The Early Wittgenstein and His

Influence on Logical Positivism

In George Pitcher's introductory book to the Philosophy of Wittgenstein, he writes “There have
appeared in history certain extraordinary men who can justly be called passionate thinkers…
These men were completely absorbed in their philosophical work and deeply preoccupied with
the problems that confronted them”. According to him, Ludwig Wittgenstein was one of these
rare intellectual giants who brought a rare depth, seriousness and originality to their work. He
exerted tremendous influence on contemporary philosophical thought. There is wide agreement
that no other philosopher has contributed more to the present state of Philosophy as practiced in
English speaking countries.

Given the name Ludwig Josef Johann, Wittgenstein was born on April 26, 1889 in Vienna as the
youngest of five children. He belonged to an extremely wealthy family and his home was a
cultural and musical center of Viennese life. Regarding his education, he first developed an
interest in machinery and decided to study engineering. Soon, he devoted himself to research in
Aeronautics. Slowly, he began to gain interest in mathematics and subsequently in the
foundations of mathematics. Thus, he began reading Russell's ‘Principles of Mathematics’ and
moved on to Gottlob Frege’s work. This is how he came to enter the field of Philosophy. Upon
Frege's advice, Wittgenstein decided to study at Cambridge under Bertrand Russell.

Russell said of his student, “Getting to know Wittgenstein was one of the most exciting
intellectual adventures of my life.” Their relationship soon evolved from that of student and
teacher to friend and colleague. However, their friendship was later riddled with conflicts and
friction.

In 1914, during the first world war, Wittgenstein enlisted in the Austrian army and had to spend
nine months as a prisoner of war. He had been developing the thoughts which would result in his
first book and in 1921 the ‘Tractatus Logico Philosophicus’ was published. In this work,
Wittgenstein believed that he had found, on all essential points, the final solution of the
philosophical problems which had been perplexing him.

Wittgenstein's sensitive temperament was traumatized by fighting in the war, and as a result he
turned his back on the promising future which awaited him in Philosophy and retired to an
Austrian village to work as a schoolteacher. He lived like a monk in the most austere conditions.
He was a very able and skillful teacher who took great pains to tutor his students, but his
methods of disciplining and punishment were often too harsh and severe to be inflicted upon
children and complaints soon arose from parents. Consequently, he had to resign his job and
return to Vienna.

It is said that listening to a lecture on the foundations of mathematics once again inspired
Wittgenstein to return to Philosophy. In 1929, Wittgenstein went back to Cambridge and received
his Ph.D. degree after submitting the Tractatus as a thesis. He was soon made a fellow of Trinity
College.

Wittgenstein's lectures were carried out in his usual unconventional and eccentric manner. He
carried out original research during his talks, thinking vigorously and coming up with new ideas
on the spot, a practice which was very unusual. His method of teaching was conversational,
comprising frequent questioning of his students, and characterized by long periods of silence.
During this period he wrote two works, meant for private circulation among a chosen group of
people- the ‘Blue Book’ and the ‘Brown Book’.

In 1936, when his fellowship at Trinity came to an end, Wittgenstein once again retired from
social life and lived for a year in a secluded house in Norway out of a need for solitary refuge to
pursue his thoughts in peace. He started working on Part I of ‘The Philosophical Investigations’
there. When the second world war broke out, Wittgenstein again enlisted to serve in the war. He
returned to Cambridge after the war, but resigned soon after and again went into seclusion on a
farm in Ireland. Later, he moved into a hotel in Dublin where he wrote Part II of ‘The
Philosophical Investigations'.
During this time, Wittgenstein fell sick and his illness was soon diagnosed as cancer. On April
29, 1959 he died at the house of his doctor in Cambridge.

Regarding his character and personality, Wittgenstein was full of vitality, vigor and intensity.
Anyone who interacted with him could not fail to be influenced by him in some way, being either
repelled or strongly attracted to him. Some of his best traits were seriousness and integrity along
with an aversion toward superficiality, pretense, insincerity and dishonesty. He lived an
unusually simple and austere life and social expectations and niceties did not matter much to
him. His serious and grave outlook was made manifest most of all in his philosophical work and
he believed in philosophizing independently from the very foundations without depending upon
pre-existing systems of thought. But in spite of all this, Wittgenstein was in the words of George
Pitcher “A strange, tormented person” who suffered from a nervous temperament haunted by
frequent fits of depression, anxiety, rage and loneliness. Nevertheless, he was capable of great
kindness and generosity and had extremely high moral standards, which he himself (consciously)
fell far short of.

George Pitcher compares Wittgenstein to Socrates, contrasting their lives and personalities which
had interesting similarities. Both had a close circle of devoted followers or disciples and they
preferred to teach through discussion or dialectic rather than by lecturing. Both were strictly
averse to artificiality and insincerity and therefore tended to offend people frequently. They also
lived simple and austere lives, and were absolutely passionate about their beliefs and ideals,
willing to give up everything for the sake of their commitments. A similarity can also be drawn
in the way they faced death without the slightest tinge of fear.

Before he died, Wittgenstien’s last words were, “Tell them I've had a wonderful life!” And
George Pitcher comments, “When I think of his profound pessimism, the intensity of his mental
and moral suffering, the relentless way in which he drove his intellect, his need for love together
with the harshness that repelled love, I am inclined to believe that his life was fiercely unhappy.
Yet at the end he himself exclaimed that it had been 'wonderful!' To me this seems a mysterious
and strangely moving utterance.”
Wittgenstein’s two revolutionary works, the ‘Tractatus’ and the ‘Philosophical Investigations’ are
often described as the earlier and later Wittgenstien because the latter text contradicts and
disproves much of what is said in the former. The Tractatus expresses a more structural or formal
account of language while the Philosophical Investigations is said to be characterized by a more
social/cultural description of language in use. The focus and subject matter of this essay is the
ideas and insights Wittgenstien laid out in the Tractatus and the impact it had on the
philosophical movement of Logical Positivism.

The Tractatus is a short, abstruse and complex work comprising eighty pages of numbered
propositions. Interpreting and understanding the book is an extremely difficult task because the
work only provides the reader with the results or conclusions of Wittgenstien’s thinking, without
revealing the process or reasoning behind his assertions. For instance, he does not provide
examples to illustrate his points or explain his ideas in any way. Thus, Wittegenstien himself said
that he did not intend to make the task of understanding his work easier for his readers since he
desired them to take pains to think deeply and rigorously for themselves.

Wittgenstein was heavily influenced by Russel’s and Frege’s work and this is reflected in the
Tractatus. Before delving into the ideas expounded in the book, it might be helpful to glance at
Bertrand Russell’s famous theory of descriptions because it is important for understanding
Wittgenstin’s early work. According to this theory, definite descriptions like ‘the golden
mountain’ or ‘the present king of France’ are not true proper names. It is thus a false assumption
that every word or phrase necessarily names something or points to a specific thing/object in the
real world. Only proper names name an object. Definite descriptions cannot be proper names
even if there are objects corresponding to them in the real world. But although such phrases
might have no meaning in isolation, sentences containing them might have meaning. Thus, the
apparent logical form of a proposition need not be its real one for only the analysis of a
proposition can reveal its true logical form. Russell’s theory raises important philosophical
questions about the nature of proper names in language and the analyses of complex sentences
into simpler propositions. These were some of the problems which preoccupied Wittgenstein and
found their way into the Tractatus.
The ‘Tractatus Logico Philosophicus’ addresses central problems of philosophy that have to do
with the world, thought and language and presents a solution that is grounded in logic and in the
nature of representation. Wittgenstien believed that he had satisfactorily solved these problems in
his Tractatus. The book consists of seven propositions and other propositions which are
elaborations or elucidations of these primary ones. These 7 propositions are:

1. The world is everything that is the case.

To briefly summarize the central thesis of the Tractatus, the world is represented by thought,
which is a meaningful proposition, since they all - world, thought and proposition - share the
same logical form. Therefore, the thought and the proposition are pictures of the facts.
Wittgenstein conceives of the world as consisting of facts rather than the traditional view of the
world as made up of objects. Facts are states of affairs, and states of affairs refer to combinations
of objects which exist in the real world. Objects are simple and can be combined in various
predetermined ways. They combine with each other according to their logical, internal properties
which determines the possibilities of its combination with other objects. This is called their
logical form. Therefore, states of affairs either exist or have the possibility of existing. It is the
totality of states of affairs - actual and possible - that makes up the whole of reality.

Subsequently, one of the central ideas of the Tractatus, Wittgenstein’s picture theory is
introduced during the discussion of thought and language. This is his famous idea that thoughts
and propositions are pictures - “the picture is a model of reality”. In a picture, each object is
substituted or represented by elements. Thus, the combination of elements in the mental picture
stands for the combination of objects in a state of affairs. The logical structure of the picture in
both thought and language is identical in form with the logical structure of the state of affairs
which it represents. It is the pictorial form that the thought, the proposition and the state of affairs
have in common. “That is how a picture is attached to reality; it reaches right out to it.”

In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein compares the way a picture mirrors reality to the manner in which
a musical score pictures a musical piece. “In the fact that there is a general rule by which the
musician is able to read the symphony out of the score… herein lies the internal similarity
between these things which at first sight seem to be entirely different”. “And the rule is the law
of projection which projects the symphony into the language of the musical score”.

Another important idea that is found in the Tractatus is the distinction between sense and
nonsense. One of the aims of Wittgenstein’s philosophical endeavors was to draw the limits of
world, thought and language. In the preface Wittgenstein writes, “The book will draw a limit to
the thinking, or rather - not to thinking, but to the expression of thoughts… the limit can… only
be drawn in language and what lies on the other side of the limit will be simply nonsense”. The
practical implication of this idea was that only factual states of affairs could be represented by
meaningful propositions. Wittgenstien identified three kinds of propositions- tautologies,
contradictions and descriptive propositions. The first two are meaningless or nonsensical while
the third refers to assertions about states of affairs, factual and empirical in nature. He said, “The
totality of true propositions is the whole of natural science.” Wittgenstein believed that the
correct method in philosophy would be to say nothing except what can be said (which meant that
which was empirically observable). What followed from this was that he made an important
distinction between saying and showing, for what can be shown cannot be said. According to
Wittgenstein that which cannot be said were “things that cannot be put into words. They make
themselves manifest. They are what is mystical''. Wittgenstein said that philosophy must mean
something which stands above or below, but not beside the natural sciences.

Another result of Wittgenstein’s statements in the Tractatus is the theory of Solipsism which says
that the limits of my language are the limits of my world. According to him, ‘I’ or the subject
does not belong to the world but it is a limit of the world. He uses the illustration of the eye and
its field of sight to demonstrate how the limits of the world are determined by the metaphysical
subject. “From nothing in the field of sight can it be concluded that it is seen from an eye”. “The
‘I’ occurs in philosophy through the fact that the world is my world”.

The Tractatus also draws the conclusion that if there is any value or purpose in the world it must
lie outside the world. Therefore, ethical propositions, aesthetics etc. are meaningless and
nonsensical because no meaningful proposition can deal with anything outside the world. Ethics
and aesthetics are transcendental and therefore outside the scope of language. Yet Wittgenstein
says, “We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life still
have not been touched at all. Of course there is then no question left, and just this is the answer.”

Interestingly, the Tractatus contains a number of paradoxes or self refuting statements. One such
proposition was this: “The structure or form of an elementary proposition is identical with the
structure or form of its state of affairs”. According to Wittgenstein, only those propositions
which describe a state of affairs found in the real world were meaningful and sayable. However,
the previous proposition would then fail to fall within the category of meaningful propositions
since it was not a description of an empirical state of affairs. Wittgenstein himself affirms this
when he says, “Propositions cannot represent logical form: it is mirrored in them”. “What finds
its reflection in language, language cannot represent.” “Propositions show the logical form of
reality. They display it.” “What can be shown, cannot be said”. Therefore, In the Tractatus
Wittgenstein both states the proposition, “The structure or form of an elementary proposition is
identical with the structure or form of its state of affairs” and also simultaneously claims that it
cannot be stated or expressed in language since it can only be shown. The Tractatus consists of
several contradictions and paradoxes such as this which gives rise to varying interpretations.
However, Wittgenstein himself writes in its preface, “Anyone who understands me eventually
recognises them as nonsensical, when he used them - as steps - to climb up beyond them. (He
must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.” “He must transcend these
propositions, and then he will see the world aright”. Thus, George pitcher likens Wittgenstein’s
insights to a kind of “illuminating nonsense”. Nevertheless, it is still a problem that Wittgenstein
has said these (supposedly unsayable) things, since therefore it seems evident that they can be
said. Hence, Pitcher considers the possibility that what must be abandoned is not just the idea
that those things cannot be said, but also the theory (of what can be said) which implies that they
cannot be said.

But perhaps the answer to this dilemma can be found in Wittgenstei’s belief that philosophy was
not a body of dogma or doctrine, but an intellectual exercise or activity. He says, “I therefore
believe myself to have found… the final solution of the problems. And… the second thing in
which the value of this work consists is that it shows how little is achieved when these problems
are solved”.

Wittgenstein’s early work had an influence on the philosophy of science especially through the
movement of logical positivism. At first, its greatest influence was felt in Austria and Germany
and less in England. It was from the late 1930s that the Tractatus began to be widely read in
England as a result of the publication of A.J. Ayer’s ‘Language, Truth and Logic’ in 1936. In
England, English philosophers were already practicing what the Tractatus preached - analyzing
propositions - as a result of the influence of philosophers like Russell and Moore.

The Tractatus exerted its greatest impact on the movement of Logical Positivism which spread
through the meetings of the Vienna Circle headed by Moritz Schlick. Wittgenstein was a close
friend of Schlick and he was revered and held in high esteem by the members of the Vienna
Circle. He was thus often invited for their meetings where they occasionally succeeded in
persuading him into expounding upon his philosophical work and ideas. The Tractatus also
greatly influenced the Berlin School of Philosophy. According to George Pitcher, “The
importance of the Tractatus was that it gathered together ideas and attitudes which were in the
intellectual air; it focused, organized and crystallized them, added certain brilliant and highly
original ideas of its own, and presented the whole as a neat system, in a most powerful and
exciting fashion”.

Within Logical Positivism, the Tractatus occupied a position which was something like the Bible
of the movement. It was in its name that many Positivists fought war against Metaphysicians and
Ethicists for the greater glory of science, logic and mathematics. One of the most important
tenets of Logical Positivism was the ‘verifiability criterion of meaning’ which was derived from
the Tractatus. According to Witttgenstein, every proposition is a truth function of elementary
propositions - descriptive propositions which state that certain states of affairs exist and certain
others do not. The Positivists took this to mean that in order for a proposition to be meaningful,
there must be some observable conditions where its existence or non-existence could be verified.
So the criterion of meaningfulness of a proposition becomes its verifiability.

By 1938, the Vienna circle was broken up and Logical Positivism as an organized movement
failed to survive the 2nd World War. Ironically, in the 1930s when Logical Positivism was
flourishing while borrowing from and relying heavily upon the ideas found in the Tractatus,
Wittgenstein was engaged in undermining the foundations of his early work and constructing a
new Philosophy that would take the place of Logical Positivism.

K Jerusha Joel
I M.A Philosophy
2301712029001
References:

Wittenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico Philosophicus. Simon and Schuster, 2012.

Pitcher, George. The Philosophy of Wittgenstein. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1964.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. “Ludwig Wittgenstein (Stanford Encyclopedia of

Edmonds, David, and John Eidinow. Wittgenstein’s Poker. Faber & Faber, 2014.