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Objects as Universals: A Re-appraisal of the Tractatus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 June 2010
Extract
The so-called objects in Wittgenstein's Tractates are particulars: Irving Copi first argued this thesis in his paper “Objects, Properties and Relations in the Tractates.” His argument took the form of an exclusion. There are only three metaphysical possibilities for these objects: They must be either particulars, properties or relations. The last two can be ruled out on the basis of evidence internal to the Tractates; therefore only the first alternative remains. Consequently, the objects of the Tractates must be particulars.
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- Information
- Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , March 1973 , pp. 64 - 77
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- Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1973
References
1 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, translated by Pears, D. F. and McGuinness, B. F.. (London, 1961)Google Scholar; all references to the Tractatus are to this edition. I have amended the translation where the German required it.
2 Mind, N.S., vol. 67, 1958, pp. 145–65Google Scholar; reprinted in Essays on Wittgenstein's ‘Tractatus’, Copi, and Beard, , edits. (New York, 1966) pp. 167–86Google Scholar. All references in this paper are to this edition.
3 Cf. G. E. M. Anscombe, “Mr. Copi on Objects, Properties, and Relations in the Tractatus”, ibid., p. 187; J. J. Thomson, “Professor Stenius on the Tractatus”, ibid., pp. 217–230; D. Keyt, “Wittgenstein's Notion of an Object”, ibid., pp. 289–304; W. Sellars, “Naming and Saying”, ibid., pp. 249–270—to name but a few recent commentators who appear to agree with the substance of Copi's contention.
4 Cf. ibid., p. 184.
5 Loc. cit.; cf. Tractatus 2.0231.
6 Hereafter referred to as PH.
7 Cf. Notebooks 1914–1916, edits. von Wright, G. H. and Anscombe, G. E. M. (New York, 1961)Google Scholar 23.4.15, where Wittgenstein says that “It is clear that signs fulfilling the same purpose are logically identical.”
8 “To the configuration of simple signs (i.e., of names; cf. 3.202) there corresponds the configuration of objects in a situation” (3.21) or state of affairs. (Cf. 4.023; 4.466; 4.031–4.0312; see also Notebooks, 17.10.14).
9 In this connection, let me indicate one more thing. If it is thought that the preceding result could be avoided by postulating purely numerically diverse elementary sentences, this would not work: It would run afoul of the identity criterion for names indicated above.
10 Notebooks, p. 98. I have split the ‘cannot’ which occurs in the Wright-Anscombe translation.
11 On the equation of these two locutions, see 2.01.
12 Loc. cit.
13 The precise details of such a configuration will, of course, be a matter of the forms of the objects in question.
14 After all, Copi's thesis is metaphysical in nature.
15 This would hold true even if we had to go to configurations inclusive of all the objects there are; for the sentences representing their configurations would still, by definition, be elementary sentences. This would complicate the above argument, nothing more. Cf. A. Müller, Ontologie in Wittgensteins ‘Tractates’ (Bonn, 1967) p. an, which seems to suggest something like the preceding.
16 In the sense defined above.
17 Cf. 4.243 and 6.2322, etc. for similar statements.
18 Cf. part I, about the notion of a name as used in the Tractates.
19 The preceding involves the assumption that Wittgenstein was not quite consistent in his terminology vis-à-vis the lacking sense—nonsense distinction. This assumption is not gratuitous: Wittgenstein himself admits to a similar inconsistency with respect to the term ‘object’. Cf. 4.123. Furthermore, only if we make this assumption can we save him from the contradiction pointed out above.
20 Cf. 3.211 and 3.144, etc.
21 A Companion to Wittgenstein's Tractatus (Ithaca, 1964) p. 64. Black would probably not approve of the use to which I put his suggestion.