Wittgenstein and the Said/Shown Distinction

Wittgenstein and the Said/Shown Distinction:

Moving Towards a More Comprehensive Reading of the Tractatus

A debate has manifested in regards to the metaphysical flavour of the Tractatus. John W. Cook reads Wittgenstein as a metaphysician in the Schopenhauerian tradition; Wittgenstein as a traditional metaphysican hoping to expound a ‘neutral monist’ conception of the world. Cora Diamond on the other hand argues that if one does not see Wittgenstein as throwing away the ladder, and ‘philosophical doctrines and theses’ along with it, then there is “almost nothing in Wittgenstein which is of value”. (Diamond 5) In this essay, I will argue that both readings of the Wittgenstein are misguided; Cook fails to capture the weight of the said/shown distinction that guides the spirit of the Tractatus, and furthermore, Diamond fumbles the distinction; she ironically provides a reading of the Tractatus that ignores Wittgenstein’s conviction that philosophy does not possess its own set of doctrines and thereby fails to let the text breathe; her notion of one salvageable truth to be drawn from the text does not allow for a comprehensive interpretation of the text. I will argue for a many-sided interpretation of the Tractatus; a fruitful  Tractatus that, in attempting to uncover what makes language possible, addresses the limits of axiological and metaphysical discourse.

Cook’s Wittgenstein

In Wittgenstein’s Metaphysics, Cook argues that Wittgenstein has a ‘chosen ontology’. (Cook 8) Neutral monism, which contains the view that the Cartesian distinction between res cogitan and res extensa (mind and matter) is unfounded, is to be viewed as an ontology ‘designed specifically to solve epistemological problems’. (8) How this view provides a substantive reply to the sceptic will be dealt later, but for now I will expand on Cook’s historical argument for why this is the best interpretation of the tractatus. Cook provides a historical account of the relationship between neutral monism and the Tractatus, and draws from this the idea that Wittgenstein orchestrated the Tractatus as a ‘iron-clad case against skepticism’. (8) Cook argues that Neutral Monism was ‘a widely shared view’ in Cambridge before Wittgenstein arrived there in 1911, and that “by 1916 [Wittgenstein] had made up his mind that neutral monism provi[ded] the way out of philosophical difficulties”. (14) Cook is so confident about this claim that he argues any attempt to grasp Wittgenstein that does not include this ‘single most important fact’ is ‘bound to misunderstand him completely’. (14) In terms of textual evidence from the Tractatus, Cook provides Wittgenstein’s use of the term ‘pure realism’ in 5.64 as an instance of monistic proselytisation. Cook argues that this claim is an ‘explicit affirmation of neutral monism’ insofar as Wittgenstein uses the phrase ‘pure realism’ to refer to neutral monism in his journals. (15)       

What is it that makes neutral monism a suitable refuge from scepticism? Insofar as neutral monism rejects the dualist ‘ghost in the machine’ hypothesis by throwing out notions of matter and mind, Cook argues that Wittgenstein, in adopting this ontology, hopes to show there is no principled reason to doubt one’s sense experience; once one accepts that ‘to talk about the relation of [physical] object and sense-datum is nonsense’, one finds, Cook claims, the remedy to epistemological problems; the ‘insistence that there is no self (or ego)’ and therefore that ‘there is this no need for that dualist’s distinction between the mental and the physical’ is said to alleviate pure realism from the skeptic’s dilemma. (15) Once one recognises there is no distinction between ‘the inner and the outer’, there could ‘no longer be a question about what existed ‘outside’ or beyond this alleged I”. (17) More explicitly: “if there is no self, there is nothing beyond it” to be skeptical about. (17)

Neutral monism is of course not an entirely negative doctrine; it attempts to provide a substantive alternative to dualism by virtue of the notion of substance. By Cook’s account, one is to read Wittgenstein as arguing that ‘colours, odors, sounds, and the like comprise the “substance of the world”. (41) Claims that provide an agglomeration of substance with an appellation are part of the ‘conceptual world; moving from substances to complex objects like chairs and tables is not metaphysical; it merely reorganizes the world’s ‘basic stuff’. (41) Not only does neutral monism, Cook claims, provide Wittgenstein with an ontology suited to solve skeptical problems, but it also entail a ‘reductionist’ methodology. (9) This reductionist methodology, which Cook claims underlies the Tractatus as well as the Investigations, is not only a response to skeptic, but also a positive response to Wittgenstein’s contemporaries; Wittgenstein wanted to argue that ‘Moore and Russell were both wrong about ordinary language’. (9) Cook argues that, for Wittgenstein, if a problem cannot be formulated ‘into phenomenological language’ it is ‘obvious nonsense’; this marks the cornerstone of Wittgensteinian reductionism a la Cook.

Diamond’s Wittgenstein

Must the Tractatus, as Cook argues, be read like a traditional metaphysical treatise? More to the point: is the Tractatus, with Wittgenstein as its metaphysical captain par excellence, only an attempt to ground a metaphysical theory in argumentation as a response to the scepticism of his time? This is, I would argue, at conflict with the spirit of the text; Diamond is right and saying that this is mistaken insofar as Wittgenstein was quite critical himself of creating metaphysical doctrines. In this section, I will provide a brief sketch of Diamond’s thoughts on the distinction Wittgenstein makes between ‘what can be said and what can only be shown’. (Diamond 5)

Diamond’s view centers around the aforementioned distinction and what one, as an interpreter of Wittgenstein, should resort to when faced with it. More specifically, when faced with proposition 6.54 of the Tractatus, how does one interpret Wittgenstein’s claim that all the propositions hitherto mentioned in the text are ‘nonsensical’? (7) One of the avenues of interpretation Diamond provides is one in which we, as readers, “keep the idea that there is something or other in reality that we gesture at, however badly, when we speak of the ‘the logical form of reality’, so that it, what we were gesturing at, is there but cannot be expressed in words”. (7) In other words, are we to read Wittgenstein as salvaging the ontological status of the ineffable? Diamond balks at this avenue; this is nothing but ‘chickening out’. (7) Wittgenstein’s view, Diamond argues, is that in throwing away the ladder one “throw(s) away in the end the attempt to take seriously the language of ‘features of reality’”. (7) “His view”, Diamond argues, is that “that way of talking may be useful or even for a time essential, but it is in the end to be let go of and honestly taken to be real nonsense”. (7) This is a strong claim on its own right, but is made even stronger when Diamond claims that if the Tractatus does in fact ‘chicken out’, if it for example does wish to “put(sic.) forward philosophical doctrines or theses at all”, then there is “almost nothing in Wittgenstein which is of value and which can be grasped”. (5)        

While I do think, and will argue in the following section, that this is an appropriate response to Cook insofar as it makes it clear that WIttgenstein was not in the traditional metaphysical business, I would argue Diamond goes too far in stating this ‘all or nothing’ philosophical reading of the text. I will argue that this view mistakenly sees the text solely from a philosophically interested perspective; would it be all too shocking to read this text as more complicated than an attempt at philosophical asceticism? Would Wittgenstein really want someone to draw the conclusion that there is nothing of value to draw from the text if one does not accept the view that Wittgenstein is not ‘chickening out’? I will argue that the Tractatus is a far-reaching text that attempts the nature of language, and thereby speaks of the limits of axiological and metaphysical discourse, but in a way that retains them; Diamond’s notion that a reader of the Tractatus is supposed to conclude that there is one ore of truth to be found goes against the grain of the text; it is fact not ‘his view’ that throwing away the ladder means ditching these discourses, and in fact, ignoring the complexity of the Tractatus as Diamond does is its own type of chickening out.

The Tractatus as a Riddle

My approach to the Tractatus, one which I should never want to declare as the end all be all of interpretations as a matter of principle- but which I might say provides the Tractatus with its optimal climate; the environment necessary to allow it flourish in full form- is two-pronged; one must first see the text itself as curious riddle, while also reading it as a substantive answer to the question of ‘what makes language possible’. While the Tractatus is to be seen as addressing the question of what makes language possible, it should be a crucial to interpret the text as providing the reader with tools of interpretation; in outlining the form and the limits of discourse, namely the meaningful and meaningless, Wittgenstein makes the text self-referential by laying the limits of the claims he makes himself. In this section, I will outline just how this two-pronged interpretation is supposed to get off the ground; I will defend the view that the Tractatus is a riddle, and secondly that its primary focus is the question of ‘what makes language possible?’.

Wittgenstein himself is wary of what I’d call the ‘philosophical vacuum’; this text isn’t supposed to be esoteric and only sensible within Diamond’s narrow perspective; as Wittgenstein says himself: “(p)erhaps this book will be understood only by someone who has himself already had the thoughts expressed within it”.(Wittgenstein 3) In saying this, Wittgenstein, I would argue, is attempting to strip away the notion of philosophical ingenuity, or at least the notion of philosophers as the sole arbiters of insight. Insofar as Wittgenstein considers philosophy to be aimed  at “logical clarification of thought”, he might argue that a philosopher’s place is as an expert in logic. (4.112) However, as far as insight is concerned, I think its fair to argue that he viewed insight as outside the scope of what he perceived philosophy is concerned with; insight is an aspect of the human condition that shouldn’t be thrown away. Not only is insight beyond the scope of philosophy, but it is also beyond the limits of language; insofar as language can only be meaningful if it remains reducible to ‘propositions of the natural sciences’, and philosophy’s job is to “demonstrate (...) (that one has) failed to give meaning to certain signs in (their) proposition”. (6.53)  In terms of ‘insight’ I mean the sense of intuition of the ‘higher’ Wittgenstein speaks of in sections 6.4-6.54, and acts in accordance with in proposition 7.  

Why would Wittgenstein be so committed to the so-called not chickening out route and devote an entire section to the ineffable? In above-mentioned sections Wittgenstein signals towards what his text demonstrates is meaningless; such ineffables as ethics, God, and more generally the intuition of transcendence. Not only do propositions 6.4-6.54 signal towards what surely must have been thrown away by Diamond, but proposition 7 is a) a proposition that the Tractatus would itself find meaningless, and b) scaffolded in the ethos of someone who would have sadly chickened out by Diamond’s standards. What kind of claim is proposition 7? Is it a claim of the natural sciences? Clearly not, insofar as philosophers have definitely not remained silent with respect to the ineffable. For one, Wittgenstein is clearly making a normative claim; claiming what one must do is inherently normative and certainly goes farther than a meaningful proposition could hope to go. At the same time however, Wittgenstein is saying something he knows has some meaning if considered as an insight; he is engaging in affirmative post-casting away the ladder speak as an effort to salvage not only the discourse of what cannot be said, but extension his own text. I would argue that this proposition is itself a critique of the text once it has been laid out on the table; human beings must go beyond the limits of language, as Wittgenstein does with the Tractatus, to decide how language is possible, and to furthermore to talk about the significance of what is shown and what cannot be said once language is properly understood.

Wittgenstein’s notion of ‘meaning’ is ironical insofar as what he would call meaningless within the scope of language is in fact of utmost importance to people. This leads, I would argue, to seeing the text almost as a riddle, or at least as a text having layers of interpretation; one of them being the way in which it defines discourse while partaking in it. This is somewhat like Plato’s seemingly contradictory use of the power of poetry to communicate his insights, while at the same time arguing poetry has no place in Kallipolis. What should be read as a riddle? Proposition 7 must be a riddle by virtue of it being an inherent contradiction; Wittgenstein is seemingly telling his reader that they must cast away the ladder and remain silent while clearly not remaining silent himself. Wittgenstein, I would argue, is critiquing the idea that one should not speak of what can only be shown and not said by the text’s own standards. My arguments to support this claim are a) it seems like a sound critique of the limits of philosophy as Wittgenstein has set it up, and b) it seems to allow for the text to breathe; while Cook and  Diamond’s interpretations makes the Tractatus a more or less a ‘one-trick pony’, this interpretation is much more fruitful insofar as it saves the text from itself. The final section of the paper will elaborate on claim a and b.    

The Tractatus as Showing and Not Saying

By the Tractatus’ standards, what in the Tractatus is said and not shown? Just about everything is not a claim of science; the Tractatus goes beyond; it talks about what is higher. But the Tractatus must go beyond, and I would argue Wittgenstein is aware of this. For one, if philosophy is inherently normative as 6.53 seems to suggest, then perhaps Wittgenstein is assuming one can draw a lesson from this; insofar as philosophy is inherently normative, could Wittgenstein not be signalling towards philosophy’s inherent limitation and by extension what this limitation suggests? Wittgenstein is arguing on the one hand that philosophy as logical clarification is nonsense insofar as clarification itself goes beyond the limits of language, but also that one cannot derive an ought from an is; philosophy is grounded in what is shown and should not hope for a future lacking semantic ambiguity. If one considers what can be said as a claim reducible to a seeming ‘pictures of fact’, and that philosophy makes claims that are not reducible to particular such pictures, then one is signalling towards the relevance of insight or value in philosophy; something that speaks to to the positivist dictum of “if you can’t see it or explain it, don’t talk about it”. Wittgenstein is hoping to reveal the inherent absurdity of such a position in a way that would surely pass under the radar of readers who rely solely on what Wittgenstein says and do not attempt to uncover what he shows with the text.

The notion of the relevance of value or insight is expressed not only in Wittgenstein’s normative claims, but also in the form of the early sections of the Tractatus. This can be best understood in respect to the work’s goal of providing an account of what presupposes language; while it cannot be said that “the world is all that is the case”; “the world divides into facts”; and that “we picture facts to ourselves”; these statements are seemingly necessary in establishing what language is about or can reasonably do; in discovering its embodiment in what shows itself as the world, language must extend beyond itself even if doing so is beyond its scope. This is encapsulates my critique of Cook; Cook fails to see the notion of what can only be shown in the Tractatus and sees Wittgenstein as positing what Wittgenstein would himself would claim is strictly un-positable. Cook on the other hand falls for Wittgenstein’s trap; Diamond fails to grasp the full breadth of the work and assumes Wittgenstein is honestly telling the reader to let the ladder go. The Tractatus is an experiment in which Wittgenstein lets the ladder go and sees what happens, and then realises he is still on it; there is no chickening out to be done.      

I would argue that this interpretation, in contrast to the perspective Diamond provides as well as that of Cook’s, gives the Tractatus room to develop as I would argue Wittgenstein intended it to. In answering the question what makes language possible, one must attempt to extend beyond the limits of meaningful discourse. I would argue to be this concession that grounds the spirit of the text. Wittgenstein’s notion of the importance of the ineffable must be taken seriously insofar as Wittgenstein himself continuously makes claims that would fall under the text’s idea of showing and not saying. Wittgenstein understands the legitimacy of an ineffably grounded axiology and metaphysics. It would be right to claim that Wittgenstein leaves room for understanding and not simply ‘explication’, and this insight is what shapes the text.

Word count: 2987

Work cited:

Cook, John W.. Wittgenstein's metaphysics. Cambridge [England: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Print.

Diamond, Cora. "Throwing Away the Ladder." Philosophy 63.243 (1988): 5-27. Print.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig, David Pears, and Brian McGuinness. Tractatus logico-philosophicus. London: Routledge, 2001. Print.