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Φ Unrestricted Philosophy - What is Space? Φ Thoughts Concerning Wittgensteinian-Waismannian Dissolution in General Copyright © 2006-2009 by C. L. Brown – UnrestrictedPhilosophy.com The impression one acquires in the reading
of Friedrich Waismann’s treatment of what can
generically be called the “Augustinian effect” – our asking the question “what is X?” 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 Waismann’s treatment of what is Augustine’s famous question
“What, then, is time?”2 For Waismann 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” of some sort, which answers for us the question “what is
time?” The “simple truth”, Waismann 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 Waismann’s
attitude towards the role which philosophy
as understood by him and, for that
matter, Ludwig Wittgenstein 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 of things but rather quite the opposite: philosophy, instead,
subordinates itself to our language. In
the Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein – with whom, we remember, Waismann had once collaborated7 – 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.”8 Subsequently, “Philosophy simply puts
everything before us, and neither explains nor deduces anything.–Since
everything lies open to view there is nothing to explain.”9 Lastly, and in being particularly suggestive of
the manner which Wittgenstein advocates we do respond to philosophical
questions – an example of which is the Socratic “What is X?”-type of question – we offer the following passage of his
which crystallizes the basis of his approach towards what is the dissolution of such questions.
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.10 What
Wittgenstein admits in his last sentence 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 and especially Waismann’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, in particular that of Waismann,
focuses on the remedial dissolution of the question by way of 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
anything more to X than its own
forced submersion into the language surrounding the word “X.” By this we mean that it may possibly be
thought 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 perhaps as mentioned
reflect a sense of completeness: Waismann 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 considered
“afflicted” patient who like Augustine does ask “what is time?” out of a
sense of desperation11,
if one will, 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 seemingly 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 have been 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”, 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) as portrayed or depicted in, say, the work of Waismann can make of what were once highly considered,
traditional philosophical questions.12 At
this point it suffices for us to say in reference 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.13 We mention this here because in reference to
that with which we ended the above paragraph – namely, “what were once 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 work
on metaphysics.14 We might even say in fact for Waismann at least that what one does call “metaphysics” is
nothing more than the science of “fictitious entities” or “ethereal beings”
which one thinks he sees hovering behind substantives like “space” and “time”,
respectively.15 From this assessment of things it is truly
not surprising then that in neither Wittgenstein nor Waismann
do we find any formal system of thought concerning metaphysics such as what we
do with Aristotle and the Scholastics, most notably Thomas Aquinas. Wittgenstein’s disdain for
metaphysics, however, ran deeper than just a belittlement of it as a seemingly
fruitless search for the “ethereal.”16 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.
According to 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.17 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.”18
Likewise, it has been a general success on the part of the
mathematician of “unifying the treatment of different topics by using a
generalization.”19 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.”20 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.’”21 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, particularly by way of the so-called scientific method. In Philosophical
Investigations §89 Wittgenstein proposes “what is the specific gravity of
hydrogen?” as a specific example of this type of 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, however, say the same for space and
for time, respectively, in terms of their being knowable objects of
science? Our answer here is obviously
no, and yet Wittgenstein’s point is that the careless philosopher nonetheless
does ask the question “what is space?” as if it, i.e. space, is such
an object. Such a tendency on the part of
such a philosopher again leads him into a state of complete darkness. As such, the Wittgensteinian
assessment is that the philosopher in asking this specific question concerning
this specific object 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.”22 As a means of (philosophical)
therapy it is the job of philosophy now
considered to bring people such as the misguided philosopher here back into
the light, so to speak, and rid them of this now understood problem. We have read of the method or means by which Waismann 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 the word “space.” It is
by way of nothing more than the description of the everyday grammar of the word
“space” whereby we can finally help someone else as well as ourselves come to know what space is. WORKS FROM WHICH WE HAVE QUOTED 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. 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 to a wider audience Wittgenstein’s ideas
concerning his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which was considered to
be the source of the Circle’s view on logic.
For a discussion concerning the collaboration between the two see n. 9
of our paper “A Wittgensteinian-Waismannian
Dissolution of the Question of Space” (http://www.unrestrictedphilosophy.com/dissolution.htm). For insight into how in Waismann’s
expositions the asking of more or less specific “what is X?”-type of questions
are to be handled, see Gordon Baker et al., The Voices of
Wittgenstein: The Vienna Circle: Ludwig Wittgenstein
and Friedrich Waismann (London: Routledge, 2003), p. 487-489. 2. See 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. See n. 9 of C. L. Brown, “A
Wittgensteinian-Waismannian
Dissolution of the Question of Space” (http://www.unrestrictedphilosophy.com/dissolution.htm)
for a discussion concerning Wittgenstein’s and Waismann’s collaboration. 8. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical
Investigations (Oxford:
Basil Blackwell, 1963), § 124. 9. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical
Investigations (Oxford:
Basil Blackwell, 1963), § 126. 10. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical
Investigations (Oxford:
Basil Blackwell, 1963), § 133.
The emphasis is Wittgenstein’s. 11. To say that it is in desperation that
Augustine produces his famed question of
time is something which one does
generally ascertain from a reading of the existent literature on
the matter but is not something which is in absolute agreement amongst
everyone. In her book What, Then, Is Time? Eva Brann’s take on Augustine’s asking of his famous question –
the very question that she chooses for her book’s title – is one not of
desperation or discomfort with the concept of time but rather of something which one might say is the complete
opposite: a joyous, enthusiastic zeal for time itself. States Brann in
terms of Wittgenstein’s assessment of Augustine’s question: Ludwig
Wittgenstein . . . says in a passage on Augustine in The Blue Book that
this “What is . . . ?” question concerning time is, like any other, an expression
of “mental discomfort,” comparable to the “Why?” question children ask, a
question that doesn’t necessarily demand a cause or a reason. The
question about time, he says, really arises for Augustine in respect to
measuring it, and the puzzle comes from a contradiction in the different usages
of the word “time”: He thinks of it as a length to be measured on a traveling
band as it passes us and then applies this process analogously to time
itself. The problem, Wittgenstein says, is simple and its difficulty is
due to the fascination with and confusion of two
similar structures of language: length-language and time-language.
Augustine’s question is exploded and the pieces are reduced to a grammatical
puzzle – grammar understood as a set of strict rules regulating language
use. “Philosophy, as we use the word,” he concludes, “is a fight against
the fascination which forms of expression exert upon us.” And, he says,
asking for more and better definitions will get us nothing.† As mentioned,
Brann takes umbrage here with what is Wittgenstein’s
“discomfort”-based rendering of Augustine’s intention in his, i.e.
Augustine’s, asking “what, then, is time?”
Her assessment of Augustine is straightforward in its being critical of
such “discomfort”-based thinking. Now it is
true . . . that Augustine attacks time as a problem by asking how it
is that we can measure it, seeing that it is in its forward and backward
extension nonpresent, and in its present Now not an
extended quantity. But it is quite false that that is the reason why the
question of time arises for him, or that he is looking for dispositive
definitions when he asks the question “What, then, is time?” Nor is he
confused. It might be said that the open-eyed perplexity of one who wants
to know is the one state truly exempt from mere confusion, for confusion ends
when questioning perplexity takes hold. Moreover, there is really no
“mental discomfort” in Augustine’s inquiry; the anxiety is rather on the side
of him who feels the need to ease anxiety by mortifying wonder and by doing
away with the question. But above all, Augustine does not seem to me to
labor under a bewitched fascination but rather to rejoice in a serene ardor . .
. .† In taking stock of Brann’s comments here we feel emboldened to say that quite possibly it was Wittgenstein himself who was the one who had reservations about or a “mental discomfort” with the asking of “what is time?” In hindsight now perhaps Wittgenstein’s and most especially Waismann’s agenda in their treatments of the celebrated question “what is time?” would appear if anything to be attempts, dare we say somewhat “desperate” attempts on their respective parts, at defeating if not at least then devaluing the wonder at the meaning of the word “time.” As she writes later in her exposition upon the position that time is not a mere linguistic usage which the Wittgensteinian-Wasimannian corpus would have one think, Brann personally assails this would-be attitude: “As it happens, the last thing I want to defeat is my wonder at the meaning of words. . . .”‡ †Eva Brann, What, Then, Is Time? (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman
& Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2001), p. 113. ‡Eva Brann, What, Then, Is Time? (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman
& Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2001), p. 195. 12. The word “activity” here is taken from
Wittgenstein in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. See Ludwig Wittgenstein, “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus,”
in The Wittgensteinian
Reader, ed. by Anthony Kenny (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1994),
4.112. 13. Ludwig Wittgenstein, “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus,”
in The Wittgensteinian
Reader, ed. by Anthony Kenny (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1994),
4.112. 14. 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, that is, 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 cannot be false in the sense of their
being misstatements of fact because there is no fact entailed in them; rather,
they simply and collectively serve as 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 simply 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. 15. 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.
16. Perhaps “disdain”
here is too harsh a word to use. To say
that Wittgenstein was wanting to completely discredit
or dismantle the work of the metaphysician 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.Ӡ 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, in the language – quite often – of the substantive. †Rush Rhees,
Recollections of Wittgenstein
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 105. 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. 20. Ludwig
Wittgenstein, Preliminary Studies
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958), p. 18. 21. Ludwig Wittgenstein,
Preliminary Studies (New York: Harper
& Brothers, 1958), p. 18. The emphasis is Wittgenstein’s. 22.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1963), § 38.
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