You can only completely know something if you know how it relates to every other thing in the universe.
Russell’s Theory of Descriptions
Statements or ‘descriptions’ can be analyzed in terms of quantifiers and logical connectives. The truth/falsity of the full description is determined on the truth/falsity of its constituents. This demonstrated use of logical language to determine the truth of certain ‘ambiguous’ statements (e.g., “The present king of France is bald”).
Wittgenstein’s Philosophy
The world is everything that is the case; i.e., the world is the totality of facts (and divides into facts) (1.1 & 1.2). This view on the world aligns w/ the correspondence theory of truth (see On Truth) This thus defines what is the case and what isn’t the case (1.12)
The obtaining and non-obtaining of states of things is reality. Trivially, it can be observed that as ‘reality’ also includes negative facts (states of affairs that are not obtained, what is not the case)
Sense: The conditions under which a sentence/proposition can be verified or falsified From this, it can be seen that tautologies (e.g., in classical logic) and contradictions () are ‘senseless’ as there are no exist no condition where they can be verified or falsified (as they are always true or always false). However, it is maintained that such propositions are not nonsense.
Logical Atomism: The world consists of fundamental, irreducible “atomic facts” which mirror the notion of atomic propositions (or more often referred to as atomic formulas) in logic. This means that propositions and reality itself can be hence broken down into these atomic facts through logical analysis of its constituents (as done in the propositions of logic itself). Thus, something can be entirely understood by knowledge of its constituents and they relate to each. This is contrary to holism where something is only fully understood by knowing how it relates to everything else, (i.e., the world) There are issues with logical atomism such as: - What constitutes a logical atom? E.g., The fact “it is raining” may be a fact, but this is something that depends from weather systems in the atmosphere (“it is raining” may be confused as water falling from the sky which is not necessarily from a weather system) - Logical atomism cannot capture more advanced features of language such as context-sensitive and ambiguous statements (and hence is an oversimplification of language).
State of Affairs: A combination of objects and properties that stand in (a determinate) relation to each other. State of affairs are either obtained (occur in actuality, something that is the case) or not obtained (does not occur in actuality, something that is not the case). Aligning w/ the correspondence theory of truth, a proposition is true if a state of affairs is obtained and false if a state of affairs is not obtained. Thus, it can be said that propositions are truth-bearers (i.e., assigned either ‘true’ of ‘false’) and states of affairs are truth-makers. States of affairs are (logically) independent of each other in that the truth or falsity of one state of affair does not imply the truth or falsity of another (note: this does not include causal independence).
States of Things: Used to depict a broader context or an overall situation (composed of many states of affairs).
Language is a framework to express ideas and characteristics about the world. Hence, a proposition may be imagined as a ‘picture’ due to being an expression of a particular characteristic. According to Wittgenstein, a proposition and the reality it describes must share the same logical form.
Picture: Presents a state of affairs in logical space, the obtaining and non-obtaining of things. i.e., a model of reality (2.11) What a picture represents is its sense (2.12). This is also how a picture can be verified as true or false.
Logical Form: The syntactic structure of a proposition (i.e., a combination of quantifiers, connectives, names and relations in a certain arrangement) that corresponds to reality (state of affairs) propositions and state of affairs ‘share’ logical form as they correspond, and so language is a reflection of the world E.g., consider the proposition which corresponds to object being left of object . '' is the relation ‘left of’ and '' and '' are names for objects
Names: From this, an atomic proposition or state of affairs may be understood as a combination of names, a state of things is combination of a state of affairs in conjunction w/ each other
Sign: Mode of expression of a proposition (e.g., written, spoken,…,etc.)
Symbol: A sign together w/ a particular meaning (semantics) E.g., Sign: "" Symbol: as a picture of reality Proposition: stands in relation to
Concept Script: An ideal formal language that depicts logical form (logical syntax/notation). Inspired the development of formal languages.
The Tractatus is ultimately self-defeating as by its own admission the propositions presented in it are nonsensical. The reason for this is that these propositions are about logic and language itself w/in language itself (such propositions are called ‘nonsensical’ w/in the Tractatus) which must be done from some metalanguage instead.
“Whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent” meaning that we must simply be silent about the ineffable as it cannot be expressed w/in language.
The logical form is a relation between language (both formal & natural) and reality (which includes state of affairs), not the relation between the underlying logic and reality as it is something inherently shown through reality. Logical form only applies to a subset of reality (the part that can be ‘expressed’), but not all of it as the underlying logic is ineffable. This results in state of affairs that are neither obtained nor not obtained, this is the same case for talking about fictitious or non-real things. The logical form is a feature/expression of the underlying logic as something that maps language onto reality and that also invokes an underlying logic. This is why it can only be shown as it is also external to language as well as presupposes it, and hence it is ineffable.
The metaphysical notion of truth in reality (which the underlying logic relates to things) is much more complex than the simple obtaining or non-obtaining of states of affairs (i.e., also ranges over context, ambiguous statements, abstracted meta-statements, many truth-values). It is due to this complexity reflected in reality that the underlying logic is ineffable as this cannot be done w/in language. Hence, the underlying logic is a metaphysical structure that underlies reality and ‘grounding’ truth is more akin to achieving conceptual coherence (underlying structure that relates things through ‘truth’). e.g., the underlying logic may allow dialetheic attitude towards things like the liar’s paradox.
The underlying logic is ‘shown’ through reality/existence (like a picture) however it cannot be described.