Abstract
The “Vienna Circle” worded young Wittgenstein’s philosophy as the identification of language with the language of science. He had claimed to have solved the problem of induction. They had to respond to Popper’s new solution to it. They took his solution to be in the framework of Wittgenstein’s identification of language with the language of science, although Popper rejected it, as he followed the traditional view of the negation of a scientific theory as unscientific: this is a denial that science is closed under negation (as a language should be). Carnap and Hempel managed to ignore this fact. They then found it easy to prove Popper’s theory of science is inconsistent.
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Notes
- 1.
When Wittgenstein demanded of Popper to present a philosophical problem, he mentioned this problem; Wittgenstein dismissed it. Late in life Ayer 1982 , 18 disagreed: “For my own part, I think that if one were looking for a single phrase to capture the stage to which philosophy has progressed, ‘the study of evidence’ would be a better choice than ‘the study of language’.” Notice that Ayer did not say what philosophers should study; he only noted that philosophy has progressed in a direction that Wittgenstein said has its road forever closed. Why then did the problem of induction trouble so many of Wittgenstein self-proclaimed followers? I do not know. Young Wittgenstein did and Mature Wittgenstein did not discuss the problem of induction; he responded to Popper saying that the problem was not philosophical. As he said this in an awkward situation, it need not count.
- 2.
Hintikka 1991 , 180, viewed Philosophical Investigation as an unreliable pastiche that reflects only the views of its editors. They were the literary executors of Wittgenstein. Hintikka called them derisively “Wittgenstein’s literary heirs”, among whom was his Doktorvater von Wright, whom he appreciated and who denied the view that Hintikka ascribed to him (Wright 1969 , 488).
- 3.
Monk 1990 is the most popular life of Wittgenstein. It is defensive. This defensiveness is an insult to Wittgenstein’s memory.
- 4.
In response to Popper’s solution to the problem of induction that rests on his view that there is no inductive method, a few Wittgenstein fans suggested – in the spirit of mature Wittgenstein – that only a general method does not exist; many detailed (local) ones do exist. This of course, is a true observation. As it is no solution to the problem of induction, it is a red herring.
- 5.
This is my understanding. The only direct evidence on it that I have found goes against it. Hintikka 2006, 37, reports that Wittgenstein said to him, “… let me tell you – if I had come to a university when I was a young man and professors had been such fools as to not understand my ideas – I would not have been unhappy at all. That would have been a marvelous opportunity!” Hintikka added this: “I am not sure that Wittgenstein’s counterfactual was true, but it does illustrate the facet of his personality that has not received its due.”
- 6.
This holds particularly for Ray Monk’s popular lives of Wittgenstein and of Russell.
- 7.
The disagreement between Russell and Wittgenstein as to the possibility of the meta-language is irrelevant here: Russell ascribed to Wittgenstein the mystical view of the totality as ineffable, dismissing him as irrationalist. Incidentally, Wittgenstein’s refusal to recognize the meta-language is the view of the vernacular as an ideal-surrogate. Thus, Wittgenstein’s view is in conflict with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (Harvey 1963 , esp. 175). The literature is full of attempts to square them, which is easy, of course: already Maimonides used profusely the technique diffusing metaphysical assertions by considering them metaphorical.
- 8.
- 9.
Landini 2007 describes this wavering in fascinating detail, but without saying that this is what he does.
- 10.
It was a common practice in mid-century Oxford to finish an observation saying, Wittgenstein would not have approved of what I have just said and to take back the observation. This conduct won much appreciation as austere though it was no show of courage.
- 11.
The idea that before criticizing an idea one should develop it and strengthen it and put it succinctly follow the traditions of Plato and of Galileo . It makes reading them and Russell enjoyable.
- 12.
“When he finally came, instead of answering their questions about his book, he sat facing away from them reading Tagore, the Indian poet-novelist, for over an hour and then got up and silently left the room. Afterward Carnap remarked to Schlick , ‘I guess he is not one of us’.” Schlick’s response is not on record. His politicking still has adverse effect on the philosophical tradition; only the Heidegger scandal tops it. McGuinness 2002 , 189 reports Herbert Feigl’s explanation for Wittgenstein’s conduct; “he did not want to see their expressions as he read”. French 1993 presents it as an illustration of his view of life forms, no less.
- 13.
- 14.
Griffiths 1991 ; Ayer 1936 , Ch. 4. Ayer recognizes the empirical part of ethics and then he decides that this is all that there is to ethics. Here he definitely disagreed with Wittgenstein. His subjectivist theory oddly conflicts with any case of akrasia (moral weakness): victims of kleptomania disapprove of the thefts that they fail to resist. More generally, emotivism fails to notice moral qualms and moral growth. More generally, the reduction of value to taste ignores comparative valuation.
- 15.
TLP, §6.432. Already Maimonides deemed harmful superstitions all beliefs in divine interventions in the world – except for the miracles reported in Holy Writ.
- 16.
Hempel , the last of the “Vienna Circle”, renounced verification (Linsky 1952 , 163–88), yet he approved of the dismissal of theology as meaningless. This renders the demand for verification a mere excuses, and (as Popper [1935] 1957 , §6 has observed early in the day) the epithet “meaningless” is a mere swearword.
- 17.
This view of Einstein is problematic, yet it is the starting point of all serious philosophy of science. Hence, most active philosophers of science today do not count (Agassi 1995a) . Incidentally, Einstein endorsed Popper’s solution to the problem of induction; Russell did not.
- 18.
TLP, §6.341. The best presentation of this view – conventionalism – still is that of Poincaré .
- 19.
Regrettably, commentators on Wittgenstein ignore an original and interesting idea. Admitting the conventional character of the fit of facts and theory, Wittgenstein observed that this refutes the conventionalist view of theories as utterly uninformative. This is important.
- 20.
- 21.
Goethe used a better metaphor: “Hypotheses are only the pieces of scaffolding erected round a building during the course of construction, and taken away as soon as the edifice is completed.” Now the removal of the scaffolding is the proof of the hypothesis – that happens to be a false hope. The removal of the ladder is different. The difference between the meta-language and the object language includes the difference between mention and use, and Wittgenstein’s throwing away the ladder is then the loss of ability to mention words that he used! The limitation that TLP imposes is much wider than it looks: how can one write a history, say, of the rise of writing?
- 22.
The medieval nominalism-realism dispute ended when Frege destroyed its basis, the reference theory of meaning. The sought-for alternative was – still is – realism with no Platonic Heaven and no Aristotelian definitions. This presentation is not quite adequate; I do not know how to improve it.
- 23.
This is not the only way to avoid the paradoxes: there is the Zermelo-Fraenkel abstract set theory (ZF) and the von Neumann–Bernays–Gödel set theory (NBG) and there is Quine’s modification of Russell’s theory. Russell was not pleased with any available solution, as he found all of them too artificial. Although he considered sets fictitious, he still wanted them intuitive, namely, quasi-natural.
- 24.
For the argument for the impossibility of metaphysics to hold universally, it has to employ a general characterization of metaphysics and rules that hold in all languages. Wittgenstein’s hostility to “craving for generality” blocks this option. The ideal language obeys only general rules (Frege).
- 25.
Black 1934 . Speaking of the standard wording of the verification principle, Linsky 1952, 6 says, “the vagueness and lack of precision in this formulation are obvious.” Since the “Vienna Circle” praised that principle for its securing clarity and precision, this observation condemns the “Vienna Circle” as not serious.
- 26.
Not quite. Rorty does not ascribe to Popper a criterion of meaning but he still distorts Popper grossly as he describes (200, 135) Popper’s criterion of demarcation as “tracing the border between good science and bad metaphysics”. In his most ardent aloofness from metaphysics, Popper never said it was bad tout court.
- 27.
This step is timely but insufficient: it invites assessment of contributions in oversight of biography. Alas, concerning Wittgenstein such assessments often rest on the ascription to him of old ideas, often Galileo’s picture of the way theory influences perception (Niiniluoto 1999, 115 ).
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Agassi, J. (2018). Interim Period: Carnap Versus Popper. In: Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. Synthese Library, vol 401. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00117-9_9
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