book's Preface: "... the truth of the thoughts communicated here seems to me unassailable and definitive. I am, therefore, of the opinion that the problems have in essentials been finally solved" (tr. Ogden).
Revision of the concept 'logic'. Wittgenstein uses the word 'nonsense' strangely in the TLP, for he defines -- not the way we normally use the word 'nonsense' -- but "what nonsense really is", which is the characteristic method of metaphysics, to seek "real definitions" of "abstractions". But does he also use the word 'logic' strangely?
The TLP's use of the word 'logic' is historically justifiable, because 'logic' = 'natural laws of thought' is the traditional use of that word (Kant's innate or natural categories of thought assumes it). It is Wittgenstein's later revision of the concept 'logic' that is non-traditional and strange.
Logical necessity. According to Wittgenstein's later view, logic is the study -- not of nature-imposed limits -- but of man-made rules (conventions), with this reservation: that they are more or less arbitrary rules. That is "the logic of our language", or, how it makes the distinction between sense and nonsense: Rules of "grammar" are the only "limits of language".
What is the source of logical necessity -- radical naturalism or radical conventionalism? The word 'radical' = 'thoroughgoing', and both views seem mistaken. Because that there is some vital relationship between general facts of nature and concept-formation (PI II, xii, p. 230) seems clear: language both is and is not a cage: it consists of conventions, some mere, but others apparently not (It does seem that some perception-conception and consequent rule-making is limited by man's nature).
Questions: Are our concepts more like the contours of a relief map (natural) or the lines on a political map (conventional)?
To write about Wittgenstein's earlier way of thinking, I have to use the tools of his later way of thinking, because I would be philosophically lost (PI § 123) without them. But why? because wouldn't I still have Socrates' method of asking for an account of what you know?
Related pages:Wittgenstein at Cassino, an interlinear translation of selections from Franz Parak's Wittgenstein prigioniero a Cassino: Wittgenstein was held at the prisoner of war camp from November 1918 to August 1919; when he was taken prisoner he had in his knapsack the manuscript of his "Logical-philosophical Treatise", which was later published as the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. | If "everything speaks in its favor, nothing against it" (OC § 4), must the proposition be true? What did Wittgenstein mean by the word 'know' in the TLP: Do we not know that the sun will rise tomorrow [6.36311]?
The limits of language according to the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus - "Language is not a cage"
If the propositions of natural science are the limit of language -- i.e. the only type of language that is not nonsense [TLP 4.06, 6.53], then any attempt to say what is not a proposition of natural science is a "thrust against the limits" -- i.e. it is nonsense. And indeed that is what the TLP claims to be -- a book of nonsense: "My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless" (ibid. 6.54, tr. Ogden).
To define the word 'senseless' or 'nonsensical' in such a way as to make (i.e. classify) most discourse as nonsense -- i.e. all discourse other than that of the form "Such and such is the case. This is how things stand" -- declaring that to be the logic of our language, is the strange project in philosophy of the TLP.
According to Wittgenstein at that time, even in an ordinary sense, a proposition -- and language, according to the TLP, consists essentially and exclusively of propositions (statements of fact) -- is essentially a picture of objects standing in relationships to one another [3.1431] ["the case" or "how things stand" is a constellation of simple (atomic) objects]. Wittgenstein's example for Parak: "If a book is on the table ..." states the relation between objects: the proposition is a picture of the relationship.
What language and the world have in common is a structure. We could picture that structure to be a Cartesian grid, a grid with addresses. A set of atomic objects and their addresses would be a "fact", a constellation of atomic objects, (in the TLP's jargon). And if we changed either the objects or their addresses, etc., that would be a different fact. The grid is what is constant; the grid is the structure that the world and language share (Language mirrors the world in this way -- that a proposition of language has (somehow) the same structure as a fact of the world: the proposition is a picture of a fact). That is the TLP's logic of language, I think.
But "essence belongs to grammar" (PI § 371) -- i.e. essence belongs to the frame, not to what is seen through the frame.
Every selection requires discretion -- i.e. choice -- and so at question is whether Wittgenstein's later account of our everyday concept 'linguistic meaning' is correct: whether his later account is too narrow to do the job it was chosen to do, as the TLP's account is too narrow an account of the logic of our language. The job it was chosen for is: to make the meaning (or absence of meaning [PI § 464]) of language in philosophical problems clear -- because philosophical problems should be where the selection "gets its light, that is to say its purpose" (ibid. § 109).
What was the purpose of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus? To separate the darkness ("the mystical") from the light ("what can be put into words"). It was to mark off the limits of propositions that are not "nonsense", as propositions about God, and ethical and aesthetic value are nonsense, because they are not propositions of natural science. The question was, as it was for the later Wittgenstein: what gives language (sounds, ink marks) its meaning? And the TLP's answer was: its being a picture of atomic facts. That was its "theory of meaning".
In our normal, everyday language, the expression 'what can be put into words' does not contrast with 'unsayable' -- it contrasts with 'undefined'. Of course our language does have expressions such as 'nameless longing', but they can be defined.
But by 'unsayable' in the Tractatus, Wittgenstein means any language other than the proposition type picturing-propositions -- i.e. "propositions" (strings of names) which are isomorphic pictures of "facts" (constellations of absolutely simple, atomic objects): This is the relation in which these objects stand to one another is the "general form of a proposition" [4.5] and the essence of language, although the form of our everyday language may hide this from us [4.002, 4.0031 (But was it Russell or Plato who invented "logical form"?)].
To break through the walls of this cage is "absolutely hopeless" (LE p. 12), and philosophers must give up trying to state propositions about aesthetics and ethics, God and the riddle of life, because such propositions do not belong to the language of natural science [4.06] and therefore they are nonsense. They try to put into words what cannot be put into words -- i.e. to say what is not "sayable" but "unsayable".
But Wittgenstein does not say that those "things" ("unknowns" really), or constellations of things, are perceived by the senses, nor does he ask whether they are. He thought at the time (as he told Malcolm) that this question is not for philosophy but for the science of experimental psychology to answer.
If "the world is all that is the case"  and "what is the case is the existence of atomic facts" , then the sense of the world must lie outside the world [6.41] -- indeed, the sense of everything must lie outside "the world". Because Wittgenstein's "atomic facts" -- if they are known to man as sense data -- do they have meaning (sense) in themselves -- or are they percepts without concepts? Are concepts, then, the sense of the things in "the world"?
How is the expression 'the world' normally used in philosophy? Responding to the TLP Frege wrote to Wittgenstein: "You see, from the very beginning [from the very first page] I find myself tangled in doubt as to what it is you want to say and can make no headway with it" (Letter of 28 June 1919, in Waugh (2008), p. 145, 301).
Wittgenstein wrote to Russell [R.37 dated 19 August 1919] "I also sent my M.S. to Frege. He wrote to me a week ago and I gather that he doesn't understand a word of it at all".
Although he told Frank Ramsey (20 September 1923) that it was the result of seven years of thought, Wittgenstein's Tractatus is a youthful work built on a non-existent natural sciences foundation. In the world-picture of the TLP, "the world" is for the natural sciences to investigate, because logic (philosophy) is not concerned with empirical questions, because what is subject to law is not accidental (random) [6.3], which is what empirical facts ("what happens to be the case") are.
A proposition (assertion of an atomic fact) is a concatenation [4.22] -- that is, a string (like boxcars on a railway track) -- of names of objects ["The essence of language is the putting together of names of objects" is the idea, an idea which Plato criticised in Sophist 261e-262a in which he says that a proposition consists of names and verbs, never just one or the other]. But Wittgenstein never says what these objects are. 'A book is on the table' is an empirical proposition and seems to be a "proposition of natural science", but 'book' in the TLP's jargon does not mean an instance of what everyone calls by the common name-of-object word 'book', not if the word 'book' names an atomic object -- and if it names an atomic fact, an atomic fact is only a relationship among atomic objects (which stand like stars in a constellation) -- and no one knows what atomic objects "look like".
An "atomic fact" -- from the point of view of perception -- is a relationship among absolutely simple sense-impressions. But what these sense data are, like what atomic objects are, is left for natural science to determine, as is what the absolutely simple sense datum correlated to any particular atomic object is. Because questions about perceptions of the world are empirical questions -- i.e. questions about "what is the case" [1.21, 6.37].
And that is the TLP's non-existent foundation: the atomic objects and absolutely simple sense data which it presumes but of which natural science knows nothing. Wittgenstein later thought that presumption absurd (Malcolm, Memoir (1984), p. 70).
Wittgenstein writes that someone who understands him "finally recognizes" the propositions of his book as "senseless" (6.54) -- i.e. that its language is nonsense. But does that mean that the TLP's author himself does "not understand the logic of our language"? Or is it because of his understanding it that he is able to use "senseless" language to show others what he understands, namely, what the logic of our language is?
Again, as countless times before: To call language that conveys meaning 'nonsense' or 'senseless' is utterly eccentric, if not itself nonsense. Because if language that conveys meaning is nonsense, then what is language that does not convey meaning?
In TLP 4.112: Wittgenstein sets out his view of what philosophy is, but the TLP does not seem to be an instance of that project in philosophy. The Tractatus seems to me disjointed at points like this. But maybe that is only because I don't know it well.
If "the world" consists of "things" (atomic objects) standing in relation to other "things", like stars in a constellation, then the world must be mapped, as with a Cartesian grid, if it is to be intelligible. And then the question becomes: Where is the origin of that grid? and the answer is found in this, that "the world is my world" [5.641] -- that is, I, "the metaphysical-I" [5.633], am positioned as the origin of the grid.
Or maybe "language is a cage"
If the eternal questions without answers can't be answered, why can't they be answered?
If a proposition, a combination of words, is vague in meaning, it is because we ourselves have chosen not to make rules that would make its meaning clear.
As to trying to know "what can't be known" -- Why "can't" it be known? If a proposition is unverifiable, it is because "we ourselves made it unverifiable" (Z § 259) -- by not setting grammatical criteria for how it is to be verified.
The limits of language are where we place them; there are no limits except those of the "grammar" we accept or can invent (i.e. describe the practice of following). Imagination is the only limit of concept-formation = logical possibility.
But, on the other hand, the remark that "different concepts would seem natural if some very general facts of nature were different" and "we can always invent fictitious language-games" (cf. ibid. II, xii, p. 230) appears to suggest that language is not a cage.
Accounting for concept-formation is not Wittgenstein's project in his later work in philosophy. Should it have been, as it was with Kant and Plato? What is the relation between our concepts and the natural world -- but how important is that relation to Wittgenstein's work of clarification of meaning in philosophy ( CV p. 19 [MS 154 15v: 1931], TLP 4.112)?
So that even if verification is not spoken of in the context of sense and nonsense, the presumption that it gives language sense is present in the background of the TLP's picture of how our language works -- i.e. of what the logic of our language is.
What is the meaning of the word 'nonsense' in Wittgenstein's book? Here is one possibility, and if it were correct, it would make Wittgenstein's meaning clearer. In the TLP, 'nonsense' means 'sense-less' -- i.e. 'independent of (not tethered to, but floating free of) the five senses'.
The "mystical" is non-sense. It "cannot be put into words" [6.522] that are not nonsense, because words with sense are names of atomic objects (or atomic facts) that are correlated to sense data. And any word that is not that type of name is nonsense.
By the word 'nonsense', then, the TLP would mean any linguistic sign [6.53] that is "mere sound without sense" -- with the words 'without sense' here given the meaning 'not dependent on the five senses'.
Philosophy's concern is above all for propositions, because it is only a proposition can be true or false, and philosophy seeks to know the truth (in logic, ethics, and metaphysics). The difficulty is that propositions are not all of a kind: "the kind of verification is the kind of language-game" (cf. PI II, xi, p. 224): there are in the grammar of our language many proposition-types, not only the natural science type.
"Because all words are names of perceptible objects, language can only talk about what can be perceived, and because ethics and God are not perceptible, language cannot talk about them." That does not seem terribly profound, even if it were true (much less if it weren't nonsense). That is, there may be insightful remarks in the TLP, but its picture of language is not one of them.
In other words, as part of "The riddle [that] doesn't exist" [6.5] but does, ethics, also remains. And it remains as part of philosophy, if philosophy is rational, which it is. For if ethics begins, as Socrates does, with the Delphic precept "Know thyself" and seeks to know the excellence (above all the "moral virtue") that is proper to man, it discovers what the good for man is, and thus how man should live his life (i.e. in accord with that good) -- then Wittgenstein's question in (non-philosophical) ethics (non-philosophical because it is not a thoroughgoing use of reason) about "absolute value" doesn't even arise.
On Wittgenstein's account, the subject of ethics is "absolute value", but as the above discussion of Socratic ethics shows, that need not be the case. The concept 'value' is not essential to ethics.
That metaphysical propositions are not verifiable -- i.e. are not propositions of natural science -- does not strip them of their use in our language (Malcolm, Memoir (1984), p. 55). An incomparable picture is nevertheless a picture.
All of which has the result that, contrary to Wittgenstein's view, Philosophy consists of logic, ethics, and metaphysics, and logic of language is its tool (and "a mind, too", which I doubt more and more that I have).
Music does not come in at the limit of scientific knowledge, as a sort of supplement. Nor is their relationship reversed. Music and science do not have a linear relationship (It is not a question of which comes before the other, as with Aristotle's meta-physics), nor have they a parallel relationship. In fact they are discontinuous: they have no relationship at all: "... will ever remain a closed book". But likewise scientific knowledge will ever remain a closed book to music.
"The limits of my world"
But if it cannot be said, then how is it that Wittgenstein is saying it? Because in the jargon the Tractatus, the word 'said' = 'put into the language of natural science', and 'Solipsism is correct' is not that proposition type. It is "nonsense" that apparently is not nonsense -- i.e. meaningless.
Well, but Wittgenstein says knowledge of "the world" is knowledge of "what is lower" [ibid. 6.432], meaning that it is not "the important part" to know. Indeed, the part that is important to know is the part that cannot be "said" -- i.e. the language of which is "nonsense".
What is the relation between "the mystical", "the world", and reality -- that is, among those concepts in the TLP?
Question: if the limits of language are the limits of the world, then does "the world" include God, ethics, aesthetics (music, the appreciation of art), love? and everything else which according to the TLP we cannot talk about, cannot put into words, but must pass over in silence?
Is all that -- are all those things not part of the world? Then 'world' apparently doesn't equal 'reality'. The limits of my language are not the limits of reality.
The TLP concerns itself only with the limits of language ("the logic of our language is misunderstood") -- i.e. with the island that is the "world" (Engelmann's metaphor), not with the vast ocean beyond it (but that ocean is just as real -- i.e. just as much part of reality; indeed, that ocean, "the mystical", is the important part of reality, in Wittgenstein's view) --, which is determined by language's relation to the world. What "cannot be put into words" = "what cannot be pictured" belongs neither to the world nor to my language (the essence of language being to picture: we make for ourselves picture-models of the facts [Engelmann, Memoir p. 100; TLP 2.1]).
How can I understand nonsense -- i.e. what gives "nonsense" language its meaning? and what is its meaning, because it does not consist of names of atomic objects or atomic facts? For it must be that I am able to understand it -- because the TLP is itself a book of "nonsense" -- and we can neither construct nor climb a ladder [ibid. 6.54] -- i.e. derive meaning from -- undefined combinations of words.
That there are different proposition types is an essential logic of language insight, but to call all proposition types except the natural-science type 'nonsense' is simply to rename the name-of-object versus name-of-abstract-objectdistinction, calling the latter "nonsense language" rather than "abstract language". And so the question becomes, What gives "nonsense" = "abstract language" its meaning? And now we have arrived at the first sentence of Wittgenstein's The Blue Book and at "Wittgenstein's logic of language".
"... it must be that I am able to understand it." But what is the word 'understand' to mean here? Because as we normally use the word 'nonsense', language that can be understood is not nonsense. Just the contrary.
Does Wittgenstein use the word 'world' ambiguously?
I find this incoherent. Aren't "the facts" the limits of the world -- for remember "The world is everything that is the case. The world is the totality of facts" (1.0, 1.1)? But man's attitude towards the facts does not change the facts, and so how can it change the limit of the facts -- namely "the world"? And "The world and life are one" [5.621] -- eh? what happened to "all music has meant in my life" -- as well as all that aesthetic and ethical value and God have "meant in my life"?
But if A shows itself, then isn't what A shows the meaning of A?
In the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, a "nonsense" combination of words such as 'ethical and aesthetic value' [6.42, 6.421], 'the higher' [6.432] or 'that the world exists' [6.44] must have meaning in some sense of the word 'meaning'. But it is meaning that cannot be "put into words" -- meaning that no one can "give an account" of to be put to the test in Socratic dialectic. But instead it is a meaning which mysteriously, unaccountably, shows itself (As if emphasizing the word 'shows' made anything clearer).
The "connection between grammar and sense and nonsense" (BB p. 65) in Wittgenstein's later logic of language (which might be characterized as prescriptive: "Look at language this way!", because there are many meanings of 'meaning') is essentially public: any grammatical "account" is public and therefore objective -- and thus explanations of meaning can be put to the test of Socratic dialectic. But the TLP simply ignores any question of verification, of How do you know? It makes no distinction between mysticism and self-mystification.
In contrast to the TLP's meaning of 'nonsense', Wittgenstein's later definition of the word 'nonsense' (PI § 500) corresponds to our normal use of that word when by 'nonsense' we mean 'an undefined word' or 'an undefined combination of words', which is Aristotle's "mere sound without sense" (like the "music" of a weather harp). There are as many meanings of the word 'meaningless' as there are of the word 'meaning' -- but not all are useful to the philosophical understanding.
Note that Wittgenstein's later meaning of 'nonsense' is utterly different from that word's meaning when by 'nonsense' we mean 'foolishness' or 'absurdity' and by 'senseless' we mean 'foolish' or 'absurd'. -- For instance, the "nonsense verse" of Lewis Carroll's Alice books (PI §§ 13, 282), however absurd that verse may be, is not what is meant by the word 'nonsense' in Wittgenstein's later account of the logic of our language (at least according to my account of it).
The relation between Wittgenstein's Tractatus and his later work can be described in Wittgenstein's own words: His early work in philosophy is an example of the metaphysical speculation of those philosophers who mistake conceptual investigations for investigations of reality (RPP i § 949). For the use of the word 'nonsense' in the TLP is nothing more than Wittgenstein's jargon: it is not, as he thought it was at the time, an insight into the essence of language and language's connection to "the world".
"All that music has meant in my life"
What is my understanding of Sraffa's (if my memory doesn't fail me about whose words these are, and it does, because they are Frank Ramsey's words and they do not appear to be apropos of Wittgenstein) criticism of the Tractatus, that "If you can't say it, you can't whistle it either" (Wittgenstein was a talented whistler)? Question: According to the TLP, is music nonsense (in that book's sense of the word 'nonsense')?
Of course there is a science of sound because sound does show itself "in the world". -- But it "is possible to be interested in a phenomenon in a variety of ways" (PI § 108), and what interests here is not the science, but the art of music as a manifestation of "what is higher". Is this aspect of music "nonsense" that can show what words cannot say? But in this case, we would not say: "But "nonsense" that can convey meaning is not after all what anyone calls 'nonsense' -- and if you can whistle a meaning, then you can also put that meaning into words." No, not in this case. And so it may be strange that Wittgenstein lists God and ethical and aesthetic value, but not music as an example in his book.
Natural science may know all about the physics and psychology of sound, but it knows nothing about music, about "all that music has meant in my life".
The question is how to decide which ideas were fundamental, whether Drury's belief that Wittgenstein's idea that (1) there are natural (not man-imposed) limits of language [4.115], and that (2) beyond those limits lies what cannot be put into words [(clearly) 4.116], but that (3) nonetheless shows itself: "it is the mystical" [6.522] -- was for Wittgenstein a fundamental idea or not.
"Religious language is not metaphorical"
'God is like a father.' That combination of words has the form of a simile -- but it does not have the use (meaning) of one -- because we cannot "drop the simile and simply to state the facts which stand behind it"?
But what is Wittgenstein asking be done? "No father gives his son a stone when he asks for bread" (Luke 11.11), and your Father in Heaven is like that.
But a statement that "simply states the facts" can be verified or falsified (That is what we mean by calling a proposition a 'statement of fact', that it can be put to the test? No, not in all cases; 'I have toothache' is an counter-example). -- But there is no test for Jesus' teaching: it is not a factual proposition -- and therefore it is not a simile, because all similes are statements of fact: "A is, or A is not, like B in such-and-such way"?
A simile can be put to the test; a religious proposition cannot? But Frederick Copleston says of the proposition 'God loves mankind' that it does exclude something -- and, indeed, mustn't it exclude something if it isn't to be nonsense ("Either A is, or A is not")? But what does it exclude -- that man comes to harm rather than benefit? But it does not exclude that, does it. But without some test "what at first appeared to be a simile now seems to be mere nonsense"?
In the religious context Schweitzer said that the proposition 'God is the father' is "a thought of God's" that man can no more understand that a goat can understand man's thoughts. But where is the difference between 'incomprehensible' and 'nonsense' here?
Although, is that the only possible test -- i.e. the only possible meaning of Jesus' saying, that man does not come to harm? Or isn't that the question: What is the meaning of Jesus' saying if it is -- as it apparently is -- not the obvious one?
Earlier I asked: "Without Jesus, what life would the picture of God as the father have? Without the force of Jesus' personality, it would be dismissed as a falsehood ..." But isn't that a function of which meaning we assign to Jesus' words?
Can you really say that, in religion unclarity is not a blunder?
How can we restate 'God is the father' in prose? Well we can't, can we. I say "a comparison, an analogy is made and that analogy defines the statement". But does the definition also state that the picture 'God is the father' is not to be compared with our experience of the world? But does that "is not to be" belong to grammar -- i.e. is a comparison proscribed (forbidden by the rules of the game)? Can we say that verification-falsification is logically impossible (i.e. not describable)?
No, we can't say that (It would not be true to say that). The prohibition is made by piety: "You mustn't put God to the test." Jesus' saying that God is the father is an act of faith ("words are deeds" (CV p. 46)). Trust God that it is so.
As, I think (this is its meaning), Wittgenstein wrote in his Notebooks 1914-1916, "To believe in God means to see that life has a meaning" (8 July 1916), or as, in any case, I once wrote: Faith in God is faith that life has a sense, and that it is a good not an evil sense: "You could also say that by the word 'God' I mean 'life's meaning', and of course I believe that meaning is good not terrible."
As to the proposition 'God forgives man's sins', there is no empirical measurement of this (The language of measurement is here undefined) -- but does that make the proposition an undefined combination of words? But why shouldn't the proposition be said not to be a simile? For how would it be restated in prose -- Isn't it already prose?
If 'God created the world' is neither a statement of fact nor a simile, then how shall its proposition type be defined? We cannot simply call it a life-guiding "picture", because of pictures that guide our life there may be many types (some either are or are akin to statements of fact). About religious pictures, it does seem that they are both like and not like similes -- i.e. that they are defined by making analogies, but are forbidden to be verified or falsified by projection (i.e. comparison of the picture to the world of experience).
What we have defined (given a descriptive account of) above is but one type of religious proposition -- not the essence of religious propositions.
The proposition 'God exists' can be empirically falsified by the existence of evil in our world -- if that is the criterion of verification we set for that proposition, treating it as if it were an empirical hypothesis.
The argument against the thesis may take this form: (1) God must, by definition, be all-good, and (2) because to be all-good is, by definition, to do and make what is good only, (3) whatever is created by God must also be good. (4) But from the ethical point of view, much of the Creation is cruelly evil. (5) Therefore, God does not exist, if by 'God' is meant 'the Creator of all that is', which is its normal meaning.
'I believe in God' seems to entail belief that God exists. But because the word 'exist' might mean countless things, that remark makes nothing clearer.
There is a distinction between the religious proposition 'I believe in God' and the non-religious proposition of the Natural Theology (i.e. questions about God without reference to revelation) of Metaphysics [-- whether with regard to "the God of the philosophers" or to Bonhoeffer's "God as a working-hypothesis" or Deus ex machina, which is akin to a pseudo-physics --] 'There is a God', where disproof of 'God exists' is logically possible -- i.e. both definable and allowed. Likewise proofs by empirical evidence are distinguished from proofs by divine theology (i.e. questions about God with reference to revelation).
But it would be the rare individual indeed who says 'I believe in God' without being aware of the existence of evil.
It is not grammatically forbidden -- i.e. it is not, according to some divine theologies, an impious deed -- to say 'I believe in God, but when I see so much suffering I am not without doubts'.
What is described may have nothing to do with what someone who says 'I believe in God' means by that profession. A straw-man -- i.e. what no believer means by 'belief in God' -- often stands in the way of understanding religious belief.
See the example stated above: 'I believe in God' = 'I have faith that life has a sense, that its sense is good rather than evil, although I don't know what its sense is'. That proposition is not put to any test, and indeed "The point is that if there were evidence, this would in fact destroy the whole business" (LC p. 56) -- i.e. there would be no concept 'religion' (and thus no religious propositions); there might be a concept 'superstition' (cf. 'magic') if it were a question of evidence, but not our concept 'religion'.
What is the grammar of religious propositions of the form 'I believe in ...'?
Is the definition of that proposition type connected to consequences for the way the believer lives his life -- i.e. is having a particular type of consequence defining of religious belief (I mean of our concept 'religious belief')?
Is that what we normally mean by saying that someone believes something, that he acts in a way that is different from how he would act if he did not believe?
Question: What is the "logical form", the "philosophical grammar', of the proposition 'I believe in God'?
The proposition 'I believe in God' is not a metaphor. Or is there a restatement in prose that would make that proposition's meaning clear?
The concept 'religious belief' -- i.e. the grammar of the expression 'religious belief' -- is interconnected with concepts such as 'piety' (See "definition by related concepts"). Focusing on a particular word or form of expression may be an obstacle to the understanding.
Bertrand Russell's concept 'philosophical grammar' = "logical form" makes a distinction between syntax and meaning, and rewrites forms of expression in a way that makes their obscured-by-an-inappropriate-syntax meaning clear. An example Wittgenstein gives is the declarative sentence 'It is God's will' rewritten as the command 'Do not grumble!'.
Now why am I so anxious to keep apart these ways of using "declarative sentences"? ... It is simply an attempt to see that every usage [Art = "kind", "type", "sort"] gets its due. Perhaps then a reaction against the overestimation of science. The use of the word "science" for "everything that can be said without nonsense" already betrays this over-estimation.
But of course the words "see that they get their due" & "overestimation" express my point of view.
Did Jesus not really intend to tell his hearers what the nature of God and the kingdom of God is, but only to issue commands to them?
But can't the command 'Do not grumble!' be rewritten as the proposition 'It is God's will'? That is, what the logical form of an expression is -- is shown by how it is used in the particular case. It's not as if philosophy could discover an expression's true logical form, the only use it is possible to make of it.
But on the other hand, other logical possibilities must be described, not merely vaguely alluded to. What is a possible use of 'It is God's will' as a declarative sentence? A proposition does not say "how things stand if it is true" -- The users of the proposition do: they must set criteria for how things must stand if the proposition is true. And so far no such criteria have been set. -- And therefore the declarative sentence is an undefined combination of words?
It seems, therefore, that the logical form of 'It is God's will' -- if logical form = use in the language -- is command rather than statement of fact (proposition, declarative sentence). Yet it may be hard to accept that grammatical account -- why? is it a "stupid prejudice" that stands in the way?
Does this discussion make the grammar of 'God is the father' clearer? Jesus does state how things must stand if that proposition is true ("No father when his son asks for bread ..."). But things don't stand that way, not as we normally judge things. And therefore is 'God is the father' a command (e.g.) rather than a statement of fact?
The Catholic Profession of Faith, the Apostles/Nicene Creed -- Have these the logical form 'command' rather than 'declarative sentence' (Can they be rewritten as commands)? Can all religious doctrine/dogma (the Trinity e.g.) be rewritten to its logical form 'command', if that is doctrine's logical form?
I ask Wittgenstein: Is the existence of the world connected with the ethical?
Wittgenstein: Men have felt a connection here and have expressed it in this way: God the Father created the world [Cf. TLP 6.44], while God the Son (or the Word proceeding from God) is the ethical. That men have first divided the Godhead and then united it, points to there being a connection here.
That is Schweitzer's contrast between God the Creator and God as an Ethical Personality.
Although the rest of creation is amoral, in man God has created morality, the morality, which in Christianity, is given its highest form by Jesus' ethics of love and his picture of a kingdom of God governed by love rather than power.
"God as creator of the world and of ethics" -- There are laws of nature as there are also laws of ethics -- and both are natural law; both are rational. That is Socratic Ethics (and it does not use the word 'law' equivocally here). Had the Greeks pictured God as creator, it would have been as the creator of rationality, of what is rational -- i.e. of law.
And so the Kantian, the non-rational, the God as Law-Giver of Wittgenstein's religious ethics, is not the only possible meaning for 'God created ethics'.
An ethics essay is an assignment that many students will receive during their higher education. What is ethics exactly? It’s the moral principles that keep our society intact. However, people tend to disagree with the various ethics and it can be a good topic to tackle when it comes to writing an argumentative or persuasive essay.
Professional ethics, personal ethics and general ethical guidelines are just a few of the places you can start your essay. Leave some time for research, since you’ll want some good, solid resources behind your arguments on ethical responsibility. As you do the research, make note of any sources you use. These should be reputable enough that you can trust the information coming from them.
The sources you use will also be listed at the end of your essay so readers can see where the information came from. You can create the bibliography as you go.
Before writing your introduction, make sure you have a decent topic. Many ethical issues are ripe for exploring as you create your paper, so look at what is available and make sure you include the thesis statement. This will give the reader a clear idea of what you are for or against. From there, you can work to prove this to the reader, through the use of reputable resources.
Create an outline that covers your main points. If you just start writing, you’re likely to end up with a mess, rather than a properly formatted essay. It takes some planning to work it all out ahead, but the actual essay will be much easier to write.
Start the paper off with a great introduction paragraph. This should state the problem that you will be addressing and include a thesis statement. The thesis is the main point that the entire paper will be based around.
Without ethics, anyone would feel free to do anything to everyone else. The importance of ethics should be included in your essay on ethics. The body of the paper will be at least three paragraphs long and every paragraph should relate back to the thesis statement. Begin with an outline of your essay, to ensure you have all the information laid out clearly and in logical order. Having an essay will help you write the actual essay on ethics faster, too.
As you write, be sure to work in valid reasons for your claims. While you may feel strongly about things, you will get better results if you can back your statements up with actual studies and scientific facts. Using expert quotes can also lend some weight to your arguments. Remember that most people have high ethical standards, but not everyone has the same ethics.
If you need a little extra help for your essay on ethics, consider using a template. You can also look at an ethics essay example to learn more about how others structure their essays and present their claims.
Once you have made your points clear, sum them all up in a final paragraph that will let your reader know your thinking once and for all. This conclusion should also include the thesis statement made in the first paragraph of the essay. Just make sure you rewrite it so that it will sound different.
Finally, check your ethics essay for any mistakes you may have made. Spelling and grammatical errors can destroy your paper, so it’s important to catch these. You should also try reading the paper aloud to see how it flows. If you find that it catches and is choppy, you need to rewrite the transitions between paragraphs to make sure it flows.

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