Abstract
In what follows I shall concentrate on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s thought as it emerges from the essay by David Pears that appears in this volume. In addressing the Private Language Argument (henceforth PLA) Pears isolates two very important elements: the world and Wittgenstein’s general naturalistic stance. Both elements contribute to form a coherent and powerful philosophy which, nevertheless, seems to have an Achilles’ heel in its interpretation of truth. In other words, Wittgenstein’s conceptions of the world and naturalism seem to lose their potential when conjoined with what is now called a deflationary conception of truth and, moreover, do not seem to need this at all. The next section is dedicated to a brief discussion of Pears’ essay, whereas the other two to the connection of truth with, respectively, naturalism and world.
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Notes
L. Wittgenstein: Philosophische Untersuchungen. Philosophical Investigations,ed. by G. E. M. Anscombe and R. Rhees, trans. by G. E. M. Anscombe, Blackwell, Oxford 1953 (henceforth PI).
In this connection the “moral twist” Hilary Putnam gives to the discussion of the danger of losing the world is interesting (cf. Pragmatism. An Open Question,Blackwell, Oxford 1995, ch. 3).
PI, § 217, see also § 1.
How that interpretation is far from being simple and uncontroversial is acknowledged by Pears himself: cf. his “Wittgenstein’s Naturalism”, in The Monist,78, 1995, p. 412.
This is also one of Howard Wettstein’s contentions in his “Terra Firma”, in The Monist,78, 1995, p. 425.
Pears himself, however, has called attention to the fact that the Wittgensteinian demarcation between science and philosophy is not quite that sharp: cf. his “Wittgenstein’s Naturalism”, cit., and “Wittgenstein on Philosophy and Science”, in Wittgenstein. Mind and Language, ed. by R. Egidi, Kluwer, Dordrecht 1995, pp. 23–36.
PI, II, section xii.
F. P. Ramsey: “Facts and Propositions” [1927], in The Foundations of Mathematics and Other Logical Essays, ed. by R. B. Braithwaite, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London 1931, pp. 138–55; A. J. Ayer: Language, Truth and Logic, Gollantz, London 1936; P. F. Strawson: “Truth”, in Analysis, 9, 1949, pp. 83–97; and “Truth” [1950], in G. Pitcher (ed.): Truth, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs N.J. 1964, pp. 32–53; W. V. O. Quine: Philosophy of Logic, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1970; A. N. Prior: Objects of Thought, ed. by P. T. Geach and A. Kenny, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1971; D. L. Grover, J. L. Camp and N. D. Belnap: “A Prosentential Theory of Truth”, Philosophical Studies, 27, 1975, pp. 73–125, now in D. L. Grover: A Prosentential Theory of Truth, Princeton University Press, Princeton 1992, pp. 70–120; P. Horwich: Truth, Blackwell, Oxford 1990.
This is somewhat Horwich’s presentation of the theory. In fact, it was Horwich who introduced the term “deflationist” to qualify the theory.
M. Dummett: Frege. Philosophy of Language,Duckworth, London 1973, p. 445; and Truth and Other Enigmas,Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1978, p. xx.
Analogously, “It is false tha p if, and only if, not p”.
Not of course in the sense that the act of asserting the thesis is embedded in our innate behavioural system — since that would amount to saying that all languages contain the word “true” and the like, contrary to what actually is the case — but in the sense that the disposition to assert the thesis is so embedded.
G. Frege: “Über Sinn and Bedeutung”, Zeitschriftfür Philosophie and philosophische Kritik, 100, 1892, pp. 25–50; “Meine grundlegenden logischen Einsichten” [1915], in G. Frege: Nachgelassene Schrifen and wissenschaftlicher Briefwechsel, I, hrsg. von H. Hermes, F. Kambartel and F. Kaulbach, Meiner, Hamburg 1969; `Der Gedanke. Eine logische Untersuchung“, Beiträge zur Philosophie des deutschen Idealismus, 1, 1918–19, pp. 58–77.
Celebrated is Alfred Tarski’s form, in virtue of which the thesis receives metalinguistic clothes and becomes “ `p’ is true if, and only if, p”.
In particular, the thesis is not necessarily attached to deflationism: Frege and Tarski, to name just them, are not deflationists about truth.
At least as to what can be linguistically expressed, according to the Tractatus.
Cf. PI, § 65.
Cf. PI, § 67.
Cf. PI, § 136.
In particular, when used alone Wittgenstein claims they stand for the sentence in question (PI, § 134). This made Prior to individuate in Wittgenstein a forerunner of some ideas of his, later on developed by the prosentential theorists of truth (cf. Prior: Objects of Thought,cit., p. 38; and Grover, Camp and Belnap: ‘A Prosentential Theory of Truth“, cit.).
This is actually what other philosophers like Strawson, for instance, following Wittgenstein maintain, but what they say is contained, at least in nuce,in Wittgenstein’s position.
PI, § 98.
The problem with which I propose to deal is the logical analysis of what may be called by any of the terms judgment, belief, or assertion“ is the opening sentence of Ramsey’s ”Facts and Propositions“, cit.
Standards of this kind may be grammatical, semantical, expressive, and the like: they may push on to state the right intonation in definite cases, or to coordinate verbal and non-verbal behaviour (by contrast compare saying “It’s disgusting” and going on to eat with relish).
PI, § 66.
Or better, as John McDowell would have it, between “scheme and Given” (Mind and World, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1994, p. 4 ).
For a similar interpretation of Wittgenstein’s thought involving the concept of the world “from the start’, see M. B. Hintikka and J. Hintikka: Investigating Wittgenstein,Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1986, esp. ch. 9; and H. Wettstein: ”Terra Firma“, cit.
B. Russell: “On the Nature of Truth and Falsehood”, in Philosophical Essays, Longmans-Green and Co., London 1910.
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Dell’utri, M. (1999). Naturalism, World and Truth. In: Egidi, R. (eds) In Search of a New Humanism. Synthese Library, vol 282. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1852-3_6
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