Book contents
- Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
- Cambridge Critical Guides
- Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Wittgenstein’s Impatient Reply to Russell
- Chapter 2 Modality in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus
- Chapter 3 Clarification and Analysis in the Tractatus
- Chapter 4 The Fish Tale: The Unity of Language and the World in Light of TLP 4.014
- Chapter 5 That Which ‘Is True’ Must Already Contain the Verb: Wittgenstein’s Rejection of Frege’s Separation of Judgment from Content
- Chapter 6 Solipsism and the Self
- Chapter 7 The Tractatus and the First Person
- Chapter 8 Arithmetic in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
- Chapter 9 ‘Normal Connections’ and the Law of Causality
- Chapter 10 The Ethical Dimension of the Tractatus
- Chapter 11 “Obviously Wrong”: The Tractatus on Will and World
- References
- Index
- Cambridge Critical Guides
Chapter 9 - ‘Normal Connections’ and the Law of Causality
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 March 2024
- Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
- Cambridge Critical Guides
- Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Wittgenstein’s Impatient Reply to Russell
- Chapter 2 Modality in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus
- Chapter 3 Clarification and Analysis in the Tractatus
- Chapter 4 The Fish Tale: The Unity of Language and the World in Light of TLP 4.014
- Chapter 5 That Which ‘Is True’ Must Already Contain the Verb: Wittgenstein’s Rejection of Frege’s Separation of Judgment from Content
- Chapter 6 Solipsism and the Self
- Chapter 7 The Tractatus and the First Person
- Chapter 8 Arithmetic in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
- Chapter 9 ‘Normal Connections’ and the Law of Causality
- Chapter 10 The Ethical Dimension of the Tractatus
- Chapter 11 “Obviously Wrong”: The Tractatus on Will and World
- References
- Index
- Cambridge Critical Guides
Summary
In this chapter, I interpret section 6.361 of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus – containing Wittgenstein’s second reference to Heinrich Hertz in the book – in the context of the nearby framing remarks concerning the ‘law of causality’. Attention to the relevant details of Hertz’s work sheds light on a number of Wittgenstein’s remarks about mechanics in the 6.3s and, in particular, explains Wittgenstein’s claim that ‘What can be described can happen too, and what the law of causality is meant to exclude cannot even be described’ (6.362). For Wittgenstein, to describe events in causal terms is to describe them via an appeal to temporal and spatial asymmetries. However, no alternative is available: a description that did not appeal to such asymmetries would not be a description of anything. According to the Tractatus, descriptions are recognized as causal when they are embedded in a unified theoretical framework, but causal powers, understood as relations of material necessity, do not exist.
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- Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-PhilosophicusA Critical Guide, pp. 166 - 186Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024