Abstract
According to a widespread interpretation, in the Investigations Wittgenstein adopted a deflationary or redundancy theory of truth. On this view, Wittgenstein’s pronouncements about truth should be understood in the light of his invocation of the equivalences ‘p’ is true = p and ‘p’ is false = not p. This paper shows that this interpretation does not do justice to Wittgenstein’s thoughts. I will be claiming that, in fact, in his second book Wittgenstein is returning to the pre-Tractarian notion of bipolarity, and that his new development of this notion in the Investigations excludes the redundancy-deflationary reading. Wittgenstein’s thoughts about truth are instead compatible with another interpretative option: Wittgenstein remains faithful to his methodological pronouncements, and he merely presents us with (grammatical) platitudes about the notions of “true” and “false”.
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Notes
Wittgenstein (2010), henceforth referred to as PI.
Thus, the topic comes up after the discussion of the rule-following considerations. Here, Wittgenstein seems to agree with what he says in PI 136. Indeed, he restates the close connection between “proposition” and “true” and “false” (PI 225). On another occasion, he rejects the centrality of the verificationist position he himself held at a certain point (PI 353). And such refusal is also coherent with the claims in PI 136. It fits nicely with the claim that it is a “bad picture” to presuppose a definition of “true” which “fits” with that of “proposition”. On yet another occasion, Wittgenstein confirms the idea that we can’t give up the notions of “true” and “false”. So, that as he says in PI 136, they “belong” to the notion of proposition (PI 241).
To take a few examples, Baker and Hacker (1980, p. 317), Dummett (1978, pp. xxxiv, 317), Forster (2009, pp. 60–64), Kripke (1982, p. 86), Read (2000, p. 75), Priest (2004, p. 210) and Williams (2004, p. 268; 2009, pp. 64, 144) take Wittgenstein’s observations to amount to a “redundancy theory of truth”. Bolton (1979, pp. 159–166) speaks in more general terms of a “Ramseyan view”; for Koethe (1996, p. 136) Wittgenstein conforms to a redundancy account of the truth-predicate under Ramsey’s influence. Blackburn (1998, pp. 166) uses the terms “deflationary” and “redundancy” interchangeably, even if he elsewhere prefers to speak of a “redundancy theory” (Blackburn 2010, p. 210). Goldstein (1999, p. 260) speaks of “deflationism” or “minimalism” and McGinn, (1984, p. 71) of “deflationism”. Finally, according to Glock (1996, p. 144, 366) Wittgenstein held a “redundancy” view in his so-called intermediate period, but turned to a Quinean–inspired-view later on. I think it is impossible to decide if it’s better to call it a “deflationary” or a “redundancy” theory based on Wittgenstein’s pronouncements. On the one hand, the fact that the truth-bearer appears in quotation marks suggests that he is thinking of sentences, hence he has a deflationary (or disquotational) interpretation of the equivalence in mind. On the other hand, Wittgenstein does not deal with the topic only in the Investigations. And, as authors like Baker and Hacker (2005, p. 347n) and Glock (2004, p. 57) point out, some of his pre-Investigations comments suggest that he adopted a redundancy theory. As an illustration, in the Philosophical Grammar, Wittgenstein notes that “one can say that the quotation marks in the sentence “‘p’ is true” are simply superfluous”. This is so because “‘p’ is true” can only be understood if one understands the grammar of the sign “p” as a propositional sign” (Wittgenstein 1974, p. 79; henceforth PG). However, the context makes it clear that Wittgenstein is not contrasting propositions with sentences. The thought that prompts the question about the status of the quotation marks is that “the ink mark is after all not true; in the way in which it’s black and curved”. So, Wittgenstein draws a contrast between ‘p’ as a sign that stays for a sentence or a proposition and the letter p. Hence, the fragment does not really confirm the claim that Wittgenstein adopted the redundancy theory. Nonetheless, I still think that invoking the “redundancy theory” is preferable, as surely, if we want to look for a possible influence, we should turn to Ramsey. In any case, I will speak in general terms of a redundancy-deflationary interpretation—even if I have chosen to refer to Wittgenstein’s identities as the “equivalence” and not the “disquotational” schema.
Wittgenstein (1961), henceforth TLP.
For reasons of space, the matter of whether this should further be understood in a so-called “resolute” or “elucidatory” perspective will not be confronted. I am tempted to favor the “elucidatory” reading, and yet an analysis of the implications of the notion of bipolarity for these two types of readings is very complex, and it is better left for another occasion.
On this see e.g. Dummett (1978, pp. xx–xi, 24).
This is not meant to suggest that Ramsey influenced Wittgenstein on this point. As a matter of fact, the question of the direction of the influence is rather complex. Ramsey first formulated the redundancy theory in a note from 18th November 1921 (see Ramsey 1991, p. 103). Nonetheless, Wittgenstein notices as soon as 1914 that “‘p’ is true = ‘p’. p” (Wittgenstein 1984, p. 113, henceforth NB) and that “‘p’ is true, says nothing else but p!” (NB, 9). For more on the question of who influenced who see Glock (2004).
Changes in this paragraph from 1936 to 1945 are insignificant. To mention a few examples, instead of “But this is a bad picture” as in the final version, Wittgenstein earlier speaks of “being easy to commit an (or fall into) error” (Denn hier is es nun leicht, in einen Irrtum zu verfallen). Also, he refers to the “bad picture” as a schlechtes Bild in the final version and as an irreführendes (misleading) Bild in earlier versions.
Wittgenstein (2012), henceforth BT.
As Wittgenstein puts it in the Tractatus, “If the world had no substance, then whether a proposition had sense would depend on whether another proposition was true” (TLP 2.021), where “Objects make up the substance of the world” (TLP 2.021).
Another metaphor that explains the notion is that of an arrow “which divides all the points of a plane into right and left” (NB, p. 102).
TLP 6.1203, but for the same notation see NB, 115, 127–129, and also Wittgenstein (1979, pp. 136–137), henceforth AWL.
I thank one of the anonymous Reviewers for calling attention to the fact that there might be reasons to contest my reading of the notion of bipolarity in PI 251 and PI 556. The Reviewer has pointed out that in PI 251 Wittgenstein might actually be dismissing bipolarity, because he compares “I can’t imagine the opposite of this” with a questionable assertion that “I can’t imagine the thing itself”. Also, that in PI 556 Wittgenstein actually presents us with three options for defining negation, and he does not choose one of the three. The Reviewer’s first concern is interesting because it points to a translation problem. The fragment the Reviewer relies on states “Ich kann mir, was du sagst, nicht vorstellen”, which literally means “I can’t imagine what you say” and not “I can’t imagine the thing itself” (on this see the Hacker-Schulte translation, which is much more faithful to the original than the Anscombe translation). Wittgenstein is thus not comparing bipolarity with an elusive question about “thing themselves”, and we have no reason to suppose he is dismissing bipolarity. Regarding PI 556, the Reviewer is certainly correct. Nonetheless, the context of the paragraph makes it clear that there is a good reason why Wittgenstein doesn’t choose the bipolarity-option: he is not considering our language—but an imaginary one. As is well known, for Wittgenstein the meaning of “negation” (as for any other connective) is derived from the rules for its use (see PI 147n, but also my discussion below. So, if the new language would have the same rules as ours, then bipolarity would be the correct choice. But it is impossible to choose one of the three options (PI 557)—the new language might just have different rules than our language.
A similar point is made by Hamilton (2014, p. 116).
The “correspondence theory” interpretation of the Tractatus has occasionally been criticized. For authors like Beckermann (1995), Künne (2003, p. 123) and Hacker (2000, p. 386); but also Baker and Hacker (2005, pp. 349–57) Wittgenstein held a redundancy or a semantic theory of truth in the Tractatus. And there are reasons to acknowledge some of the points made by these interpreters, as Wittgenstein does acknowledge ES as soon as 1914 (see footnote 9 above). Nevertheless, the fact of the matter remains that Wittgenstein’s Tractatus has ontological ingredients that would be superfluous in a redundancy-deflationary theory: it invokes notions such as states of affairs and facts. And these are not idle notions—Wittgenstein relies on them when he defines “truth” and “falsehood”. For example, we are told that “If an elementary proposition is true, the state of affairs exists: if an elementary proposition is false, the state of affairs does not exist” (TLP 4.25). So, even if one chooses to not call the Tractarian view a “correspondence theory”, he must still acknowledge that Wittgenstein does have a substantial notion of truth in mind; that he does have a definition of “true” and “false”. For a discussion of the pros of the redundancy-deflationary interpretation of the Tractatus, but also of the reasons for discarding it see Glock (2006).
For a similar argument see Vision (2005, p. 170).
And he holds on to this idea in all the post-Tractarian writings-see e.g. PG 243-6, RFM VIII 30, PI 147n and Wittgenstein (1976, p. 383); henceforth LFM.
Wittgenstein (1981), henceforth RFM.
I came to realise how this could represent a counter-argument for my reading thanks to Pasquale Frascolla.
In the Nachlass the text corresponds to MS 118: 108v.
For similar pronouncements see LFM, 188. However, one might like to point out that, more recently, authors like Floyd (2001) and Kienzler and Grève (2016) suggest that our interpretation relies on false premises. As Floyd puts it, “It seems to me that Wittgenstein is asking his interlocutor what the notions of true and provable mean in the context of the interlocutor’s ‘proof”’ (Floyd 2001, p. 303). To this our answer is that the matter does not really affect our discussion. Our interest is not in Wittgenstein’s actual view in the Remarks. Rather, our purpose is to get a grip on Wittgenstein’s views in the Investigations, and the similarities between PI 136 and RFM justify our choice to analyze them side by side.
See TS 221: 248.
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Acknowledgements
My deepest gratitude goes to Diego Marconi. I could have never written this paper without his suggestions, especially those regarding the notion of bipolarity. I am also very grateful to Razvan Purdel, Fabrizio Calzavarini, Florin Bican and the anonymous referees of this journal for their comments and their help with improving the previous drafts of this article.
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Bartunek, N. Truth in the Investigations. Synthese 196, 4091–4111 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-017-1643-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-017-1643-1