Abstract
Perhaps it is not overly pedantic to say that one will find Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus very difficult even if one first understands Russell’s philosophical logic. But the question remains as to whether the work is intended in alliance with Russell’s research program for a scientific method in philosophy or splits from that program. This paper endeavors to answer the question by revealing new evidence that Wittgenstein held his Doctrine of Showing in 1913 and that it was a demand he imposed in criticizing Russell’s multiple relation theory of judgment.
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Notes
- 1.
See Russell (1968, p. 162).
- 2.
The Doctrine of Showing is explicit in the 1914 Notes Dictated to Moore, and the “fundamental idea” is found in an entry dated 25 December 1914 of Wittgenstein’s Notebooks 1914–1916. The identification of these is quite illuminating In 2007, I have argued at length in favor of this identification.
- 3.
Based on this assumption we find the recent anthology edited by J. Beale & I. J. Kidd (2017).
- 4.
The clearest expression of this is in Russel’s 1914 book Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy. In that book, Russell explicitly references Wittgenstein as an ally.
- 5.
Russell (1968).
- 6.
The uniform impact on apb and aqb was made clear by Kevin Klement and Russell Wahl at the 2019 meeting of the Bertrand Russell Society.
- 7.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Notebooks 1914–1916, p. 96.
- 8.
See Linsky (2018).
- 9.
See Wittgenstein (1979).
- 10.
See Wittgenstein (1979, p. 129).
- 11.
Wittgenstein (1979), p. 124.
- 12.
Unaware of Wittgenstein’s work on this, Quine reports its discovery to Hao Wang. See Quine (1969), p. 13.
- 13.
Bertrand Russell, Letter of 13 August 1919.
- 14.
Wittgenstein (1979, p. 131).
- 15.
- 16.
It is strange that this passages has “Fx” instead of “φx” it may be mistake in transcription.
- 17.
In the text this is φa. But what is intended is φa • φa, which in N-notation would be φa. I have changed it here.
- 18.
Wehmeier and Rogers (2012) disagree. They hold that Wittgenstein’s exclusive quantifiers recovers the modern view that the logical truths of quantification theory are just those that are invariant over every non-empty domain. They allow finite domains. On my interpretation, Wittgenstein’s clear intent with exclusive quantifiers was to have only infinite domains. See Landini (2007). For some further criticisms see Lampert and Säbel (2016).
- 19.
In my book, Wittgenstein’s Apprenticeship with Russell, I assumed that readers understood the intimate connections here made plain. See Landini (2007).
References
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Lampert, Timm. (2017) Wittgenstein’s ab-Notation: An Iconic Proof Procedure,” History and Philosoph of Logic 38 pp. 239–262.
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Landini, G. (2020). Showing in Wittgenstein’s ab-Notation. In: Wuppuluri, S., da Costa, N. (eds) WITTGENSTEINIAN (adj.). The Frontiers Collection. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27569-3_13
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