the purpose of tractarian nonsense* michael kremer

7/23/2019 The Purpose of Tractarian Nonsense* Michael Kremer

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The Purpose ofTractarian Nonsense*

Michael Kremer

University of Notre Dame

To use a word without a justification does not mean to use it without right.~Wittgenstein, 1958, 289!

I.

Wittgensteins closing remarks in the Tractatushave long puzzled his readers.His propositions, he tells us, are nonsense, and to understand him is to recog-nize this. Yet how can recognizing his pronouncements as nonsense count as a

kind of understanding? Of what value could this understanding be? We can rec-ognizeJabberwockyas nonsense, and in doing so we can perhaps achieve somesort of understanding of Lewis Carroll. However, Jabberwockydoes not openwith a claim to deal with the problems of philosophy and to bring them to adefinitive resolution. Moreover, Jabberwocky wears its nonsensicality on itssleeve; it is obvious nonsense and we recognize it as such from its first sen-tence. The typical reader of theTractatus, on the other hand, will begin by sup-posing herself to be reading a book of philosophy, intended as a straightforwardcommunication of intelligible thought. This thought may appear difficult and

its expression highly compressed; the reader may struggle to come to an under-standing of the authors point of view; but if the reader persists and makes it tothe end of the book, it may surprise her to learn that she is to dismiss as non-sense what she had taken herself to understand. She may infer that she has un-derstood nothing at all, and throw the book awayyet not in the way seeminglyintended by Wittgensteins image of the ladder which one throws away afterclimbing itfor this reader will not have been transformed in any interestingway by the experience, except perhaps in acquiring a distaste for certain kindsof philosophy. I recently encountered an example of such a reaction in a read-

ers review of the Tractatus posted by the Internet bookseller Amazon.com.The reviewer1 writes, under the heading A lot of bloated nonsense:

NOS 35:1 ~2001!3973

2001 Blackwell Publishers Inc., 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA,and 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK.

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Wittgenstein must be the most over rated philosopher who has ever lived. Becauseof the work~and marketing!of a few devoted students, the rest of us have been ledto believe that he is one of the great ones. The truth is nothing of the sort. He couldnt

write clearly. The result is much undeserved attention has been given to some veryambiguous epigrammatic statements of his. Much of his work is unreadable and ofno use or interest to anyone but a few hard core positivist philosophy professors. Ifyou really want to read some good philosophy, do not be unjustifiably taken in bythe weird mystique of the Wittgenstein name. It is all P.R. work by some ivy leaguephilosophers who do not even care anymore if philsophy@sic#has anything usefulto say to people who live in the real world. As long as they can continue to collecttheir salaries and analyze their little language puzzles in the privacy of their facultyoffices, they are happy-and irrelevant to the lives of anyone who actually worksoutside of a university. Save yourself the bother of trying to decipher this guy; Itisnt worth your trouble.

A more determined reader may, however, wish to hold onto the thought thathe has understood something in reading the earlier sections of the Tractatus.He may discern there a theory of metaphysics, or of language, or of the mind,which attracts or repels him. He may see in the work arguments for and againstimportant positions, which can be elaborated, defended or refuted. He may ex-pend great energy on these tasks. He may even conclude that Wittgenstein hasshown, through important arguments, that certain views or theories are foundedon nonsense and irredeemably confused. Yet in thus concluding, he will takeWittgenstein himself to have presented a philosophical view, which may itselfbe mistaken in whole or in part, and may even involve various confusions, butis not simply nonsense.

Most commentators have implicitly taken this approach to reading theTrac-tatus, in attempting to explain Wittgensteins doctrine on this or that philosoph-ical issue. Peter Carruthers is more explicit, claiming that the doctrine ofphilosophy as nonsense may simply be excised from @the Tractatus#, withoutdamage to the remainder, attributing this doctrine to Wittgensteins havingover-generalized a theory of semantic content...adequate...for factual ~broadlyscientific! discourse...to cover discourse of all kinds, including...philosophy.~Carruthers 1990, 5!. To read theTractatusin this way is to take Wittgensteinto have made at least one major error in classifying his own propositions as non-sense, and to suggest that at a certain fundamental level Wittgenstein did notproperly understand his own activity or accomplishment. For interpreters suchas Carruthers, we can best appreciate Wittgensteins achievement by simplydis-missingthe self-destructive climax of the Tractatus.

In contrast, the resolute interpretation of the Tractatus, so-called by War-ren Goldfarb and Thomas Ricketts, forcefully developed by Cora Diamond andJames Conant, insists that we take seriously Wittgensteins claim that his prop-ositions arenonsense, that they constitute a ladder that we are tothrow away.2

Diamond suggests, following Wittgensteins advice to Ficker ~Wittgenstein1979a, 95!, that we look to the Preface and closing sections of the book, which

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she calls its frame, for indications as to how to read the work.~Diamond 1991,55!. The Preface tells us that the book will draw a limit not to thought, but tothe expression of thought, in language. What lies on the other side of the limitwill be einfach Unsinnsimply nonsense. ~Wittgenstein 1933, p. 27!.3 Thepenultimate section of the work itself tells us that to understand Wittgenstein,we must recognize his propositions to be nonsense, so that we can climb throughthem, on them, over them, in the end discarding them entirely.~6.54!. The bookis not a textbook, according to the Preface~p. 27!; the philosophy that it teachesus is not a doctrine, but an activity of clarification in which we make explicitthe content that is already completely present and in order in the propositionsof ordinary language. ~4.112, 5.5563!. At the same time, this activity of clari-fication can help us to see how ordinary language makes possible various am-biguities and confusions, ~3.323!which allow, through what Wittgenstein callsthe misunderstanding of the logic of our language the formulation of the ap-parent but unreal problems of philosophy. ~ p. 27, 3.324, 4.003!. In becomingaware of these confusions and the illusions they generate, we unmask the prob-lems of philosophy as consisting not of errors but nonsense. Thus we solvethem in a way more definitive than any philosophical argument could provide.

Diamond initially introduces the idea of the frame of the book, in accor-dance with the implicit spatial metaphor, as comprising the Preface and finalpropositions of theTractatus. However, as the above summary makes clear, theresolute interpretation also takes its cue from propositions occurring in the restof the work. Conant explains that the distinction between what is part of theframe and what is part of the body of the work is not, as some commentatorshave thought, simply a function ofwherein the work a remark occurs ~say, inthe beginning or near the end of the book!. Rather, it is a function ofhow itoccurs. The place of a proposition in the frame or the body is determined byits role in the work.~Conant forthcoming, 151, fn. 195!. Thus Conant countsseveral passages from the middle of the work as parts of the frame rather thanthe body.4

While such framing propositions are not among those proclaimed in theend to be nonsense, they are also not part of an elaborate philosophical theorythat the book sets forward. They are instructions for reading the book. Our abil-ity to understand these instructions does not depend on our grasp of a complextheoretical reconstruction of such notions as sense and nonsense, thought andtruth. Rather, it is based on our ordinary understanding of these notions, ourordinary use of these words. On the resolute reading, as I understand it,Wittgensteins view of meaning, sense and nonsense in the Tractatusis simplythis: meaningful linguistic expressions are those that have a use in the lan-guage.5 The most basic use which we make of language is to say something;expressions that have the same use, or can be used to say the same things, havethe same meaning, while expressions that have no use in saying things are mean-ingless. ~3.328, 5.47321!. Nonsense arises when we construct apparent sen-tences containing meaningless wordswords for which we have failed to make

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a determination of meaning. ~5.473!. When we come to recognize the proposi-tions of theTractatusas nonsense, we realize that these propositions have notbeen given a use in which they say anything, because they contain words thathave not been given a determinate meaning, a use in combinations of signs thatsay something. This realization is not the conclusion of an elaborate argumentbased on a theory of meaning. It is the result of the attempt to grasp the mean-ing that the sentences purport to have, and of the disintegration of any sensethat there is such a meaning, in the process of trying to think through what thatwould involve.

Yet not all Wittgensteins propositions succumb to this disintegration; theframe apparently survives unscathed. This can seem mysterious if we insiston seeing theTractatusas incorporating areal argumentto the conclusion thatits propositions are nonsense. For then we seem to have to conceive of thesepropositions as initially making sense, but in some way depriving themselvesof this property by being deployed in reasoning ending in the conclusion weare nonsense. It is then hard to see why the corrosive effect of this argumentshould not extend to the frame itself, as an acid might eat away at a beaker con-taining it.

However, on the resolute interpretation, the propositions of theTractatusdonot begin by making sense, only to be gradually reduced to nonsense. They arenonsense all along. The only thing that is corroded is our view of ourselves asmaking sense of them. We start under the illusion that we understand certainstrings of signs. Under this illusion we conceive of these strings as constitutinga philosophical theory of meaning, sense, nonsense, thought, and truth. We ma-nipulate these strings logically so as to arrive at other strings, led by appar-ent structural similarities to sensible argumentation.6 As we follow out theseeming logic of the argument we come upon ~illusory! conclusions thatso puzzle us that we lose our grip on the idea that we were ever making senseat all, so also that we were following an argument. For these conclusionsundercut the very status as intelligible discourse of the argument that led tothem.

It is in this light that I read the Tractatusas providing notheoryof meaning,sense and nonsense. This may seem too revisionary. Where is the famous pic-ture theory? Where the isomorphism between propositions and states-of-affairs?The answer is that theTractatushas shown all that talk to be nonsense, by pro-viding the resources for constructing a pseudo-argument ~string of seeminglylogically interrelated propositional signs which are actually all nonsense!mov-ing from the statement of the picture theory, through the idea of logicalform as that which can only be shown and not said, to the pseudo-claim thepicture theory is nonsense which tries to say what can only be shown, since ittries to talk about logical form, which cant be done~another self-underminingbit of nonsense!. In this pseudo-claim the word nonsense is supposed to befunctioning in a way specified by the picture theory. But when we reach thispseudo-conclusion we simply withdraw our assent to the idea that any of this

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made sense. We declare it nonsense. In so declaring we are not using non-sense in some technical way whose meaning is defined by the picture theoryor any other theory. We are using the word nonsense in a pre-theoretical,common-sense way. We are simply saying, lo and behold, none of this actuallymade any sense!

In short: if we are to recognize the Tractatus propositions as nonsense, wehave to recognize the purported account of sense and nonsense in the body ofthe work to be nonsense as well. But in doing so we cant be relying on themeaning of nonsense that we thought we could derive from the account ofsense and nonsense found in the body of the book! We must be using sense,nonsense and other such words here in other ~pre-theoretical! meanings. Inso doing, however, we find that we are able to understand, to make sense of,such claims as He who understands me recognizes my propositions as non-sense. Some of the propositions of the Tractatus, then, do not succumb to thecorrosive effect of the self-refuting theory and argument putatively devel-oped therein. The propositions which survive this disintegration of an illusionof sense, then, are simply those that we canstill make sense of at the end of theday. Ultimately this is the test of what to count as frame and what as lad-der to be discarded.7

II.

I have contrasted here the resolute reading of theTractatus, which sees Witt-genstein as consistently taking his own propositions to be plain nonsense, withdismissive views that do not even try to take seriously this claim. The res-olute interpretation, however, is not so-called to contrast it with such read-ings, but with a way of approaching the Tractatus that was developed in aneffort to do better by Wittgensteins closing remarks. We can trace this line ofinterpretation, which has by now become virtually standard, at least as far backas Elizabeth Anscombes Introduction to Wittgensteins Tractatus ~Anscombe1971first published in 1959!. According to this view, we must understandthe apparent self-immolation of theTractatus closing remarks in the light of afundamental distinction between that which can be said in language and thatwhich can only be shown. Wittgenstein teaches that propositions express theirsense through sharing with reality a logical form; propositions cannot describethis logical form, however. We cannot use propositions to say what this logicalform is. To do so, we would need to step outside logical form, but this wouldbe to step beyond the bounds within which meaningful discourse can occur.Nonetheless, this logical form exists; only propositions show it, they make itmanifestand what can be shown, cannot be said. ~4.124.1212!.

Once we have appreciated this saying0showing distinction, we can under-stand the peculiar character of Wittgensteins writing, according to Anscombe.Wittgenstein wants to convey to us insight into the things that can only be shownand not said. These are, she says, things that would be true if they could be



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said but that are nonetheless unsayable. ~Anscombe 1971, 162!. They are un-sayable because their opposites are unthinkable; their opposites are incoherentand confused and it would not be right to say that they would be false if theycould be said. The nonsense propositions of the Tractatus arise from the at-tempt to say what can only be shown; yet they can help us to see that which isshown by ordinary propositions that do make sense. They have in them lessdarkness and error than sentences that try to deny the things that would betrue if only they could be said.

Anscombes explanation ofTractariannonsense strongly suggests that thereis a realm of many itemslogical relationships among propositions, distinc-tions of logical type, and so on, but also ethical principles, the truth of solip-sism, the existence of the worldwhich can be shown and not said, and thatsome of these items are something like propositions, such that they would betrue if they could be saidquasi-truths like that one proposition implies an-other, that concepts and objects differ in type, that some actions are intrinsi-cally valuable, that I am my world, that the world exists. Her account alsosuggests that the point of theTractatusis to get us toknowthese quasi-truthsalthough the mode of knowledge here is not that of ordinary propositionalthought, but rather some kind of seeing or insight. Thus Wittgenstein tells usthat those who understand him will see the world rightly. ~6.54!.

Peter Hacker gives a reading of the Tractatusthat develops these aspects ofAnscombes account. Hacker distinguishes between misleading nonsense, whichcharacterizes pre-Tractarianphilosophy, and illuminating nonsense, which char-acterizes theTractatus. Misleading nonsense is generated by the failure to graspthe principles of logical syntax, which engenders the illusion that one can saythings which can only be shown. ~Hacker 1986, 19!. Wittgensteins own re-marks similarly violate the rules of logical syntax, but do so self-consciously,to direct our attention both to those rules and to the ineffable truths which log-ical syntax showswhat Wittgenstein means by these remarks...is, in his view,quite correct, only it cannot be said. ~Hacker 1986, 26!. Again we encounterquasi-truths, items that would be true if they could be said, that can be meantif not said and can be quite correct if not true.

Such readings of theTractatusattribute a view to it that is, at bottom, inco-herent. For, as Russell pointed out in his Introduction to theTractatus, Wittgen-stein manages to say a good deal about what cannot be said. ~p. 22!Famously,Ramsey quipped that what cant be said cant be said, and cant be whistledeither.~Ramsey 1931, 238!. Nonetheless, Hacker, in a paper entitled Was HeTrying to Whistle It? has recently defended the answer yes. Still, Ramseyand Russell are surely right in pointing out that there is an incoherence in thevery attempt. Moreover, as Warren Goldfarb has pointed out, this incoherenceis not hidden or deeply buried, but easy to see. ~Goldfarb 1997, 64!. The ideathat there are things that would be true if they could be said only gets its con-tent fromexamplesbut to provide examples is precisely to say the things weare not supposed to be able to say. Thus Hacker is led to say things like this:

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What Wittgenstein is saying to Russell when he denies that one can say thatthere are 0objects is precisely...:ifthere are, all right, onlythat there arehasto be expressedhas to be shownin another way, namely by features of oursymbolism.~Hacker 2000, 364!. Yet what Hacker here has Wittgenstein say-ing isobviouslyincoherent: if we can say ifp thenq then we can say p. Itis self-refuting to say ifp, thenpcant be said and to take yourself to havesaidsomething. It is no help to say that thistoo cant be said, but can only beshown; the same problem simply arises again.

Thus, readings of theTractatuslike that of Hacker and Anscombe, dissolveinto incoherence if pushed slightly, as Diamond argues.~Diamond 1995b, 195!.Moreover, they make it look as if the Wittgenstein of the Tractatuseither wassingularly dense or suffered from a remarkable philosophical blind spot. Thisis not a promising interpretive starting point. Authors like Hacker and Anscombecharacteristically try to finesse this issue by using language like the following:Apparently what someone means or intends by a remark can be grasped eventhough the sentence uttered is strictly speaking nonsense. ~Hacker 1986, 26!.Thus they stick to the letter of the doctrine that Wittgensteins teaching cannotbe said, and his pronouncements are nonsense, but hold onto the opposite thoughtas well, disguising this by saying that while his pronouncements do not say any-thing, do not express any thought, and are not true, they convey what he meansor intends, and this meaning or intention is quite correct. Here there is a lessthan full-hearted recognition of Wittgensteins propositions as nonsense; CoraDiamond calls this chickening out, ~Diamond 1995b, 194!and approves ofthe label irresolute for such readings of the Tractatus. ~Diamond 1997, 78!.Irresolute readings disguise the incoherence they attribute to Wittgenstein throughchicken terminology like means, intends, quite correct; the resolute read-ing sees this maneuver for what it is and refuses to go along with it. This is thechiefprima facieadvantage of the resolute readingalthough I believe that Dia-mond and Conant have developed this reading in sufficient detail to show thatit has advantages beyond the simple point that it seems required if we are notto treat Wittgenstein as a bumbling fool.

III.

However, the resolute interpretation faces a key difficulty: it has to explainwhyWittgenstein wrote a book consisting almost entirely of nonsense. Whatdid hethink he could accomplish through doing this? Irresolute readings have a readyanswer: through writing a book of nonsense, Wittgenstein conveys insight intothose things that can be shown but not said, and thereby reveals deeper truthsthan anything that can be put into wordswhile showing that whenever we sayanything, such truths are present in what we say, shown in it. This answer, how-ever, is not available on the resolute reading, which must eschew the idea thatthere are quasi-propositional items that are, if not sayable, meanable, and if nottrue, correct, and are shown in the act of saying things. As we will see, even



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the resolute reading needs to accommodate the idea that the nonsense sen-tences of the Tractatusconvey truth; after all, Wittgenstein says as much inthe Preface. However, on the resolute reading this truth cannot be the correct-ness of a quasi-proposition reporting on a quasi-fact. Similarly, the resolute read-ing has to accommodate a sense in which there is indeed the inexpressiblewhich shows itself, as Ogdenscorrecttranslation of 6.522 has it. Again,however, the resolute reading cannot accept the idea that there are many distin-guishable things which are inexpressible which make themselves manifest,as Pears and McGuinness translation suggests.

How then can the resolute reading explain Wittgensteins purpose in writingthe Tractatus? In what sense can a book of plain nonsense convey an insight,indeed a truth? How can it lead us to a right view of that which shows it-self? These are the questions to which I will address myself in this paper. Iaim to develop an account of the purpose ofTractariannonsense within the con-fines of the resolute reading. The view that I will develop is, I think, suggestedby scattered remarks in Diamond and Conants many writings on theTractatus.Still, I think it is fair to say that neither of them has attempted a unified ac-count of the purpose of Wittgensteins use of nonsense.8 It is possible that theywould reject any such attempt as misguided. In any case the view that I willpresent here is not intended to be an exposition of their interpretation but rathermy own suggestion as to how to develop their reading in the direction of anaccount of the purpose ofTractariannonsense.

I am not the first to attempt this task: Thomas Ricketts and Warren Goldfarbhave both tried to understand the workings and point ofTractariannonsense.Both have made language, and our understanding of the workings of languagecentral in their accounts. Goldfarb suggests an answer...along Fregean linesWittgensteins nonsense serves as an urging to adopthislogical system, a Witt-gensteinian Begriffsschrift.~Goldfarb 1997, 72!. Goldfarb, however sees thisanswer as problematic since theTractatusprovides neither a description of suchaBegriffsschriftnor instructions for constructing one. He concludes that thereis a deep difficulty in trying to attain a resolute understanding of the Tracta-tus. Ricketts suggests that the incoherence of Wittgensteins rhetoric...drawsus away from the illusory goal of saying what can only be shown to the activ-ity of saying clearly what can be said, the activity of philosophy. For Ricketts,theTractatus imagines an attempt to think through at the most general levelwhat a conception of sentences as logically interconnected representations ofreality requires. The experiment leads us to reject as illusory the quest for ageneral account of what this conception...demands of language and the world...without however rejecting the conception of truth as agreement with reality.Rather, we understand what this conception comes to, when we appreciate howwhat can be said can be said clearly. ~Ricketts 1996, 94!.

I do not think that these suggestions of Ricketts and Goldfarb are com-pletely wrong. Any account of the point of Wittgensteins use of nonsense musthave something to do with language. Yet exclusive attention to language is bound

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to lead to a misrepresentation of Wittgensteins aim. In a well-known letter toLudwig Ficker, Wittgenstein maintained that the point of the book is ethical.~Wittgenstein 1979a, 94!. Our account of Wittgensteins use of nonsense mustbring this ethical point of the book to the fore and relate it to the works overtfocus on language.

Thus the suggestions of Goldfarb and Ricketts are, at best, incomplete. Wecan obtain a sense of this incompleteness by reconsidering Ricketts thought thatWittgenstein draws us away from an illusory goal of saying what can only beshown. Ricketts tells us that when we abandon this goal, in saying clearlywhat can be said, we serve the interests that had led us to aspire to a generaldescription of the constitution of the world. One might wonder, though, whatthose interestsareand how they might have led us to take as our goalsayingwhat can only be shown. Similarly Diamond suggests that the Tractatus aimwill be achieved when the self-understanding of those attracted to philosophyleads to their losing that attraction. ~Diamond 1991, 72!. Yet this leaves onewondering what the source of this attraction is, and why bringing about the endof such an attraction is the aim of a book with an ethicalpurpose.

My account ofTractariannonsense will help to answer some of these ques-tions, by incorporating and depending upon an account of the works ethicalaim. Before presenting my thoughts on the point ofTractariannonsense, how-ever, I am going to make what might seem to be an irrelevant digression intoearly Christian thought, specifically the writings of St. Paul and St. Augustine.I find in their writings two problematics that I think illuminate what Wittgen-stein is up to in theTractatus. These center around St. Pauls teaching that jus-tification is by faith and not by works, and St. Augustines teaching that prideis the root of all evil. In reading Wittgenstein in the light of St. Paul and St.Augustine I hope to shed light on his claim that, although he was not a reli-gious man, he could not help but see every problem from a religious point ofview.9

IV.

In the letter to the Romans, St. Paul famously argues that obedience to the Mo-saic Law cannot provide justification before God, but only condemnation.10 Jus-tification is not through works under the law, but through faith.11 On a superficiallevel, Pauls point might seem to be that as sinful creatures we find it impossi-ble to obey the law, so in trying to obey it we inevitably will fail, sin, and bejudged accordingly. Thus to pass judgment on another is to bring condemna-tion on oneself, for all are guilty of the same actions; as all sin, all will be judged,whether under the law or apart from it. Obedience to the law cannot justify usbefore God; the only justification is through faith, apart from the law. ~ Romans2, 3!.

Yet this superficial reading, suggesting that faith itself is something we cando, a work we can perform in accordance with a new commandmentaccept



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Jesus Christ as your personal savior, and you will be redeemedmisses thepoint entirely. The repentance Paul calls for is not something we candoby obey-ing some or other command; it is an inner conversion that has to be broughtabout in us by Gods grace. The law condemns us not just because we are un-able to obey it, but because our need to justify ourselves through obedience toit is itself a sign that we are sinful. As sinful, we are indeed unable to obey thelaw; we find ourselves suffering from a fragmentation of self in which we strug-gle with ourselves unsuccessfully to do that which we know to be right. Weview our own actions as if they were the actions of another, the actions of sindwelling within us, and we are powerless to set things right. This state of in-ternal disharmony, struggle and powerlessness is the state of sin that the lawboth reveals and condemns. Justification before God, a setting things right inwhich harmony and peace are restored, is accomplished not through faith inthe sense of voluntary assent but rather through Gods grace, which trans-forms our lives by bringing faith into them. ~Romans 7!. This faith does notnullify the law, but rather frees us to do as the law commandsnot, however,because itiswhat the law commands, and so will save us, but because, as saved,we desire only to do what is good. ~Romans 3: 31, 6: 12!.

St. Augustine elaborates this Pauline conception of, and response to the hu-man predicament. For Augustine, the most basic fact about human beings is thatwe are creatures and God is our creator. We are thus placed in a fundamentallyasymmetrical relationship with God. Faced with this fact, he thinks, we can takeone of two fundamental attitudes, pride and humility. Pride is envy of Godscreative power and sovereignty, and the desire to usurp Gods place and be-come the center and ruler of the universe. Humility is the acceptance of onesplace as a creature and gratitude to ones creator for ones existence. ~August-ine 1984, 571572!. It is pride that is the root of all evil for Augustine, and thesource of that disharmony of self that Paul so tellingly describes. By rejectingthe one who is the source and ruler of our lives, we become incapable of rulingour own lives. Our own actions cease to accord with our better judgment; weare no longer able to control our bodies but are at the mercy of desires that werecognize to be leading us astray.~Augustine 1984, 522523!. At the same time,in our pride, we enter into conflict with those around us, seeking to rule andmaster them. Thus we lose our highest good, which Augustine identifies as botheternal life and peacepeace not in the sense of a mere cessation of strugglebut rather a positive, harmonious life. ~Augustine 1984, 852ff, 865866!.

This peace in life eternal can only be restored by a return to humility andgratitude before the creator of us all, for Augustine. While it may seem that prideis self-love, and humility, self-hatred, Augustine maintains to the contrary thathumility is properly placed self-love, while pride is in fact a form of self-hatred. ~Augustine 1984, 572-573!. Pride is the desire to be something morethan human, founded in the belief that as there is something greater than beinghuman, namely being God, being human cannot be good enough. Thus, the crea-ture resents the Creator for not making the creature equal to the Creator; pride

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judges that God could have, and so should have, made me better than I am,second-guessing Gods wisdom and trying to replace it with human wisdom.Humility, on the other hand, is acceptance of what I am as good enough. Thisis combined with gratitude to the Creator for my existence, an attitude that im-plies the recognition that if God saw fit to create me, I must have been worthbringing into existence. This same attitude allows me to live at peace both withmyself and with others. Augustine remarks that in the great commandments tolove God, and to love ones neighbor as oneself, there are three objects of love:God, neighbor and self. For Augustine, true love of both neighbor and self de-mands first humility and the love of God. ~Augustine 1984, 873!.

Augustine examines the efforts of pagan philosophers to devise systems ofethics by which to regulate our lives; such attempts are for him instances of thesin of pride. ~Augustine 1984, 852!. They represent the false hope that humanbeings can on their own power discover how the universe must be ruled andput this into effect. Such ethical systems are always, in effect, disguised mani-festations of the will to power which is pride. Yet there is a danger that Augus-tines own proclamation of the virtues of humility and charity will be read as asimilar ethical command: If you would save yourself, become humble. Thisinvolves a double misunderstanding. First, humility is not something we cansimply choosewe have to be humbled; more profoundly, humility involvesgiving up the aspiration to save oneself and thereby allowing oneself to be saved.Tochooseto value humility or charity in this way is to persist in the pridefulthought that one can manage ones own happiness, resulting in the humilityof a Uriah Heep or the unselfishness, described by C.S. Lewis, of those wholive@s#for othersyou can always tell the others by their hunted expression.~Lewis 1943, 135!.12 True humility, like St. Pauls faith, is not something thatone brings about, but rather a gift of Gods grace that recognizes itself as such;the truly humble person is the one whose gratitude to God encompasses andincludes her own humility.

Now, you may well be saying, this is all very interesting, but what in theworld does it have to do with Wittgenstein, the Tractatus, and nonsense? Pauland Augustines rhetoric exhibits a paradoxical structure which can help us tounderstand the paradoxical use of nonsense in theTractatus.13 As we have seen,it is all too easy to be misled by their words into viewing faith as a new lawwhich we can obey, or humility as a new value which we can choose. By somesort of necessity they are driven to use misleading formulations which they thenhave to work to cancel. This paradoxical rhetoric of spirituality is clearly ex-hibited in the saying, which appears in all four of the Gospels in one form oranother: If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take uphis cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, butwhoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. 14 It can seemhere that we are being offered a paradoxical reasonfor self-sacrifice, namelythat it is the only means to self-preservation. However, as a reason for self-sacrifice this makes no sense. What we are really being told is that the game of



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self-preservation is one which we cannot win. What is required of us is a trans-formation of the way in which we live our lives, a transformation in which weabandon the imperative of self-preservation and place our value elsewhere. It isthe one who loses his lifefor me and for the Gospel who will save itbut tolose ones lifefor Christis not something one does in order to save ones life.The answer to the question what must I do to save my life? is take up yourcross and follow mean answer which rejects the question, refusing to pro-vide aruleto be obeyed in order to win salvation. All that is offered is an ex-ample to be imitated and a path to be taken, but without exhibiting the end ofthe path as the achievement of salvation in the sense involved in the ques-tion. To take this path is to re-think salvation itself, identifying it with theactivity of carrying ones cross. The text canmake it appear as if the valueofself-sacrifice as a means to saving ones life is a reason for following Christ;yet it subtly cancels this appearance as well.

Thus the Gospel seems at first sight to be yet another ethical system, a newcommandment.15 But its aim is to teach us how to live without trying to saveourselves through obedience to any commandment. What we are shown in thelife and death of Christ is a life which is its own salvation, in its willingness tolose itselfa crossnottaken up as ameansto ones salvation. It is only throughin the first place appearing as what it is not that the Gospel can hope to achieveits aim of bringing about a transformation in our conception of salvation, in oursense of what we need in our lives. Only by offering what seems to be a meansof salvation, but one which we can see makes no senseasa means, can it shakeus up, make us think anew what our lives are for, and for whose sake we shouldbe living them.

Here we have a structure which is duplicated in the Tractatus: in order toget us to rethink what we are doing in philosophizing, Wittgenstein presents whatat first sight seems to be a complex philosophical theory. Yet theTractatusaimsto transform our understanding of the activity of philosophy itselfwe are toconceive philosophy as an activity of clarification rather than a theory of theconstitution of the world, or language, or the mind. It tries to bring about sucha transformation through first appealing to our tendency to theorize in philos-ophy and then undermining this tendency by showing us how we are here in-volved in a game which we cannot win. By tempting us to see theTractatusasthe final philosophical theory, and then showing us that we have no understand-ing of what this theory purports to be saying, Wittgenstein shakes up our con-ception of philosophical activity and of what it is for.

Furthermore, this deconstructive act of the Tractatushas an ethical point,or it might be better to say, a spiritual significance. This significance can befurther illuminated by a comparison with the thoughts of Paul and Augustinesketched above. For although Wittgenstein did not have a conventional faith inGod, he did claim to see every problem from a religious point of view. I be-lieve that his religious point of view had a great deal in common with theconcerns of Paul and Augustine, and that it informed the ethical, spiritual, per-

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spective which, in some sense, Wittgenstein wanted to communicate in the Trac-tatus. I will sketch out the basic idea first, and then try to flesh this out withsome textual evidence.

V.

I take Wittgenstein to have shared with St. Paul and St. Augustine a sense thatwe are troubled by a need to justify ourselves, our thoughts, words and deeds.We feel ourselves to be out of harmony, not at peace, with ourselves, others, orour world. We try to relieve this unhappiness through a search for justification.We construct systems of logical and ethical propositions with this in mindyetthe very need we feel for such justification reveals that we lack the requisitehumility, gratitude and wonder, to achieve a true and lasting peace. The Trac-tatusaims to relieve us of this need for ultimate justification by revealing thatall such justificatory talk is in the end meaningless nonsense. I say meaning-less here to highlight the important connection between nonsense and mean-inglessness in theTractatus: nonsense arises when we have failed to give a wordmeaning; but a word lacks a meaning when it has not been given a determinateuse, when it serves no purpose. Attempts at ultimate justification are meaning-less in this sensethey cannot serve the purpose for which they are intended.For any system of ethical or logical propositions will itself stand in need of jus-tification, as will our adherence to it. For this reason, such systems are also in-coherent in the further sense of involving a kind of bad faith like that of pridefulhumility mentioned above. Insofar as such systems claim to justify without need-ing in turn to be justified, they turn out to be thinly disguised manifestations ofthe will to power, the will to place oneself at the center of the universe.

Faced with this quandary, we may seek to have our justificatory cake andeat it too, through the showing0saying distinction. No external justification ofour words and deeds can satisfy us, for such a justification consists simply inmore words, themselves in need of justification. We conclude that the justifi-cation we seek must be internal. The features of our language that justify it,reveal it to be perfectly in order, must show themselves in language and theworld. They cannot be further facts that language could express. Similarly, theaspects of my life that justify it ethically must make themselves manifest in mylife and my world. They must be present unspeakably in what I do and what Isay. Only I must avoid trying to put these things into words, as this would sapthem of their justificatory power.

We can bring out the allure of this doctrine through a consideration of thefamiliar problem of justificatory regresses. This is a standard topic in episte-mology, but such regresses can arise in other contexts as well. For example,Lewis Carrolls parable of Achilles and the Tortoise shows how a form of jus-tificatory regress can arise in logic. More generally, the issue of justificationarises whenever there is something which can be brought into question, for whichit seems we need to provide an account. The sorts of things that can be brought



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into question include propositions, claims, assertions and beliefs. However, wemay ask for an account of other things as well, such as particular non-linguisticactions or more general systems of thought or action. We can seek to justify alanguage, or a conceptual scheme, or a life. Still, in every case, the demand forjustification arises when something is put into question, and the typical form ofan answer to this demand will be a proposition or system of propositions. Thedifficulty is that such an answer is just the sort of thing that can itself be broughtinto questionso that it seems that we can never be secure in our justifications.

To stop the looming regress we seem to need something sufficiently like aproposition to serve as a justification, an answer to a question, yet sufficientlydifferent from a proposition to need no further justification, to raise no furtherquestions in turn. The doctrine that there are things that can be shownandso can be meant, grasped, and communicated, and can also be quitecorrectbut which cannot be saidand so cannot be put into questionseems to fit the bill. The thought is that by appeal to such ineffable things wecan solve our problems of justification once and for all. TheTractatustemptsus with this thought, only to reveal to us in the end that this temptation isfounded on illusion, confusion, and nonsense. Only by rejecting the demandfor justification, and thus the temptation to satisfy that demand in the realm ofthe shown, can we resolve our difficulties.

VI.

I suggest that it is this problematic of justification that unifies the diverse top-ics that Wittgenstein associates with the showing0saying distinction. Consider,for example, his oft-repeated linking of logic and ethics. Logic provides prin-ciples by which we hope ultimately to justify our language, thoughts, and rea-soning. Similarly, ethics provides principles by which we hope ultimately tojustify our actions and our lives. However, such principles cannot play the roleof ultimate justifiers if we take them to be propositions in the ordinary sense. Ifwe try to appeal to them as justifications through saying them, asserting them,we make them vulnerable to question and challenge, in a way that undercutstheir function as ultimate justifiers. So we must remain silent, and let logic, andlife, speak for itselflet the justification for what we think and do show itself.

Thus Wittgenstein emphasizes that Logic must take care of itself. ~5.473!.He criticizes Whitehead and Russell for relying on definitions and primitivepropositions in words. He tells us that this would need a justification butthat there...can be none for the process is not actually allowed. ~5.452!. NowinPrincipia Mathematica, as in Freges logical works, ordinary language is usedfor certain particular purposes. Among the propositions expressed in words are,for example, explanations of fundamental logical distinctions such as that be-tween function and object in Frege, or that between different logical types inRussell and Whitehead; explanations of the meanings of the primitive terms ofthe system; stipulations concerning which strings of symbols are to count as

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meaningful and which are not; informal arguments for the correctness of basiclogical axioms; and statements of rules of inference. All these can be seen inone way or another as bearing justificatory weight, and all are dismissed by Wit-tgenstein as attempts to say what can only be shown.16

Consider, for example, rules of inference like modus ponens. Frege writesof such rules in the Begriffsschriftthat they cannot be expressed in Begriffss-chriftbecause they form its basis. ~Frege 1964, 25!. Similarly, Russell andWhitehead assert that the process of the inference cannot be reduced to sym-bols. ~Whitehead and Russell 1962, 9!. Wittgenstein comments Laws of in-ference, whichas in Frege and Russellare to justify the conclusions, aresenseless ~sinnlos!and would be superfluous. ~5.132!.17 His ground for this isthat the relation of logical implication is internal, can be perceived from thestructure of the propositions alone, and expresses itself in relations between theforms of the propositions. ~5.13-5.132!. While Wittgenstein characterizes rulesof inference here as senseless, I do not think that he is equating them withtautologies. Tautologies, he tells us, are senseless, but not nonsense sincethey are part of the symbolism.~4.461-4.4611!. Here Wittgenstein uses sense-less in a way that embraces both tautologies and nonsense. Thus he has tomake clear that tautologies, while lacking sense since they do not divide thespace of possibilities into those with which they agree and those with whichthey disagree, are nonetheless not nonsense since they are built up out of ex-pressions that have a determinate meaning, or use, in the language. On theother hand, rules of inference, if taken as justifyingour inferences ~Schlsse!,are senselessandsuperfluous. They not only lack sense, they lack a use inthe language, and so are literally meaningless nonsense. ~5.47321!. Wittgen-stein repeated this point in his lectures shortly after his return to Cambridge:that p q follows from p{q is not a proposition: it has no use. What justifiesthe inference is seeing the internal relation. No rule of inference is needed tojustify the inference, since if it were I would need another rule to justify therule and that would lead to an infinite regress. 18 ~Wittgenstein 1982, 56!.

One might argue that if justification is taken in the narrow sense of for-mal proof, Frege and Russell already forswore the justification of evidentlysound rules of inference and of evidently true logical axioms. Thus in one senseFrege and Russell already rejected the project of justifying logic. 19 Yet theirwritings contain detailed discussions of the nature of logic, which can be seenas attempts at the justification of their logical systems in a more general sense.We must recall that their logical innovations were not primarily a matter of com-ing up with new systems of logical principles and rules; their most fundamen-tal achievement was to devise new logical languages within which logicalprinciples could be codified and logical inferences carried out. Both Frege andRussell thought it important to argue that these new languages were improve-ments on ordinary language not only in lacking ambiguity and vagueness, butalso in the perspicuity of their very grammar. Frege, in particular, wrote sev-eral polemical essays arguing for the superiority of his Begriffsschriftover the



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rival notations of Boole and Peano; one of his earliest pieces of purely philo-sophical writing was titled On the Scientific Justification of a Conceptual No-tation.~Frege 1964, 106114!.

Frege was justly proud of the quantifier-and-bound-variable notation whichhe had devised for generality. This notation depended on his innovative analy-sis of sentences into function and argument, rather than subject and predicate.Mirroring this analysis of sentences Frege erected a fundamental ontological dis-tinction between function and object, and emphasized the way in which this dis-tinction is reflected in the distinct syntax of function-names and object-names.As is well known, however, Frege faced a difficulty in trying to express thismost basic distinction. In saying such things as functions are not objects weend up treating functions as objects after allthat, is we end up treating function-names as if they could fill the argument-place of the predicate ~ ! is an ob-ject, which can only be filled by object-names. Even more problematically, thepredicate ~ !is a function itself has the syntax of a first-level predicate, suitedto express a first-level concept true not of functions, but of objects. Frege tookthe view that a certain inappropriateness of linguistic expression prevents himfrom expressing his thought directly here, but that there isnonetheless athoughtto be conveyed, a distinction of the highest importance, founded deep in thenature of things. This thought, however, has to be communicated indirectlythrough the use of words which literally miss their aim. ~Frege 1967, 177-178, 142!. He tells Russell that Sometimes this is just unavoidable. All thatmatters is that we know what we are doing, and how it happens. ~ Frege 1976,218!. Jim Conant has emphasized that Freges position here depends on an at-titude towards nonsense analogous to that attributed to theTractatusby irreso-lute interpreters. ~Conant forthcoming!. I see this as necessitated in part byFreges desire tojustifyhis logical language, his Begriffsschrift, as superior toordinary language, with its misleading subject-predicate grammar.

Wittgenstein responds to this Fregean predicament by distinguishing properconcepts from formal concepts or pseudo-concepts, such asobjectandfunc-tion.~4.126, 4.1272!. That anything falls under a formal concept, he tells us,cannot be expressed by a proposition. But it is shown in the symbol for theobject itself. Words that seem to express formal concepts, like object andfunction, when rightly used, will be replaced inBegriffsschriftwith variablesof appropriate type. But when such words are used as proper concept word @s#,there arise nonsensical pseudo-propositions. Here Wittgenstein tempts us withFreges way out of his difficulty. TheBegriffsschrift, we are led to say, shareswith reality that which every picture must share with reality in order to depictit, logical formbut that language and reality share this form cant itself bedepicted, but must be shown.~2.17, 2.172!. The attempt to put this shared fea-ture of language and reality into words results in nonsense, but we may wantto hold onto the thought that it is shown in the Begriffsschrifts very struc-ture, and thereby grounds our languages meaningful character.20

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In his lectures in 1930, Wittgenstein returns to this line of thought, althoughhe expresses himself in terms of rules of grammar rather than logical form.He says What is common between thought and reality must already be ex-pressed in the expression of the thought. You cannot express it in a furtherproposition, and it is misleading to try. He goes on to ask Can we give adescription which will justify the rules of grammar? and answers: Our justi-fication could only take the form of saying As reality is so and so, the rulesmust be such and such. But this presupposes that I could say If reality wereotherwise, then the rules of grammar would be otherwise. But in order to de-scribe a reality in which grammar was otherwise I would have to use the verycombinations which grammar forbids. The rules of grammar distinguish senseand nonsense and if I use the forbidden combinations I talk nonsense. ~Wit-tgenstein 1982, 37, 47!.21

VII.

Turning now from logic to ethics, we can see the significance of Wittgensteinsremark that ethics, like logic, is transcendental.~6.13, 6.421!. When Wittgen-stein asserts that ethics cannot be expressed, ~6.421!that there are no ethi-cal propositions,~6.42!that In@the world#there is no valueand if there were,it would be of no value, ~6.41! we must connect this to his claim that Thefirst thought in setting up an ethical law of the form thou shalt... is: And whatif I do not do it?~6.422!. In setting up an ethical law we are trying to establisha principle that can serve as both a guide and a justification for our lives. Yet assoon as the principle is set up as a proposition it can be called into question; asa proposition it ceases to have value for us, since it becomes simply anotherthing that can be intelligibly asserted but also intelligibly denied. If true, it isonly contingently true, and therefore it cannot determine for us what wemustdoit cannot make what we do non-accidental. ~6.41!. Yet if it cannot showthat what we do, we do because we must, it loses its power to justify our actions.

Thus Wittgenstein is again led to the thought that we are dealing with some-thing that cannot be expressed in language, something that cannot be said butonly shown. There must be some sort of ethical reward and punishment, butthis must lie in the action itself. ~6.422!. The ultimate justification of our ac-tions is not to be found in an ethical principle but in internal features of ourlives that show themselves: good or bad willing changes...the limits of the world,not the facts, not the things which can be expressed in language...the world ofthe happy is quite another than that of the unhappy. ~6.43!.

Yet, as we have seen, this way out dissolves into incoherence as soon as wetry to adopt it in a serious way. To do so we at least have to think, if not say,the doctrine of showing and saying. Yet this doctrine can only get its contentfrom examples, and in giving such examples we immediately contradict the verydoctrine that we are trying to flesh out. The truth is that the doctrine of show-



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ing and saying is yet another piece of justificatory nonsense, yet another mean-ingless attempt to use words to secure our happiness. No solution to our problemslies this way. Rather, we will find what we sought only by abandoning the searchfor justification altogether, and with it the prideful hope that we can give mean-ing and value to our lives. In this way we will be awakened to the value andmeaning that was there all along.22

It is not merely a linguistic accident that we use the same word, meaning,in speaking of both language and life.23 I have claimed that linguistic meaning,in theTractatusas well as in Wittgensteins later works, can be equated roughlywith use. This applies equally to meaning in a broader existential senseof significance. Occams razor signifies that if a sign is not necessarythen itis meaningless; signs which serve no purpose are logically meaningless.~3.328, 5.47321!. Wittgenstein told his friend David Pinsent that he had feltashamed of never daring to kill himself: he put it that he had had a hint that hewas de trop in this world that is, that he was superfluous and so did notdeserve to live.~von Wright 1990, 6!. My reading allows us to express what hewas saying to Pinsent as the thought that his life was meaningless. Suicide wouldbe a simple application of Occams razor to himself. Yet at the end of the Note-books Wittgenstein characterizes suicide, the denial of the meaningfulness ofones life, as the elementary sin. ~Wittgenstein 1984, 91!. Suicide is the at-tempt to render my life meaningful through a desperate act of self-rejection basedon a recognition of my meaninglessness. But this attempt is in bad faith; it un-dercuts itself. If I could inject meaning into life in this way, there would be noimperative to end it. Suicide is no more a solution to the problems of life thanwould be temporal immortality. ~6.4312!. If we seek Augustines eternal lifein peace, we will only find it in the here and now: he lives eternally who livesin the present.~6.4311!. TheTractatusaims to return to us a sense of our livesas meaningful, as having a purpose, a usea sense of which the demand forjustification robs us.

This is the ultimate ethical point of the Tractatus, as I see it. While the dis-cussion of ethics in the 6.4s suggests a mysticism in which we hold onto thethought that there is a higher realm of value that we can grasp in thoughtthough we cannot put it into words, with which we can slake our thirst for jus-tification, in the 6.5s Wittgenstein unmasks this conception as yet another formof nonsense. We began with a question, the question of justificationhow arewe to give an account of ourselves, our thoughts, words and deeds? We havearrived at a mystical answer which is no answer at all. The very attempt touse it as an answer requires that we put it into words and so abandon it. Yet ifthere is no answer, then there is also no question. ~6.5, 6.52!The riddledoesnot exist...The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of theproblem. ~6.52, 6.521!Here is the ultimate solution to the problems of phi-losophy promised in the Preface. There are no such problems, and coming torealize this frees us from the burden of feeling that we must solve them. How-

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ever, this solves not only the problems of philosophy but also the problem oflife. 24

VIII.

This reading of theTractatus ethical point illuminates the Prefaces summingup of the whole sense of the book: What can be said at all can be said clearly;and whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. ~p. 27!. The twoparts of this aphorism nicely correspond to the third-to-last and last proposi-tions of the Tractatus, 6.53 and 7. 6.53 describes a right method of philoso-phy: the philosopher is to say only what can be said, and wait for someoneelse to say something metaphysical. He will then show that the person has notgiven a meaning to some of her words ~and so has uttered nonsense!. 7 thenrepeats the seeming conclusion: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one mustbe silent. However, between these two echoes of the Preface we find the no-torious 6.54, which reveals that the right method of 6.53 is to be contrastedwith what theTractatusitself does. TheTractatusis a book of nonsense whosepurpose will be achieved through our recognizing it as such. We will climbover its nonsense to achieve a right view of the world. 7 then seems to saythat, having achieved this view, we will cease to make nonsenseWhatevercan be said, can be said clearly, and whereof one cannot speak, thereof one mustbe silent. It might then appear that the graduate of the Tractatus, the one whohas climbed its ladder, will become the practitioner of the correct method of6.53.

Yet there is something curious about 7. It is common to read 7 as forbiddingsomethingpresumably the making of nonsense. However, 7, understood as aproscription, seems to depend on the saying0showing distinction, and, like thatdistinction, dissolves into nonsense. 7, understood as a proscription, forbids usto speak of that whereof one cannot speak. Yet in so doing, it speaks of thatwhereof one cannot speak. This is incoherent nonsenseunless there simplyisno such thingas that whereof one cannot speakin which case 7 becomes aharmless tautology. In either case, 7, strictly speaking,forbids nothing. The pointof the Tractatus, as I see it, is not to stop us from producing nonsense, as ifWittgenstein wanted to eliminate the Ogden Nashs and Lewis Carrolls of theworld. The point is to change our relationship to nonsense, to get us to stopwanting certain kinds of nonsense in certain kinds of ways and for certain kindsof reasons.25

In a similar way, there is something curious about 6.53s description of theright method of philosophy. Like the positivists verification theory of mean-ing, it appears to violate its own strictures. The right method, we are told,would be to say nothing except what can be said, therefore propositions of nat-ural science, therefore something that has nothing to do with philosophy. Yetthis proclamation is not a proposition of natural science, nor does it have noth-



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ing to do with philosophy. In fact, in prescribing a right method it is yet an-other attempted rule by which to live and to justify ourselves. 6.54 claims thatthose who understand Wittgenstein will recognize his propositions as non-sense. We now see that we are to recognize 6.53 and 7, the propositions closestto 6.54, as nonsense as well. These propositions, along with the doctrine of say-ing and showing itself, are the last attempt at self-justification. In recognizingthem to be nonsense, we understand Wittgenstein, and come to see how to live.

It would be a mistake to conclude that in showing us how to abandon thesearch for self-justification, and so the search for ethical principles by which torule our lives, Wittgenstein means to free us to do as we please and so givelicense to unbridled self-gratification, or to a kind of ethical anarchy. For St.Paul, faith frees us from the law not by freeing us to sin, but rather freeing usto do what the law commands. For St. Augustine, humility transforms our ba-sic attitude towards our condition as creatures, and so makes it possible for usto act out of true concern for others. Similarly, Wittgenstein aims at a conver-sion which will free us not only from the need for justification but from theconflicted and impossible desires which this need both engenders and signifies.As our motivations and desires are transformed, so will be our lives and ac-tions. There are many things that those who have learned the lesson of theTrac-tatuswill not, in fact, do, simply because they lack any desire to do them.

A similar point is made by B.F. McGuinness, in The Mysticism of theTrac-tatus. McGuinness, responding to the criticism that Wittgensteins ethical idealimplies that the happy man @is# exempt from all law and might do whateverhe would, even the most atrocious crimes, without affecting his happiness, says:I believe this to be largely a mistake. It is like confusing St. Augustines Ama

Deum et fac quod viswith RabelaissFay ce que vouldras.~ McGuinness 1986,335-336!. McGuinness, however, attributes to Wittgenstein a mysticism of thesort which I see theTractatusas overcoming. McGuinness reads the ethical idealof theTractatusas one in which all facts are indifferent, and argues that onewho has attained such a state will lack such motives as to promote his ownhappiness at the cost of anothers. But it is unclear how one in such a statewould possess any motives todoanything at all. McGuinness takes it to be com-mon ground that the happy man must be indifferent to the success or failure ofhis efforts and with this I would agree, but it is hard to see on his view whatthe source of the happy mans efforts would be.

In contrast, I take the Tractatus to be aimed at inculcating such virtues ashumility, and the love of ones neighbor, which I, with Augustine, would see asa virtual corollary of humility. Such virtues will provide one with motives todo certain thingsto produce works for the glory of God for example, to giveexpression to ones gratitude for the gift of existence, possibly also to help oth-ers, to avoid harming others and so on. This might, however, be taken to con-flict with Wittgensteins view of the will in theTractatus.26 On a standard readingof theTractatus account of the will, the will as subject of ethical appraisal is

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unable to affect the world; the facts are independent of it. All that it can affectis the limits of the world, by taking up an attitude to the world as a whole,for example of acceptance or rejection. Within this realm the will is absolutelyfree. This account of the will fits with McGuinness conception of the ethicalideal of theTractatus. What happens in the world is indifferent to me because Irecognize that fundamentally it has nothing to do withmeI cannot affect it,but neither can it affect me, nothing can happen to me. The resulting view ofthe human person is a perfect image of that radical disharmony of self whichSt. Paul describeswhat I will does not in any way have to be reflected in myactions, which are merely factual events in the world and therefore indepen-dent of my will. On this view I become as a spectator to my own life and theonly question is of what attitude I will take to this life ~and to the world!.

However, Peter Winch, following Elizabeth Anscombe, has pointed out thatin theNotebooks, Wittgenstein hits upon a different conception of the will, inwhich to will is simply to act. Winch asks why this conception of the will doesnot make its appearance in theTractatus, and answers that it is quite flatly andfundamentally at variance with the whole conception of the relation betweenlanguage, thought and the world, which theTractatusexpresses. For theTrac-tatus, our only contact with the world is representational, through our activityof picturing the world. A conception of will as action requires quite a differentview of our relation to the world. ~Winch 1986, 121124!.

In my view, although the conception of the will which Anscombe and Winchfind in the Notebooks does not appear explicitly in the Tractatus, it is ulti-mately required by the final message of the book. The book itself underminesthe conception of the relation between language, thought and world which itseemingly expresses, and shows the way to a quite different conception. Inparticular, the standard interpretation of the Tractatus account of will is basedprincipally on the 6.4s, which we have seen Wittgenstein deconstruct in the6.5s. The account of the will in the 6.4s is more self-undermining nonsense.Of the will that is the subject of the ethical we cannot speak ~6.423! isnonsenseto say we cannot speak of x is to speak of x. There is nothingofwhich we can say that we cannot speak of it. The solution of the problems oflife lies in realizing this. But this is not to realize that there is the ethicalwill, which shows itself. It is rather to realize that we have lives to live.There is no riddle; there is just life.

We can be tempted by the vision of the 6.4s out of a desire to justify our-selves. By separating ourselves from our actions we can maintain the purity ofour selves no matter what our bodies do. Thus we avoid responsibility for ourlives, since the only thing we are responsible for is the choice of our attitudeswhich is purely up to us. We can think that we can make ourselves happy bysimplydecidingto live happy! as Wittgenstein exhorts himself in the Note-books. ~Wittgenstein 1984, 75, 78!. But this solution to our problems, how-ever tempting, is in bad faith. We can live happily only by giving up trying to



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make ourselves happywhich is not something we can do in order to makeourselves happy. Those to whom after long doubting the sense of life becameclear~6.521!cannot put that sense into words because their clarity is reflectedin their living their lives without thinking about what the sense of life is.

The view of the will typically attributed to Wittgenstein on the basis of the6.4s depends on the idea that we can achieve a perspective on the world as alimited whole, sub specie aeterni, as 6.45the culmination of the work, priorto its overturning in the 6.5sputs it. It is only from such a perspective thatwe can take up a stance to the world as a whole, whether of acceptance or re-jection. Yet as Conant has argued, the Tractatusaims to free us from the illu-sion that we can achieve such a perspective. ~Conant forthcoming, 82-87!. Infreeing us from this illusion, theTractatusis also freeing us to live in the world,rather than detaching ourselves from it. While indifferent to the success or fail-ure of our actions, we cannot be indifferent to the quality of those actions them-selves. It is a mistake to think that we climb up the ladder of the Tractatuspropositions to a position above the world, from which we can view the worldsub specie aeterni. Rather we climb out through them, on them, over them.~6.54!. My image is this: we are in a pit of our own making. The ladder oftheTractatusleads us not higher and higher abovethe world, but out of the pitintothe world, in which we are now free to live.27

IX.

I have here sought to provide a reading of the point ofTractariannonsense inline with the resolute interpretation of that work. I will conclude by showinghow this reading can help to answer some of the many textual challengesmounted against the resolute interpretation by its critics, especially PeterHacker and Lynette Reid.~Hacker 2000; Reid 1998!. The objections to whichI will address myself are three:28

~1! The resolute reading conveniently leaves out crucial aspects of theframe, particularly the Prefaces claim that the book expresses thoughts andspeaks truth, and 6.522s claim that the mystical, the inexpressible, exists.

~2!The resolute reading is incompatible with Wittgensteins discussion, in aletter of April 9, 1917 to his friend Paul Engelmann, of a poem by Uhland, whichWittgenstein commends in these terms: if only you do not try to utter what isunutterable thennothinggets lost. But the unutterable will beunutterablycontainedin what is uttered! ~Engelmann 1968, 7!.

~3! The resolute reading is also incompatible with Wittgensteins explana-tion of the point of theTractatusin a letter to Russell of August 19, 1919. There,he complains that Russell has not got hold of his main contention, his mainpoint, the theory of what can be expressed...by prop @osition#s...and what cannot be expressed by prop@osition#s but only shown. ~McGuinness and vonWright 1995, 124126!.

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As to~1!, Wittgenstein does say in the Preface that thoughts are expressedin theTractatus, and insists on thetruthof the thoughts communicated here.~p. 29!In one sense this is easily handled on the resolute reading, for one cantake this remark as commenting on such framing propositions as that philos-ophy is not a theory but an activity. ~4.112!. Yet I think that we should alsoadmit a deeper sense in which the Tractatus is concerned to communicate atruthonly not a truth in the sense of something propositional or quasi-propositional.29 The sense of truth I have in mind here is Biblical, found inpassages such as these: Show me your ways O Lord, teach me your paths; guideme in your truth and teach me... ~ Psalm 25: 45!; I am the way and the truthand the life... ~John 14: 6!; ...whoever does the truth comes into the light...~John 3: 21!.30 As this last example shows most dramatically, this truth is notsomething we might be tempted to think of as expressible in a proposition. It israther a way to be followed, a path for life.31 However, this is not to be equatedwith some set of principles or commandments. It is not communicated througha linguistic act that expresses it, but through a living example. Wittgenstein aimsto provide us with such an example in writing the Tractatusan example thatwe can follow in coming to a new way of life, if we understand him.32

It is this truth which Wittgenstein calls the mystical at 6.522. Pears andMcGuinness translation There are indeed, things that cannot be put into words.They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical, cited by Hacker,gives aid and comfort to the irresolute interpretation. Ogdens more literal trans-lation There is indeed the inexpressible. Thisshows itself; it is the mysticalmakes clear that the mystical is not some realm of showable, but not sayable,quasi-facts, items that would be true if we could say them.33 The mystical israther something unitarya way of life, into which the Tractatusinitiates us.It is this truth to which we will be introduced when we come to see the worldrightly having discarded the ladder of the Tractatus. Our grasp of this truthwill show in our lives, and I think it would not be inappropriate to consider theresulting life to be one ruled by faith rather than by law. We will know how tolivewithout a justificationbut to live without a justification does not mean tolive without right.

It may be objected that I have made use of the terminology of showing insuggesting that a truth, a way of life, can be shown in a life.34 This use ofshowing must be kept sharply distinct from the use required by the irresolutereading. According to the irresolute reading, what is shown is something verymuch like a proposition. On my view, what is shown is not even the sort ofthing we could be tempted to take for a proposition.

Cora Diamond, in comments on an earlier version of this paper, speaks of afeature of Wittgensteins style of thought, what you might call the importanceof making the difference deep enough. She points out, following Tom Rick-etts, that Wittgenstein criticized Russell for not making the difference betweenrelations and objects deep enough, in treating them as twosortsof entities, spe-



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cies of a common genus.~ Ricketts 1996, 72!. The irresolute interpretation failsto make the difference between saying and showing deep enough, by treat-ing them similarly as species of a common genus. What is shown, on the ir-resolute view, although not technically a proposition, is enough like a propositionthat we almost inevitably express its unsayability using a that-clause ~that thereare two objects cannot be said!. On the view developed here, however, say-ing and showing are not contrastive terms at all, although the structure ofour language may lead us to think of them in that way. In a similar way, thestructure of our language may lead us to think that the truth of fact-statingpropositions and the truth communicated by the Tractatus must be in somesense the same sort of thing; but again this is to not make the difference deepenough.35

It is useful to compare the saying0showing distinction to Ryles well-knowndistinction between knowledge-how and knowledge-that. The language heremay make it look as if we have two species of a common genusknowledge.But this way of thinking again fails to make the difference deep enough. It temptsus to reduce knowledge-how to knowledge-thatimplicit knowledge whichcouldbe made explicit ~although perhaps not all at once!.

I suggest that the Tractatus is concerned to communicate knowledge-how.To understand this book and its author is to learn how to live. The book showsus how to live, but does nottellus this. It is significant that the introduction ofthe terminology of showing at 4.022~A proposition shows its sense!is em-bedded in a discussion ofunderstanding. To understand a proposition is to knowwhat is the case, if it is true. ~4.024!. However this should not be seen as aninstance of knowledge that. To understand a proposition pis not to know an-other proposition of the form pis true if and only ifq. Clearly knowing sucha proposition presupposes understandingpand cannot explain it. Rather, under-standing is a form of knowledge-how. One understands a proposition by know-ing how to use itwhen to assert it and when to deny it.

From this point of view, we can see that when a proposition shows its sense,what is shown ishowwe are to go on using it. To grasp what is shown is topossess anability, an instance of knowledge-how. In this light it becomes clearthat in one sense Ramseys famous line that what cant be said, cant be whis-tled, isobviouslyfalse. ~One only need whistle theAir on a G-Stringto refuteit.!Ramseys quip depends for its force on the irresolute reading of showing,on the idea that what is shown ~whistled!is something very much, only notquite, like what is said. But as in whistling I can exhibit an ability to make mu-sic and communicate a tune, showing others how to join in, so in living my lifeI can make manifest a way to live, and invite others to follow. In this sense, wecan see that indeed Wittgensteinwastrying to whistle it, though not in the senseHacker intended.

As to ~2!, we must consider more carefully than is usually done what theunutterable might be which is said to be unutterably contained in the poemby Uhland. It is worth quoting the poem in full:36

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Count Eberhards Hawthorn

Count Eberhard Rustle-Beard,

From Wrttemburgs fair land,On holy errand steerdTo Palestinas strand.

The while he slowly rodeAlong a woodland way;He cut from the hawthorn bushA little fresh green spray.

Then in his iron helmThe little sprig he placd;And bore it in the wars,And over the ocean waste.

And when he reachd his home.He placd it in the earth;Where little leaves and budsThe gentle Spring calld forth.

He went each year to it,The Count so brave and true;And overjoyd was heTo witness how it grew.

The Count was worn with ageThe sprig became a tree;Neath which the old man oftWould sit in reverie.

The branching arch so high,Whose whisper is so bland,Reminds him of the pastAnd Palestinas strand.

Surely, Wittgenstein did not value this poem merely for its ability to showlogical features of language and the world. It might be suggested that what thepoem shows is something ethical. I think this is rightif we do not take it tomean that the poem conveys some ethicalprinciple. Engelmann in fact puts hisfinger on what the poem shows when he says that it gives in 28 lines thepicture of a life ~Engelmann 1968, 85!and I believe models a way of lifethat Wittgenstein admired and aspired to. The Count of the poem is calledbyUhland brave and true but he does not seem to be troubled by concern abouthis own virtue. Through the hawthorn bush that he brings back from his wan-derings, plants and tends to, he establishes a continuity and unity to his life thatcorresponds to Wittgensteins ideal of living eternally by living in thepresent.~6.4311!. The counts journeys followed by his return home may evenremind us of those to whom after long doubting the sense of life becameclear who could not then say wherein this sense consisted. ~6.521!. Thismay seem an implausible reading of the poem in its details; but the general



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point is clear enough.37 One cannot argue that in saying that the unutterableis unutterably contained in this poem, Wittgenstein is leaning on a saying0showing distinction of the sort required by irresolute interpretations, withoutexplaining in detail how this poem shows quasi-facts which cannot be said;and it is very unlikely that this can be done.

As to~3!, in responding to Russells queries, Wittgenstein does say Im afraidthat you havent got hold of my main contention...the main point is the theoryof what can be expressed by prop@osition#s...and what can not be expressed byprop@osition#s, but only shown... However, he adds: which, I believe, is thecardinal problem of philosophy. ~ McGuinness and von Wright 1995, 124!. Thedescription of the saying0showing distinction as a problem of philosophy con-tains a significant hint that Russell never picked up on. For theTractatusclaimsto deal with the problems of philosophy by showing that the method of for-mulating these problems rests on the misunderstanding of the logic of our lan-guage.~p. 27! According to Wittgenstein, in theTractatusthese problems havein essentials been finally solved, in a way that shows how little has been donewhen these problems have been solved. ~p. 29! Therefore if the showing0saying distinction is a problem of philosophy, theTractatusmust have solvedit by showing how it rests on the misunderstanding of the logic of our lan-guage. And if it is the cardinal problem of philosophy, then we will find thekey to the resolution of all the problems of philosophy in its dissolutioninline with the reading developed here.

Wittgenstein goes on, in the letter, to deploy the saying 0showing distinctionin answering some of Russells queries about the Tractatus. Thus in responseto Russells complaint that it is awkward not to be able to speak of the car-dinality of the universe, Wittgenstein responds This touches the cardinal ques-tion of what can be expressed by a prop @osition#, and what cant be expressed,but only shown. I cant explain it at length here. Just think that, what you wantto say by the apparent prop@osition# there are two things is shown by therebeing two names which have different meanings...~McGuinness and von Wright1995, 126!. This is the sort of passage which irresolute interpreters point to asclear-cut evidence for their reading. Yet to read this passage literally, as the ir-resolute interpretation requires, is to convict Wittgenstein of philosophical blind-ness. While he may seem here to escape from the mistake of saying directlythat which he claims cant be said, the retreat to the formal mode does not solvethe problem. For there being two names having different meanings is equallysomething which, according to the Tractatus, cant be said, but can only beshown. This is a consequence of the doctrine that propositions and the realitythat they depict must share logical form, and that logical form cannot be de-picted. ~2.1722.174, 4.124.1212!. Thus, according to 4.124, the existenceof an internal property of a possible state of affairs...expresses itself in the prop-osition...by an internal property of this proposition. It would be as nonsensicalto ascribe a formal property to a proposition as to deny it the formal property.

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What we see here is that name and proposition are as much formal con-cepts as object and fact.

Wittgensteins admonition to Russell to just think points beyond a literalreading of his answer to an undertone of irony. If one thinksat all hard aboutWittgensteins answer, one is bound to come upon the difficulty outlined above.The same irony must be seen in his reply to Russells claim that It is neces-sary also to be given the prop@osition# that all elementary prop@osition#s aregiven: This is not necessary, because it is even impossible. There is no suchprop@osition#! That all elementary propositions are given is SHOWN by therebeing none having an elementary sense which is not given. ~ McGuinness andvon Wright 1995, 126!. Here not only does Wittgenstein seem tosaythat whichhe claims cannot be said but only shown; further that which is said to showseems to differ only verbally from that which is said to be shown. It is sig-nificant here that earlier in the same letter, in answer to Russells suggestionthat The theory of types is...a theory of correct symbolism: ~a!a simple sym-bol must not be used to express anything complex;~b!more generally, a sym-bol must have the same structure as its meaning, Wittgenstein had repliedThats exactly what you cant say. You cannot prescribe to a symbol what itmaybe used to express. All that a symbol CAN express, it MAY express. Thisis a short answer but it is true! ~McGuinness and von Wright 1995, 125!. Inclaiming that we cannot say that which is shown, Wittgenstein might seem him-self to be prescribing to our symbols what they may express. But in fact he isdoing no such thing, because there is nothingwhich we can try, but fail, to ex-press. It is nonsense to say all elementary propositions are given and so it isnonsense to say it shows itself that all elementary propositions are given. Noth-ing is forbidden by the injunction not to say that all elementary propositionsare given, as nothing is forbidden by the injunction not to pick up SherlockHolmes at the airport.

Russell, however, missed the irony, and failed to take the hint. Instead heread Wittgenstein as directing him toward the irresolute reading. He saw Wit-tgenstein as seriously deploying the showing0saying distinction in order to havehis mystical cake and eat it too. Yet at the same time he perceived the incoher-ence of this attemptwithout grasping Wittgensteins real point, that is with-out grasping what Wittgenstein took to be the source of the allure of thedistinction and the consequences of abandoning it. When he and Wittgensteinmet to discuss the book in December of 1919, Russell came away from theirdiscussion still convinced that Wittgenstein had penetrated deep into mysticalways of thought and feeling. 38 The result was that in his Introduction to theTractatusRussell takes very seriously the distinction between showing and say-ing, treating it as the central key to the book, while stressing the intellectualdiscomfort which it causes. ~p. 22!.

On the irresolute reading of the Tractatus, it is hard to see what if anythingis wrong with Russells discussion of the mystical in the Introduction to theTrac-



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tatus. Yet Wittgenstein described the Introduction as a brew with which I dontagree ~ Engelmann 1968, 3031, my translation!and decided that when it hadbeen translated into German All the refinement of your English style was, ob-viously, lost, and all that remained was superficiality and misunderstanding.~McGuinness and von Wright, 154!. Russell persisted in viewing Wittgensteinas a mystic, hankering after ineffable truths. When Wittgenstein returned to Cam-bridge in 1929 and defended theTractatusas his doctoral thesis, Russell, ac-cording to Monk, advanced his view that Wittgenstein was inconsistent inclaiming to have expressed unassailable truths by means of inexpressible prop-ositions, to which Wittgenstein replied Dont worry, I know youll never un-derstand it. ~Monk 1990, 271!. Yet on the irresolute reading, it seems thatRussell understood theTractatusall too well, better than Wittgenstein himself.Thus in the end, the irresolute reading, like the dismissive readings it aimed toreplace, leaves us with the conclusion that at a fundamental level Wittgen-steins conception of what he was up to in that work was flawed. I hope in thispaper to have begun to show how the resolute interpretation can help us to avoidthat conclusion, and yet find in the Tractatusa work that speaks to the humancondition and to life, not merely to logic-chopping professors isolated in ivorytowers.

Notes

*Thanks are due to Jim Conant, Cora Diamond, Ken Sayre, Patti Sayre, Michael DePaul, Da-vid Burrell, Tom Ricketts, and an anonymous referee for comments on earlier versions of this pa-per, and to audiences at the University of Notre Dame ~ February 1999!and at the Central DivisionMeeting of the American Philosophical Association~ May 1999!, for helpful discussions. I also owea debt, which is hard to locate precisely, to Eli Friedlanders remarkable book, Signs of Sense~Fried-lander 2001!, which I reviewed for Harvard University Press in the fall of 1998, after having al-ready completed much of the work towards this paper. I have indicated the most important pointsof contact between our readings in note 24 below. ~Some of the most important points of Fried-landers reading of theTractatuscan a

the purpose of tractarian nonsense* michael kremer

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