Proposal: On the Ontological Status of the Tractarian Picture

2024-1 Wittgenstein

 

„Die Tatsachen begreifen wir in Bildern.“

-Ludwig Wittgenstein, Protractatus 2.1

 

Throughout the history of philosophy, the problem of representation has always been central to metaphysics, epistemology, and skepticism. For instance, we find the incipient stage of representationalism in Plato, who suggested a metaphysical dualism where our phenomenological world imperfectly imitates the real world, i.e., the world of ideas. For Hume, the discrepancy between our inner representation and the external world lies at the root of skeptical arguments concerning knowledge of the latter. Kant, on the other hand, argued that the form of representation ensures the possibility of synthetic a priori propositions and simultaneously circumscribes the realm of human reason. To summarize, the philosophy of representation characterized the distinction between the recognizing subject and the recognized object, as well as the related conception of truth, which is defined as the correspondence between the recognized object and the actual one. Since the list of pivotal figures who take representation as their basic concept is so extensive, it is unsurprising that contemporary philosophers in both continental and analytic traditions such as Foucault, Deleuze, Rorty, and Brandom have considered it as their main target for criticism.

It seems entirely reasonable to claim that the early Wittgenstein, despite his pioneering thoughts, should enter the list of classical representationalists; for the central thesis of the Tractatus was that there is a harmony between representation and what is represented (Hacker 2000: 353). His famous picture theory of meaning is often considered “an application of a perfectly general explanation of any kind of representation. Any picture, model, or representation represents what it represents in virtue of being isomorphic with it” (Hacker 1986: 58). In this regard, the Tractarian accounts of representation seem quite straightforward and traditional, as follows: ^[각주:1] ① we picture facts to ourselves (2.1). ② pictures encompass propositions (4.01, 4.021), mental representation (3.5, 4), and pictures in an ordinary sense (4.016, see also NB: 7). ③ we use a picture to represent its subject, i.e., a fact that can be correctly or incorrectly represented (2.173). ④ what a picture represents, i.e., the product of picturing, is its sense. A proposition can have or express sense (3.142, 3.3); the sense of proposition is a situation (eine Sachlage), constructed by way of experiment (4.031). We then make a clear distinction between ③ a fact as a subject of picture and ④ a sense as what picture represents. Figuratively speaking, this relationship is akin to that between a landscape and its depiction in a painting. The painting (or picture) ‘depicts (abbilden)’ the landscape (the fact) and ‘represents (darstellen)’ the painted scenery (the sense). ⑤ “The agreement or disagreement of its sense with reality constitutes its truth or falsity” (2.222). And finally, for any representation, both a picture and reality must share the logico-pictorial form—a thesis often characterized as isomorphism (2.17).

However, the salient issue with this interpretation is the lack of a plausible reason to accept the dubious metaphysical assumption—that there must be isomorphism between language and reality. To address this issue, I will appeal to another thesis that articulates the identity of a picture and a fact. As Does and Stokhof put it, “in the Tractatus itself there is evidence that the interaction between language and reality is more subtle than” (Does and Stokhof 2020: 780) one-to-one correspondence.

2.141 A picture is a fact.

3.14 A propositional sign is a fact.

Both 2.141 and 3.14 challenge the previous accounts of the picture theory by dissolving the distinction between ② and ③. Plus,

2.16 If a fact is to be a picture, it must have something in common with what it depicts.

3.142 Only facts can express a sense, a set of names not.

3.3 Only propositions have sense; only in the nexus of a proposition does a name have meaning.

2.16 says that a fact (like the landscape example) is not just a subject of observation. Instead, it suggests that a fact can be a picture, which is quite different from traditional representationalism. By relating facts to propositions, 3.142 and 3.3 once again strongly allude to the identity of facts and propositions.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an alternative interpretation of the picture theory by analyzing those remarks and interpretating 2.141 and 3.14 as they stand. By doing so, the distinctive feature of Wittgenstein’s representationalism will be presented with a more plausible understanding of isomorphism.

 

References

Does, Jaap van der, Stokhof, M. (2020) “Tractatus, Application and Use,” Open Philosophy 3, 770-797.

Hacker, P. M. S. (2000), “Was He Trying to Whistle It?” in: A. Crary and R. Read, eds., The New Wittgenstein, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 353-389.

Hacker, P. M. S. (2021), Insight and Illusion. Themes in the Philosophy of Wittgenstein, 3 rd Ed. London and New York: Anthem Press.

Wittgenstein, L. (TLP), Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, translated by D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness, London: Routledge, 1961; Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, in: Werkausgabe Bd. 1, 23. Aufl. hrsausgegeben von J. Schulte, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2019.

 

1. Of course, the Tractarian representationalism has it distinctive feature in its doctrine of showing, i.e., a claim that the harmony between representation and what is represented (or thought and reality) cannot be said but only shown. However, this paper delves into another distinctive feature of the Tractarian representationalism by analyzing the identity thesis of a picture and a fact. [본문으로]