The Enchantment of Words: Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
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bookshelves: philosophy-theology, british, epistemology-language The Ethics of Uncertainty
My interest in the Tractatus is its ethical rather than its logical or philosophical import. This corresponds with Wittgenstein’s stated intention for the work. McManus agrees. So I feel justified in trying to interpret it as a guide for behaviour rather than as a philosophical opinion. And I hope I’m forgiven for using The Enchantment of Words as a meditative focus for that purpose.
If you want to know what’s really important to you, don’t write an essay; just look in your chequebook. What anyone has to say about what is important, valuable, or even significant in their life is largely either rationalisation or personal myth. What matters is not what we say (or write) but what we do.
In other words, language is not a reliable ethical instrument. Not only do we deceive ourselves knowingly or not through language, but language itself is not up to the job of defining an absolute good. This latter point is not simply a matter of vocabulary; it is a logical necessity. Hence Wittgenstein’s focus on logic.
As Wittgenstein notes, valuations relative to some articulated intention are not ethically problematic. It is the idea of an absolute valuation that is logically incoherent. Judgments of value demand a metric, a measure or standard, by which such judgments can be made. Yet any such metric is a member of a class of metrics, any member of which can claim parity with the chosen metric.
And, crucially, the class of metrics is itself a member of an even more inclusive set of metrics. Therefore, the chosen metric is necessarily relativised as soon as it is specified. This applies no matter what level of generality a metric might have. In short, it is impossible to articulate an absolute measure of value, a conclusion known for centuries to theologians who recognise that the absolute measure of value is in fact God, for whom all expression is inadequate.
The central implication of Wittgenstein’s analysis, I think, is that the ethical, just like the experiential, cannot be found in thought at all. The ethical is always and only to be captured in action. The source of the ethical is not in finding and following an arbitrary metric of value but in acting ‘decently,’ a term which equates roughly to a sense of conscience without further elaboration by Wittgenstein.
This conclusion on the face of it appears paradoxical. And indeed Wittgenstein takes an explicitly paradoxical stance at the end of the Tractatus of repudiating what he has just written. What better way to show the inadequacy of language? This is precisely the tactic used by other great ironists, particularly religious ironists, Qoholeth and Jesus among them. “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity” is the scriptural equivalent of Wittgenstein’s self-contradiction.
In this light one is reminded of the fundamental principle of Judaism, a behavioural religion, as articulated by the great Rabbi Akiva: “Love your neighbour as you love yourself.” This, he says, is the entire content of the Law, the rest of scripture being merely (inadequate) commentary. Augustine in one of his saner moments made the same observation: “Amor et quod vis fac, Love and then do what you will.”Could it be that the Tractatus is actually a modern scholarly route to precisely this self-referential ethical destination?
That is, ethics cannot be expressed, much less taught. Ethics can only be shown. And as ethics are shown, they are passed from generation to generation and infect, not the thoughts, but the actions of others. This view leaves ethical conduct itself entirely uncertain, a condition that neither those without ‘decency’ nor those with authority over them like very much. Authentic ethics, therefore, is necessarily subversive, undermining all fixed principles of behaviour - including even this principle.
My interest in the Tractatus is its ethical rather than its logical or philosophical import. This corresponds with Wittgenstein’s stated intention for the work. McManus agrees. So I feel justified in trying to interpret it as a guide for behaviour rather than as a philosophical opinion. And I hope I’m forgiven for using The Enchantment of Words as a meditative focus for that purpose.
If you want to know what’s really important to you, don’t write an essay; just look in your chequebook. What anyone has to say about what is important, valuable, or even significant in their life is largely either rationalisation or personal myth. What matters is not what we say (or write) but what we do.
In other words, language is not a reliable ethical instrument. Not only do we deceive ourselves knowingly or not through language, but language itself is not up to the job of defining an absolute good. This latter point is not simply a matter of vocabulary; it is a logical necessity. Hence Wittgenstein’s focus on logic.
As Wittgenstein notes, valuations relative to some articulated intention are not ethically problematic. It is the idea of an absolute valuation that is logically incoherent. Judgments of value demand a metric, a measure or standard, by which such judgments can be made. Yet any such metric is a member of a class of metrics, any member of which can claim parity with the chosen metric.
And, crucially, the class of metrics is itself a member of an even more inclusive set of metrics. Therefore, the chosen metric is necessarily relativised as soon as it is specified. This applies no matter what level of generality a metric might have. In short, it is impossible to articulate an absolute measure of value, a conclusion known for centuries to theologians who recognise that the absolute measure of value is in fact God, for whom all expression is inadequate.
The central implication of Wittgenstein’s analysis, I think, is that the ethical, just like the experiential, cannot be found in thought at all. The ethical is always and only to be captured in action. The source of the ethical is not in finding and following an arbitrary metric of value but in acting ‘decently,’ a term which equates roughly to a sense of conscience without further elaboration by Wittgenstein.
This conclusion on the face of it appears paradoxical. And indeed Wittgenstein takes an explicitly paradoxical stance at the end of the Tractatus of repudiating what he has just written. What better way to show the inadequacy of language? This is precisely the tactic used by other great ironists, particularly religious ironists, Qoholeth and Jesus among them. “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity” is the scriptural equivalent of Wittgenstein’s self-contradiction.
In this light one is reminded of the fundamental principle of Judaism, a behavioural religion, as articulated by the great Rabbi Akiva: “Love your neighbour as you love yourself.” This, he says, is the entire content of the Law, the rest of scripture being merely (inadequate) commentary. Augustine in one of his saner moments made the same observation: “Amor et quod vis fac, Love and then do what you will.”Could it be that the Tractatus is actually a modern scholarly route to precisely this self-referential ethical destination?
That is, ethics cannot be expressed, much less taught. Ethics can only be shown. And as ethics are shown, they are passed from generation to generation and infect, not the thoughts, but the actions of others. This view leaves ethical conduct itself entirely uncertain, a condition that neither those without ‘decency’ nor those with authority over them like very much. Authentic ethics, therefore, is necessarily subversive, undermining all fixed principles of behaviour - including even this principle.
posted by The Mind of BlackOxford @ May 08, 2020
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