Further Thoughts Concerning Wittgensteinian Dissolution in General

Thoughts Concerning Wittgensteinian Dissolution in General

The impression one acquires in reading in Waismann of Wittgenstein’s treatment of what can generically be called the “Augustinian effect” – our asking the question “what is X?” because of our inability to acquire an adequate answer to it despite our being able to notionally discern X, that is, discern the notion of X in normal, everyday circumstances – is rightfully so one of a sense of completeness.¹ This is particularly the case in Wittgenstein’s treatment of Augustine’s famous question “What, then, is time?”² For Wittgenstein the “solution”, if one will, to this dilemma is simple: “If I know how I am to use the word ‘time’, if I understand it in the most diverse contexts, then I know quite precisely ‘what time is’, and no formulation can make this clearer to me.”³ Subsequently,

should I have to explain the meaning of this word to somebody, I would teach him to use the word in typical cases, i.e. in cases such as ‘I have no time’, ‘this is not the time for that’, ‘too much time has passed since then’, etc. In short, I would lay out before him the whole complicated grammar of this word, I would, as it were, travel down all the lines that language has prepared for the use of this word – and that would convey to him an understanding of the word ‘time’.⁴

What we may surmise from this response is that it is not therefore a definition, i.e. “formulation”, which answers for us the question “what is time?” The “simple truth”, Wittgenstein instead declares, is that the “whole loose and complex pattern of speaking provides the true meaning of the word ‘time’ and that there is nothing else to be done other than describe the complete grammar of this word.”⁵ Furthermore he adds, “If we are in a position to understand and use the word in all its combinations and contexts, then we in fact know exactly what time is and no formula can express it more exactly.”⁶ We see in this statement Wittgenstein’s attitude towards the role philosophy as understood by him plays in terms of our language. It is not our language and the way in which we use the words of our language which accompanies philosophy in our search for the criterion and essences of things but rather quite the opposite: philosophy, instead, subordinates itself to our language. In the Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein makes this attitude quite clear: “Philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language; it can in the end only describe it.”⁷ Subsequently, “Philosophy simply puts everything before us, and neither explains nor deduces anything.–Since everything lies open to view there is nothing to explain.”⁸ Lastly, and particularly suggestive of the manner in which Wittgenstein does respond to the asking of the question “what is time?”, he offers the following passage which crystallizes the basis of his approach towards what is the dissolution of the question itself. The quote is worth repeating at length.

It is not our aim to refine or complete the system of rules for the use of our words in unheard-of ways. For the clarity that we are aiming is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear. The real discovery is the one that makes me capable of stopping doing philosophy when I want to.–The one that gives philosophy peace, so that it is no longer tormented by questions which bring itself in question.–Instead, we now demonstrate a method, by examples; and the series of examples can be broken off.–Problems are solved (difficulties eliminated), not a single problem. There is not a philosophical method, though there are indeed methods, like different therapies.⁹

What he admits in his last statement here is key: philosophy is not so much a method as it is a grouping of varied method-like “therapies” which one implements as needed in order to not analytically solve but rather completely dissolve (dis-solve) philosophical problems and questions. It must be admitted here that there is a seductive appeal with Wittgenstein’s approach towards problems owed to the Augustinian effect, i.e. our asking “what is X?” despite our ability to notionally discern X under normal, everyday circumstances. Such an approach focuses on the remedial dissolution of the question by way of essentially presenting the entirety of the commonplace rhetoric – the “whole complicated grammar” – of the word “X” so much so that one can seemingly be left with the impression that there cannot possibly be more to X than its own forced submersion into the language surrounding the word “X.” By this we mean that X is ultimately “reducible”, for lack of a better word, to being nothing more than “X” the word which cannot be properly understood in any sense outside of the grammatical landscape in which it is ensconced. This attitude does reflect a sense of completeness: Wittgenstein advocates the demonstration of what time is by way of the protracted presentation of all pertinent, viably grammatical references involving the word “time” so much so that the question “what is time?” can seemingly beg of itself never to be asked again. With a so-called “therapeutic dissolution” like this, however, a certain expectation is quietly placed over the person who did dare ask the question “what is time?” in the first place. The once afflicted patient who like Augustine does ask “what is time?” is supposed to come away afterwards, upon having his question “grammatically” dissolved, with the feeling that he has been shown something new, something enlightening. As such he is supposed to feel content about what he has “accomplished.” He is then supposed to move on and away from this once most perplexing of vexations, namely, what is time? In the end his problem, his question, his vexation with what time is seems or is supposed to seem to him to be nothing more than a trivial matter. While this newly found view might be just what the person once afflicted with the question “what is time?” did need in order to at least be cured of his so-called “affliction”, what cannot, however, and must not be overlooked is that this affliction, this problem, did in fact in the first place exist. This in itself is no trivial matter. We ought to be aware therefore of the seeming triviality which Wittgenstein’s non-systematic “activity” (philosophy) can make of what were once highly considered, traditional philosophical questions.¹⁰

At this point it suffices for us to say in reference at least to Wittgenstein’s approach towards philosophy as a non-systematic “activity” – an activity whose aim is the “logical clarification of thoughts” made known essentially via “elucidations” and not necessarily, say, the production of definitions – that there is no formal system of metaphysics.¹¹ We mention this here because in reference to that with which we ended the above paragraph – namely, “highly considered, traditional philosophical questions” of which “what is space?” is but an example – we can say that such questions were and are to this day still tackled by some by means of deference to some sort of metaphysics or metaphysical system. Generally speaking, a system of metaphysics would certainly necessitate the need for some type of structure which incorporates, if not, then is at least based upon the tacit use of definitions (“formulations”). Wittgenstein’s attitude towards this as not being what philosophy is or at least not what it should be certainly lends some support as to why in his corpus of work there does not appear an outright metaphysical system.¹² We might say in fact for Wittgenstein that what one calls “metaphysics” is nothing more than the science of “fictitious entities” or “ethereal beings” which one thinks he sees hovering behind substantives like “space” or “time” for example.¹³ From this assessment of things it is truly not surprising then that in Wittgenstein we do not find any formal system of thought concerning a metaphysics, in particular a metaphysics of being such as what we do find with Aristotle and the Scholastics, most notably Thomas Aquinas.

Wittgenstein’s disdain for metaphysics, however, ran deeper than just a belittling of it as a seemingly fruitless search for the so-called “ethereal.”¹⁴ As evidenced in the Blue Book especially, Wittgenstein reacts against what he sees metaphysics as being: an incursion of the scientific method into the work of the philosopher. By “scientific method” we may understand here a methodology whose aim is one of reductionism and generalization. In the words of Wittgenstein, why a philosopher may develop a “preoccupation with the method of science” – one which has inspired a “craving for generality” – is certainly understandable by way of taking note of the (successful) manner in which such methodology has been employed by others.¹⁵ For example as Wittgenstein notes, it has been a general success on the part of the scientist to reduce explanations of “natural phenomena to the smallest possible number of primitive natural laws.”¹⁶ Likewise, it has been a general success on the part of the mathematician of “unifying the treatment of different topics by using a generalization.”¹⁷ The philosopher sees this reductionism occur within these respective fields and has understandably attempted to introduce such methodology into his work, his philosophy, in particular his metaphysics. In doing so, however, the philosopher imposes a duty upon philosophy which is either simply not in its now understood to be “therapeutic” nature or is simply outrightly dangerous to it. The tendency of this reductionistic “method of science” is “the real source of metaphysics, and leads the philosopher into complete darkness.”¹⁸ Wittgenstein’s assessment on the function of philosophy, as we have seen, is quite opposite to this and is quite clear: “I want to say here that it can never be our job to reduce anything to anything, or to explain anything. Philosophy really is ‘purely descriptive.’”¹⁹ In illustrating such a point Wittgenstein mentions a specific example taken from the world of science. The scientist is the one who is apt to ask the question “what is X?” in terms of objects which can be explored and demonstrated via the scientific method. In Philosophical Investigations §89 Wittgenstein proposes “what is the specific gravity of hydrogen?” as a specific example of this question concerning this type of object. After all, the specific gravity of hydrogen is a knowable object of natural science. From the scientific perspective then the specific gravity of hydrogen is real. In fact the scientist can readily explain what it is to someone without much problem if prompted to do so. Can we as philosophers, however, say the same for space or for time, respectively? Our answer here is no, yet Wittgenstein’s point is that the philosopher nonetheless asks the question “what is space?” as if it, i.e. space, was. Such a tendency again leads the philosopher into complete darkness. As such, the Wittgensteinian assessment is that the philosopher in asking this specific question concerning this specific object – an object which is certainly not some thing which science can validate as being real – is thus “afflicted” in some sense by a deep-seated confusion. Such a confusion has a tendency to arise when our words, that is, the words we actually use in our language and thus the language itself “goes on a holiday.”²⁰ As a means of philosophical therapy it is the job of us now as philosophers to bring such a person back into the light, so to speak, and rid him of this now understood problem. We have read of the method or means by which Wittgenstein advocates our attaining such a dissolution, that is, a completely forced disappearance of the question, namely, by way of a laying out of the “whole complicated grammar” of the word, in our case, of “space.” It is via nothing more than the description of the everyday grammar of the word “space” whereby we can finally help someone come to know what space is.

WORKS CITED

Baker, Gordon (ed.), Gordon Baker, Michael Mackert, John Connolly, and Vasilis Politis (trans.). The Voices of Wittgenstein: The Vienna Circle: Ludwig Wittgenstein and Friedrich Waismann. London: Routledge, 2003.

Pine-Coffin, R. S., trans. Saint Augustine Confessions. New York: Penguin Books, 1961.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig, G. E. M. Anscombe (trans.). Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1963.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Preliminary Studies for the “Philosophical Investigations”; Generally Known as the Blue and Brown Books. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.” In The Wittgensteinian Reader. Edited by Anthony Kenny. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1994.

ENDNOTES

1. Vienna Circle member Friedrich Waismann was a collaborator of Wittgenstein’s whose duty was to gather, organize, and make more readily presentable Wittgenstein’s ideas concerning his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which was considered to be the source of the Circle’s view on logic. For insight into how in Waismann’s expositions of Wittgenstein’s thinking the latter treats the asking of “what is X?”, see Gordon Baker et al., The Voices of Wittgenstein: The Vienna Circle: Ludwig Wittgenstein and Friedrich Waismann (London: Routledge, 2003), p. 487-489.

2. R. S. Pine-Coffin, trans., Saint Augustine Confessions (New York: Penguin Books, 1961), p. 264.

3. Gordon Baker et al., The Voices of Wittgenstein: The Vienna Circle: Ludwig Wittgenstein and Friedrich Waismann (London: Routledge, 2003), p. 487.

4. Gordon Baker et al., The Voices of Wittgenstein: The Vienna Circle: Ludwig Wittgenstein and Friedrich Waismann (London: Routledge, 2003), p. 487.

5. Gordon Baker et al., The Voices of Wittgenstein: The Vienna Circle: Ludwig Wittgenstein and Friedrich Waismann (London: Routledge, 2003), p. 483.

6. Gordon Baker et al., The Voices of Wittgenstein: The Vienna Circle: Ludwig Wittgenstein and Friedrich Waismann (London: Routledge, 2003), p. 483.

7. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1963), § 124.

8. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1963), § 126.

9. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1963), § 133. The emphasis here is Wittgenstein’s.

10. Ludwig Wittgenstein, “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus,” in The Wittgensteinian Reader, ed. by Anthony Kenny (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1994), 4.112.

11. Ludwig Wittgenstein, “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus,” in The Wittgensteinian Reader, ed. by Anthony Kenny (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1994), 4.112.

12. Wittgenstein’s concern with metaphysics centers not so much on the particular subject matter to which it relates, i.e. that which is thought to transcend the world, i.e. the inexpressible, but rather on the way or manner in which statements concerning such subject matter are presented, namely, as propositions. As Wittgenstein saw it, the problem with traditional metaphysics lies in its tendency to expound its propositions as if they purport truths or at least some truths about the world. In truth, however, propositions concerning that which transcends the world, i.e. the inexpressible, are nonsensical. They are not false in the sense of their being misstatements of fact because there is no fact entailed in them: they simply and collectively are nonsense which poses as or gives the appearance of being propositions of truth. In this sense Wittgenstein, strictly speaking, was not anti-metaphysical in his thinking but rather non-metaphysical. Traditional metaphysics was not the only endeavor to which Wittgenstein lent this criticism, however, as evidenced in the following quote from Fann (the author’s emphasis): “For Wittgenstein, metaphysics, ethics, religion and art all belong to the realm of the transcendental which cannot be said but only shown.”^†

^†K. T. Fann, Wittgenstein’s Conception of Philosophy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), p. 27.

13. Gordon Baker et al., The Voices of Wittgenstein: The Vienna Circle: Ludwig Wittgenstein and Friedrich Waismann (London: Routledge, 2003), p. 159-161. The quote in full is as follows:

A substantive misleads one into looking for a substance. One populates the world with ethereal beings, the shadowy companions of the substantives. One could legitimately call the science of these fictitious entities metaphysics. Such a substantive is, e.g., the word ‘being’. Typical too is the verb ‘to exist’, which seems to designate a kind of shadowy activity which is found with everything.

14. Perhaps “disdain” here is too harsh a word to use. To say that Wittgenstein was wanting to discredit or disparage the work of metaphysicians would be wrong. In one instance Wittgenstein is noted as actually praising the metaphysics of the past: “Don’t think I despise metaphysics. I regard some of the great philosophical systems of the past as among the noblest productions of the human mind.”^† What we are wanting to do, however, is to rid metaphysics of its unnecessary baggage. Such baggage, so to speak, is ensconced in the language in which metaphysics is presented, in the language which surrounds and envelops it.

^†Rush Rhees, Recollections of Wittgenstein (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 105.

15. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Preliminary Studies (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958), p. 18.

16. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Preliminary Studies (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958), p. 18.

17. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Preliminary Studies (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958), p. 18.

18. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Preliminary Studies (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958), p. 18.

19. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Preliminary Studies (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958), p. 18. The emphasis is Wittgenstein’s.

20. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1963), § 38.

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