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Journal of the History of Ideas
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Ethics and the Literary in Wittgenstein's
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Ben Ware
[W]e cannot say: "It is a pity that Wittgenstein could not have
presented his ideas in something more nearly the accepted philo-
sophical style." That would not have been a presentation of his
philosophical views.
- Rush Rhees1
I.
Copyright by Journal of the History of Ideas, Volume 72, Number 4 (October 2011)
595
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JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS OCTOBER 2011
My work consists of two parts: the one presented here plus all that
I have not written. And it is precisely this second part that is the
important one. My book draws limits to the sphere of the ethical
from the inside as it were, and I am convinced that this is the
ONLY rigorous way of drawing those limits. In short, I believe
that where many others today are just gassings I have managed in
my book to put everything firmly into place by being silent about
it. And for that reason, unless I am very much mistaken, the book
will say a great deal that you yourself want to say.5
3 Letter: Ludwig Wittgenstein to Ludwig von Ficker, cited by G. H. von Wright, "Histori-
cal Introduction: The Origin of Wittgenstein's Tractatus ," in Ludwig Wittgenstein, Proto-
tractatus, eds. B. F. McGuinness, T. Nyberg, and G. H. von Wright, trans. D. F. Pears
and B. F. McGuinness (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971), 14, n. 2.
4 Ibid., 16.
5 Ibid.
596
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W are Wittgenstein's Tractatus
II.
In the letter in which he outlines the ethical point of the Tractatus , Witt-
genstein goes on to tell von Ficker to pay most attention to the book's
Preface and conclusion. As he writes: "you won't see [what] is said in the
book. For now, I would recommend you to read the preface and the conclu-
sion , because they contain the most direct expression of the point of the
book."6 Cora Diamond has referred to the Tractatus* s Preface and conclud-
ing sentences as the book's "frame."7 She argues that in these sections of
the work Wittgenstein informs us about its "aim [. . .] and the kind of
reading it requires."8 In the Preface, Wittgenstein says that "[t]he book
deals with the problems of philosophy and shows [. . .] that the method of
formulating these problems rests on the misunderstanding of the logic of
our language."9 He goes on to tell us that the book will draw a limit "not
to thinking, but to the expression of thoughts [. . .] in language"; and that
what lies beyond this limit will be " einfach Unsinn " - simply nonsense.10 In
the penultimate section of the Tractatus , Wittgenstein makes the following
provocative declaration:
6 Ibid.
7 Cora Diamond, "Ethics, Imagination and the Method of Wittgenstein's Tractatus ," in
The New Wittgenstein, eds. Alice Crary and Rupert Read (London: Routledge, 2000),
149, 151.
8 Ibid., 149.
9 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus , German text with an English
translation en regard by C. K. Ogden (London: Routledge, 2000), 27. All subsequent
references to propositions in this book will appear in parenthesis in the body of the text
using the propositional numbering system as it appears in the Tractatus. When referring
to the author's Preface, I will use TLP followed by a page number in the notes.
10 Ibid.
597
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JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS OCTOBER 2011
III.
How, then, does this understanding of the Tractatus impact upon an analy-
sis of the relation between the literary and the ethical dimensions of the
11 Added emphasis.
12 See Cora Diamond, "Ethics, Imagination and the Method of Wittgenstein's Tractatus ,"
in The New Wittgenstein , 150.
13 James Conant, "Throwing Away the Top of the Ladder," The Yale Review 79 (1991):
328-64: 344.
14 Ibid.
598
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W are Wittgenstein's Tracta tus
17 The standard reading of the Tractatus (also referred to, following Conant, as the "inef-
fability" reading) is commonly associated with the following authors and texts: G. E. M.
Anscombe, An Introduction to Wittgenstein's " Tractatus " (London: Hutchinson, 1963);
Erik Stenius, Wittgenstein's " Tractatus ": A Critical Exposition of its Main Lines of
Thought (Oxford: Blackwell, 1960); P. M. S. Hacker, Insight and Illusion: Themes in the
Philosophy of Wittgenstein (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1997); Robert J. Fogelin, Witt-
genstein , 2nd ed. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987); Merrill B. Hintikka and
Jaakko Hintikka, Investigating Wittgenstein (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986); David Pears, The
False Prison: A Study of the Development of Wittgenstein's Philosophy , vol. 1 (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1987).
18 The characterization of the "resolute" reading is introduced by Warren Goldfarb in his
paper "Metaphysics and Nonsense: On Cora Diamond's The Realistic Spirit ," where it is
attributed to an unpublished manuscript by Thomas Ricketts ("The Theory of Types
and the Limits of Sense"). See Warren Goldfarb, "Metaphysics and Nonsense: On Cora
Diamond's The Realistic Spirit ," The Journal of Philosophical Research 22 (1997):
57-73; 64. Throughout this paper, I will use the phrase "anti-metaphysical" in order to
characterize such readings.
19 See James Conant and Cora Diamond, "On Reading the Tractatus Resolutely: Reply
to Meredith Williams and Peter Sullivan," in Wittgenstein's Lasting Significance , eds.
Max Klbel and Bernhard Weiss (London: Routledge, 2004), 47; James Conant, "Mild
Mono-Wittgensteinianism," Wittgenstein and the Moral Life: Essays in Honor of Cora
Diamond (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2007), 116, n. 25.
20 See James Conant and Cora Diamond, "On Reading the Tractatus Resolutely," in Witt-
genstein's Lasting Significance , 47. See also James Conant, "What 'Ethics' in the Tracta-
tus is No," in Religion and Wittgenstein's Legacy , eds. D. Z. Phillips and Mario von der
Ruhr (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 46.
599
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JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS OCTOBER 2011
21 At 4.112, Wittgenstein states that "a philosophical work consists essentially of elucida-
tions"; and, at 6.54, that the book's propositions serve as elucidations by bringing who-
ever understands their author to recognize them as nonsense.
22 James Conant and Cora Diamond, "On Reading the Tractatus Resolutely," in Witt-
genstein's Lasting Significance , 46.
23 P. M. S. Hacker, Insight and Illusion , 18-19.
24 Ibid., 19.
Ibid., 18-26.
26 For an outline of the austere conception of nonsense, see Cora Diamond, "Ethics, Imag-
ination and the Method of Wittgenstein's Tractatus ," in The New Wittgenstein , 153,
165; James Conant, "The Method of the Tractatus ," in From Frege to Wittgenstein :
Perspectives on Early Analytic Philosophy , ed. E. H. Reck (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2002), 380-81.
27 See TLP, 5.473 and 5.4733. The austere conception of nonsense (articulated at TLP,
5.473-5.4733) follows from Wittgenstein's reformulation of Frege's context principle at
TLP , 3.3; see also, TLP , 3.314.
600
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Ware Wittgenstein's Tracta tus
IV.
601
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JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS OCTOBER 2011
cheap epigrammatic brevity. The second, correct, one opens up a quite dif-
ferent perspective. It says that style is the picture of the man."31 Here, as
Cavell points out, Wittgenstein re-connects with his own insight from the
Philosophical Investigations which states that "[t]he human body is the
best picture of the human soul."32 Linking these statements together, Cavell
argues: "Prompted by Wittgenstein's reading of style as picturing the very
man, I take his idea of the body's picturing to declare that his writing is (of)
his body, that it is on the line, that his hand is in the manner of his text."33
In the Tractatus , the emphasis which Wittgenstein places on expression
and style leads a number of early commentators to remark upon the literary
and aesthetic character of the work as a whole. Speaking about the presen-
tation of the text in his translator's note, C. K. Ogden writes:
The literary and aesthetic qualities of the Tractatus are also acknowledged
by Frege. On receipt of the Tractatus manuscript, Frege found himself baf-
fled by the nature of the work's content. Writing in a letter to Wittgenstein
on June 28, 1919, he thus comments: "I am entangled from the very begin-
ning in doubts about what you mean to say, and thus I make no progress."35
Frege's concern was not only with the philosophical details of the Tracta-
tus , but also with Wittgenstein's claim, made in the Preface, that the book
would only be understood if the reader had "already thought the thoughts
expressed in it"; and, consequently, that "[i]ts object would be attained if
it afforded pleasure to one who read it with understanding."36 Frege's
31 Ibid., 89.
32 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations , 3rd ed., trans. G. E. M. Anscombe
(Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), 152: hereafter PL
33 Stanley Cavell, "The Investigations ' Everyday Aesthetics of Itself," in The Cavell
Reader , ed. Stephen Mulhall (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 389.
34 TLP , 5; added emphasis.
35 Gottlob Frege to Ludwig Wittgenstein (June 28, 1919), Gottlob Frege, "Gottlob Frege:
Briefe an Ludwig Wittgenstein aus den Jahren 1914-1920," in Wittgenstein in Focus - im
Brennpunkt , eds. B. F. McGuinness and R. Haller (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1989). This
letter is translated and cited by Juliet Floyd, "The Uncaptive Eye: Solipsism in Witt-
genstein's Tractatus in Loneliness , 89.
36 TLP , 27.
602
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W are Wittgenstein's Tractatus
As Juliet Floyd has noted, Frege, in the above letter, proves himself to be
"an acute, though unsympathetic reader of the Tractatus"3* Whilst he is
insightful enough to note the artistic achievement of Wittgenstein's work,
he cannot help but read the book in accordance with his own clear-cut,
analytic distinction between science and aesthetics, philosophy and litera-
ture. It is, however, precisely this strict separation of the philosophical and
the literary which the Tractatus seeks to challenge.
V.
603
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JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS OCTOBER 2011
41 Ibid.
42 Eli Friedlander, Signs of Sense: Reading Wittgenstein's " Tractatus " (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 2001), 10.
43 This section draws upon material from my paper "Wittgenstein, Modernity and the
Critique of Modernism," Textual Practice (forthcoming).
44 On this connection, see also James Conant, "Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein and Non-
sense," in Pursuits of Reason: Essays in Honor of Stanley Cavell , eds. Ted Cohen, Paul
Guyer, and Hilary Putnam (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 1993), 195-224;
Conant, "Putting Two and Two Together: Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein and the Point of
View for Their Work as Authors," in Philosophy and the Grammar of Religious Belief ,
eds. Timothy Tessin and Mario von der Ruhr (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995), 248-331;
M. Jamie Ferreira, "The Point Outside the World: Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein on Non-
sense, Paradox and Religion," Religious Studies 30 (1994): 29-44.
45 Soren Kierkegaard, The Point of View for My Work as an Author , trans. Walter Lowrie
(London: Oxford University Press, 1939), 24-25.
46 See, especially, Soren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. David F.
Swenson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944).
604
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Ware Wittgenstein's Tractatus
means, i.e. by deceiving him, that it is possible to bring into truth one who
is in an illusion."47 In the Tractatus , in a likewise manner, confusion and
clarity, illusion and illumination are intimately connected. This relationship
is neatly summarized by Wittgenstein in a passage in his "Remarks on Fra-
zer's Golden Bough":
One must start out with error and convert it into truth. That is,
one must reveal the source of error, otherwise hearing the truth
won't do any good. The truth cannot force its way in when some-
thing else is occupying its place. To convince someone of the truth,
it is not enough to state it, but rather one must find the path from
error to truth.48
Describing the dramatic way in which the Tractatus attempts to lead the
reader from error to truth, Cora Diamond argues that Wittgenstein imag-
ines himself into the position of someone who speaks nonsense and, in
doing so, entices them to follow him.49 Having entered into the reader's
imagination, Wittgenstein's method is then to round on her, "shocking
[her]," as Juliet Floyd observes, "into a reassessment of the indefiniteness
of [her] own thinking."50 In this respect, Wittgenstein can be seen to act
like a mirror in which the reader sees her own confusions reflected back. As
he puts it in a section of his manuscripts from 1931: "I must be nothing
more than a mirror in which my reader sees [her] own thinking with all its
deformities and with this assistance can set it in order."51
Understood in this way, the literary significance of the Tractatus is
clearly brought out. The book does not simply operate intellectually, it also
strikes an emotional blow - presenting an elaborate picture of the reader's
own philosophical desires before eventually turning them in on themselves.
In this sense, Wittgenstein's aim is "not to expound but to sting."52 That is,
605
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JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS OCTOBER 2011
he does not try to prove to someone that they are speaking nonsense, but
rather attempts to enter into their nonsense in order to use nonsense against
itself. The importance of this strategy is highlighted again by Wittgenstein,
ten years after the publication of the Tractatus , in a revealing passage in the
"Big Typescript":
VI.
53 PO, 165.
54 CV, 24. The original reads: "Ich glaube meine Stellung zur Philosophie dadurch zusam-
mengefat zu haben, indem ich sagte: Philosophie drfte man eigentlich nur dichten." An
alternative translation of this remark appears in Culture and Value (1998 edition), 28.
55 PO, 165.
56 Ibid.
606
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W are Wittgenstein's Tracta tus
VII.
57 For a highly suggestive reading of the Tractatus as a kind of poem, see David Rozema,
" Tractatus Logico-Pbilosophicus : A 'Poem' by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Journal of the His-
tory of Ideas 63 (2002): 345-63.
58 The so-called "ethical propositions" can be found in TLP, 6.4-6.421.
59 Piergiorgio Donatelli, "The Problem of The Higher m Wittgenstein s Tractatus , in
Religion and Wittgenstein's Legacy , 11.
60 Ibid., 12.
607
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JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS OCTOBER 2011
61 Ibid., 24.
62 PO, 161. (A slightly different version of this quotation is cited in Donatelli.)
63 Piergiorgio Donatelli, "The Problem of 'The Higher' in Wittgenstein's Tractatus ," in
Religion and Wittgenstein's Legacy , 24.
64 CV, 16.
65 Ineffability readings of the Tractatus' s treatment of ethics can be found in James
Edwards, Ethics Without Philosophy: Wittgenstein and the Moral Life (Tampa: Univer-
sity Presses of Florida, 1982); P. M. S. Hacker, "Was He Trying to Whistle it?" in The
New Wittgenstein ; Allan Janik and Stephen Toulmin, Wittgenstein's Vienna (New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1973). The most famous example of a positivist (emotivist) reformula-
tion of the Tractatus' s ethical remarks is that given by Rudolf Carnap in his essay "The
Elimination of Metaphysics Through Logical Analysis of Language," in Logical Positiv-
ism , ed. A. J. Ayer (New York: The Free Press, 1959), 60-81.
608
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Ware Wittgenstein's Tracta tus
609
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JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS OCTOBER 2011
case, will be looking at and engaging with the picture of life which these
texts put forward; and it is through this process of engagement that the
reader brings about a transformation of her self-understanding.
VIII.
610
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Ware Wittgenstein's Tractatus
individuals who, like the author, have the intellect and stamina to climb up
and then to kick away the ladder. Second, by depicting the overcoming of
philosophical problems as an individual task - one that is bound up with
the activity of interpreting the book - the Tractatus overlooks the historical
and social situatedness of such problems, and thus risks intensifying the
very confusions which its authorial strategy aims to dissolve.
It is, I think, a telling comment upon the early work that, in his later
writings, Wittgenstein sought to move away from this individualistic and
asocial conception of how philosophical problems could and should be
solved. As he puts it in a revealing passage in the Remarks on the Founda-
tions of Mathematics : a change in our mode of (philosophical) thinking
must go hand in hand with a change in our (social) mode of life:
Whilst this paper has implicitly suggested a deep continuity between the
Tractatus and the later writings, it is this shift from the individual to the
social, reflected nowhere more clearly than at the level of style, which con-
stitutes perhaps the most important discontinuity between Wittgenstein's
early and later work.
611
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