Wittgenstein's States of Affairs

[Wyman]

The Philosophy Now issue on Wittgenstein's Tractatus got me thinking about - you guessed it - Wittgenstein. In the Tractatus, he claims that the world consists of states of affairs - events - rather than objects. When a proposition correctly describes (pictures) a state of affairs, then it is true. Otherwise, it can be false or without sense.

Thus, Wittgenstein is laying the groundwork for a full description of the world in terms of mathematical logic (propositional calculus), since this consists of true and false propositions. (Aside: If Nietzsche teaches anything, it is to look at the psychological motivations underlying a philosopher's doctrines. Wittgenstein was a young logician, studying under Russell, when he wrote the Tractatus, and is trying to paint a comprehensive, consistent and coherent foundationlist picture of the world in terms of logic.)

However, step one in the Tractatus is asserting that the world is everything that is the case, and that everything that is the case means, that the world consists of atomic facts (states of affairs). Atomic facts are the units of observation, what the world consists of. Objects are only parts of atomic facts and cannot be known except as parts of atomic facts. Atomic facts consist of these objects in relation to each other. Language and thought connect to atomic facts by 'representing' them, where there is a one to one correspondence between 'elements' of language and the 'objects' of atomic facts. The key here, at the start of the Tractatus, is that only facts can be known, not objects.

In the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein says that his 'objects' in the Tractatus are the same as Plato's 'simples' or 'elements' in the Theaetetus. In the Theaetetus, Plato puts forward a doctrine (later torn down by Socrates) much like the Tractatus. In it, he says that the world is made up of elements, like letters in a word. We may know the word (the whole), as consisting of letters. But as for the letters, these are simple elements, which can be used to build words, but cannot themselves be known.

Plato basically says, if you cannot know the parts, then how can you know the whole, which is made up of those parts?

My question for discussion is, does Plato's argument hold water?

[Impenitent]

Protagoras was right- man is the measure of all things

which measurement is best?

dissection only shows you an approximation of half of what was...

-Imp

[Wyman]

I realize that I did not explain Plato's argument, so here goes:

Start with a definition of 'knowledge' as true belief with the addition of an account (True belief by itself is insufficient, since you can feed idiots and children information that they then 'believe,' but that does not mean that they have knowledge).

An account of something would include its definition, which is an accounting of its parts, or a description of the thing in terms of its parts.

Once you get down to the indivisible elements of a thing, there can be no further accounting or definitions. It must be finally exhausted until you are left just with the elements, the smallest recognizable components. These cannot then be known based upon the definition of knowledge as true belief plus an account - in what terms would the accounting consist?

If the elements cannot be known, and all knowledge of a thing is based upon a definition or account in terms of those elements, then we cannot know the whole, either.

Here is an example:

What is a triangle? It is a figure composed of points and lines on a plane (we would have to go from there on to the distinguishing characteristics, but for purposes of this argument, let's stop here).

Points, lines, planes are undefined terms in geometry, along with some simple relations, like incidence and congruence. The definition of a triangle consists of a description in terms of those undefined terms, as do all geometrical objects. Plato is saying that if we do not know the undefined terms, we cannot know the whole consisting of a combination of those terms.

[Wyman]

Protagoras was right- man is the measure of all things

which measurement is best?

dissection only shows you an approximation of half of what was...

-Imp

Well, that was the subject of the first two thirds of the Theaetetus, whereas knowledge as true belief plus account is dealt with in the last third. Socrates concedes that perhaps what appears to one man is true for that man. But I think that this is fairly trivial. It amounts to the belief that when I say 'I see red' or 'I feel a pain in my toe,' those perceptions are true for me - you can't say that red does not appear to me. Now, whether this matches reality or not is another question - it could be a hallucination, dream, etc..

This position amounts to isolating a group of beliefs that are subjective and incorrigible - immediate sensations - and calling them and only them 'knowledge.' I think Socrates is prepared to concede their incorrigibility and if you insist on appropriating the term 'knowledge' for only that class of perceptions, then he would have to find another term for other beliefs.

I think you would have a hard time placing mathematics and science, for instance, in your domain of 'knowledge.'

[Impenitent]

Well, that was the subject of the first two thirds of the Theaetetus, whereas knowledge as true belief plus account is dealt with in the last third. Socrates concedes that perhaps what appears to one man is true for that man. But I think that this is fairly trivial. It amounts to the belief that when I say 'I see red' or 'I feel a pain in my toe,' those perceptions are true for me - you can't say that red does not appear to me. Now, whether this matches reality or not is another question - it could be a hallucination, dream, etc..

This position amounts to isolating a group of beliefs that are subjective and incorrigible - immediate sensations - and calling them and only them 'knowledge.' I think Socrates is prepared to concede their incorrigibility and if you insist on appropriating the term 'knowledge' for only that class of perceptions, then he would have to find another term for other beliefs.

I think you would have a hard time placing mathematics and science, for instance, in your domain of 'knowledge.'

I have no domain of "Knowledge"

justified true belief is only empirically justified in the fleeting moment - and the justifications are never shared because perception is private and then privately categorized with linguistic labels i.e. words.

I agree with Locke's ideas about private language rather than Wittgenstein's...

"matching reality" ... do you mean the thing-in-itself?

-Imp

[Wyman]

justified true belief is only empirically justified in the fleeting moment - and the justifications are never shared because perception is private and then privately categorized with linguistic labels i.e. words.

-Imp

You have to spell it out a little more for me to understand what you're saying, which I realize is not your style. I would assume, as a pragmatist in the steps of Protagorus, that justified true belief would be those beliefs that win acceptance as 'good' or 'beneficial' or 'useful' in the marketplace of ideas within a particular culture and cultural context.

But you seem to be saying that the only kind of knowledge is that which is 'justified in the fleeting moment' - i.e. immediately apparent to the observer. How could scientific knowledge be described in these terms?

"matching reality" ... do you mean the thing-in-itself?

-Imp

Well, this gets back to the original post somewhat. Wittgenstein is certainly saying in the Tractatus that our thoughts and language are representations of reality. Their truth or falsity consists of whether or not they accurately represent 'the world.' And I suppose the only way this can occur, would be upon some basis of knowledge as yours - that whether a belief represents reality at a base level of atomic facts and elementary propositions depends on whether it is immediately apparent that the element represents the object, etc.. And that is what Carnap and the Vienna Circle, following Wittgenstein, seemed to believe. Sellars attacked this idea as the Myth of the Given. I am not sure whether his arguments resembled Plato's in any way, I'd have to go back and read Sellars.

What I meant when I used 'matching reality' was to draw a distinction between true and false perceptions, which of course Protagarus would not do. Perhaps you would not either. That is the main criticism of 'man is the measure of all things.' It makes it so that either everything is knowledge - even perceptions of dogs and baboons, hallucinations and dreams - or nothing is knowledge, since the negation of every belief that is true for you could be true for someone else.

[Impenitent]

justified true belief is only empirically justified in the fleeting moment - and the justifications are never shared because perception is private and then privately categorized with linguistic labels i.e. words.

-Imp

You have to spell it out a little more for me to understand what you're saying, which I realize is not your style. I would assume, as a pragmatist in the steps of Protagorus, that justified true belief would be those beliefs that win acceptance as 'good' or 'beneficial' or 'useful' in the marketplace of ideas within a particular culture and cultural context.

But you seem to be saying that the only kind of knowledge is that which is 'justified in the fleeting moment' - i.e. immediately apparent to the observer. How could scientific knowledge be described in these terms?

JTB is a common epistemological basis for knowledge ... I am skeptical about claims of knowledge... Justification (and validation for truth conditions) for claims comes from empirical evidence... e.g. "it is raining" is justified when raining is observed...
claims that derive their truth from the definitions of the terms are ultimately circular and tell one nothing about the world... scientific "knowledge" as a compounding of the inductive error or as definition?

"matching reality" ... do you mean the thing-in-itself?

-Imp

Well, this gets back to the original post somewhat. Wittgenstein is certainly saying in the Tractatus that our thoughts and language are representations of reality. Their truth or falsity consists of whether or not they accurately represent 'the world.' And I suppose the only way this can occur, would be upon some basis of knowledge as yours - that whether a belief represents reality at a base level of atomic facts and elementary propositions depends on whether it is immediately apparent that the element represents the object, etc.. And that is what Carnap and the Vienna Circle, following Wittgenstein, seemed to believe. Sellars attacked this idea as the Myth of the Given. I am not sure whether his arguments resembled Plato's in any way, I'd have to go back and read Sellars.

What I meant when I used 'matching reality' was to draw a distinction between true and false perceptions, which of course Protagarus would not do. Perhaps you would not either. That is the main criticism of 'man is the measure of all things.' It makes it so that either everything is knowledge - even perceptions of dogs and baboons, hallucinations and dreams - or nothing is knowledge, since the negation of every belief that is true for you could be true for someone else.

true and false perceptions?

one senses what one senses and one describes it as one describes it.

is there a universal description? ... no (I understand that Webster might disagree)

is there agreement on some descriptions? ... occasionally

is that agreement "Truth" or "Knowledge?" ... I don't think so...

-Imp

[Wyman]

Justification (and validation for truth conditions) for claims comes from empirical evidence... e.g. "it is raining" is justified when raining is observed...

-Imp

Right, this is easy to state, but hard to defend, which I think is what Wittgenstein was trying to do.

claims that derive their truth from the definitions of the terms are ultimately circular and tell one nothing about the world...

-Imp

Right again, which was Plato's point, but the problem is, can you get away from it? If you say "It is raining" corresponds to some perception or observation, then how does it correspond? If you eschew definition as part of knowledge, then how do you explain the truth of 'It is raining?' That's the hard part, you can't just say it is so.

scientific "knowledge" as a compounding of the inductive error or as definition?

-Imp

I don't know what this means.

[Impenitent]

Justification (and validation for truth conditions) for claims comes from empirical evidence... e.g. "it is raining" is justified when raining is observed...

-Imp

Right, this is easy to state, but hard to defend, which I think is what Wittgenstein was trying to do.

Hume defended it effectively

claims that derive their truth from the definitions of the terms are ultimately circular and tell one nothing about the world...

-Imp

Right again, which was Plato's point, but the problem is, can you get away from it? If you say "It is raining" corresponds to some perception or observation, then how does it correspond? If you eschew definition as part of knowledge, then how do you explain the truth of 'It is raining?' That's the hard part, you can't just say it is so.

you can't get away from the circularity of language...

the truth of that case would simply be a state of affairs corresponding with linguistic symbols...

which state of affairs is another question entirely...

scientific "knowledge" as a compounding of the inductive error or as definition?

-Imp

I don't know what this means.

another reference to Hume

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction-problem/

-Imp

[Arising_uk]

...
I agree with Locke's ideas about private language rather than Wittgenstein's...

-Imp

But why would one make a name for an idea if one had no-one to talk with?

[Impenitent]

...
I agree with Locke's ideas about private language rather than Wittgenstein's...

-Imp

But why would one make a name for an idea if one had no-one to talk with?

before one communicates explicitly, one communicates reflexively...

babies cry

-Imp

[Arising_uk]

babies cry

-Imp

Tell me about it!

But do they know they cry?

[Impenitent]

babies cry

-Imp

Tell me about it!

But do they know they cry?

they are aware of that which they do, they may not be able to describe it linguistically, but they have a rudimentary understanding of what is happening... they cry and as a result of that crying, they are comforted... that is the origin of language...

-Imp

[jackles]

wittgenstein is calling the event a state of affairs.affairs means relativity.relativity is the nonmoving thing that makes the affair appear to change or move.conclusion relativity is the cause of all affairs.

[Arising_uk]

they are aware of that which they do, they may not be able to describe it linguistically, but they have a rudimentary understanding of what is happening... they cry and as a result of that crying, they are comforted... that is the origin of language...

-Imp

Well I don't disagree that there is a difference between thoughts and thinking in language but I don't see how having thoughts means one can have a private language? As I thought the point of language was to communicate thoughts, as such it has to be public in the main. Although I can see that in a sense we do have a 'private' language as the words used have to be correlated with our thoughts and not the others, or some such.