Tractus Logico 2 -2.063

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vive la insurrection Posted: Sat, Apr 21 2012 12:06 PM

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This is the 2nd part of the Tractus disscussion group. The Mother thread is here:

http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/28879.aspx

2 What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts.

2.01 An atomic fact is a combination of objects (entities, things).

2.011 It is essential to a thing that it can be a constituent part of an

atomic fact.

2.012 In logic nothing is accidental: if a thing can occur in an atomic

fact the possibility of that atomic fact must already be prejudged

in the thing.

2.0121 It would, so to speak, appear as an accident, when to a thing

that could exist alone on its own account, subsequently a state

of aﬀairs could be made to ﬁt.

If things can occur in atomic facts, this possibility must already lie in them.

(A logical entity cannot be merely possible. Logic treats of

every possibility, and all possibilities are its facts.)

Just as we cannot think of spatial objects at all apart from

space, or temporal objects apart from time, so we cannot think

of any object apart from the possibility of its connexion with

other things.

If I can think of an object in the context of an atomic fact,

I cannot think of it apart from the possibility of this context.

2.0122 The thing is independent, in so far as it can occur in all possible circumstances, but this form of independence is a form of

connexion with the atomic fact, a form of dependence. (It is

impossible for words to occur in two diﬀerent ways, alone and

in the proposition.)

2.0123 If I know an object, then I also know all the possibilities of its

occurrence in atomic facts.

(Every such possibility must lie in the nature of the object.)

A new possibility cannot subsequently be found.

2.01231 In order to know an object, I must know not its external but all

its internal qualities.

2.0124 If all objects are given, then thereby are all possible atomic facts

also given.

2.013 Every thing is, as it were, in a space of possible atomic facts. I

can think of this space as empty, but not of the thing without

the space.

2.0131 A spatial object must lie in inﬁnite space. (A point in space is

a place for an argument.)

A speck in a visual ﬁeld need not be red, but it must have a

colour; it has, so to speak, a colour space round it. A tone must

have a pitch, the object of the sense of touch a hardness, etc.

2.014 Objects contain the possibility of all states of aﬀairs.

2.0141 The possibility of its occurrence in atomic facts is the form of

the object.

2.02 The object is simple.

2.0201 Every statement about complexes can be analysed into a state

ment about their constituent parts, and into those propositions

which completely describe the complexes.

2.021 Objects form the substance of the world. Therefore they cannot

be compound.

2.0211 If the world had no substance, then whether a proposition had

sense would depend on whether another proposition was true.

2.0212 It would then be impossible to form a picture of the world (true

or false).

2.022 It is clear that however diﬀerent from the real one an imagined

world may be, it must have something—a form—in common

with the real world.

2.023 This ﬁxed form consists of the objects.

2.0231 The substance of the world can only determine a form and not

any material properties. For these are ﬁrst presented by the

propositions—ﬁrst formed by the conﬁguration of the objects.

2.0232 Roughly speaking: objects are colourless.

2.0233 Two objects of the same logical form are—apart from their external properties—only diﬀerentiated from one another in that

they are diﬀerent.

2.02331 Either a thing has properties which no other has, and then one

can distinguish it straight away from the others by a description

and refer to it; or, on the other hand, there are several things

which have the totality of their properties in common, and then

it is quite impossible to point to any one of them.

For if a thing is not distinguished by anything, I cannot distinguish it—for otherwise it would be distinguished.

2.024 Substance is what exists independently of what is the case.

2.025 It is form and content.

2.0251 Space, time and colour (colouredness) are forms of objects.

2.026 Only if there are objects can there be a ﬁxed form of the world

2.027 The ﬁxed, the existent and the object are one.

2.0271 The object is the ﬁxed, the existent; the conﬁguration is the

changing, the variable.

2.0272 The conﬁguration of the objects forms the atomic fact.

2.03 In the atomic fact objects hang one in another, like the members

of a chain.

2.031 In the atomic fact the objects are combined in a deﬁnite way.

2.032 The way in which objects hang together in the atomic fact is

the structure of the atomic fact.

2.033 The form is the possibility of the structure.

2.034 The structure of the fact consists of the structures of the atomic

facts.

2.04 The totality of existent atomic facts is the world.

2.05 The totality of existent atomic facts also determines which atomic facts do not exist.

2.06 The existence and non-existence of atomic facts is the reality.

(The existence of atomic facts we also call a positive fact,

their non-existence a negative fact.)

2.061 Atomic facts are independent of one another.

2.062 From the existence or non-existence of an atomic fact we cannot

infer the existence or non-existence of another.

2.063 The total reality is the world

"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann

"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle

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vive la insurrection replied on Sat, Apr 21 2012 12:08 PM

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In section 2 Wit discusses what a fact is. Section 2 is FACTS

2.01 - 2.063 shows what he eans when he says atomic facts:

This section could be called: Atomic Facts

"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann

"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle

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vive la insurrection replied on Sat, Apr 21 2012 6:24 PM

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I don't know if I have much to say on this thread. I think it explains itself well. If someone wants me to format it in a more east to read / comprehend "outline" model I will

"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann

"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle

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Smiling Dave replied on Sun, Apr 22 2012 1:44 PM

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I find that it's easier to read from the bottom up, starting with 2.063 and working up to 2.

My humble blog

It's easy to refute an argument if you first misrepresent it. William Keizer

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Clayton replied on Sun, Apr 22 2012 2:10 PM

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I have to say I admire the structure of the Tractatus - it takes a lot of guts and hard work to make the sturcture of your argument clearly visible and unambiguous. Although I don't agree with a lot of what Wittgenstein says in the Tractatus, I think it is a model for certain kinds of philosophical argument.

Clayton -

http://voluntaryistreader.wordpress.com

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Smiling Dave replied on Sun, Apr 22 2012 2:55 PM

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Clayton:

I have to say I admire the structure of the Tractatus - it takes a lot of guts and hard work to make the sturcture of your argument clearly visible and unambiguous. Although I don't agree with a lot of what Wittgenstein says in the Tractatus, I think it is a model for certain kinds of philosophical argument.

Clayton -

Anyone feel like doing something similar for AE?

My humble blog

It's easy to refute an argument if you first misrepresent it. William Keizer

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Smiling Dave replied on Sun, Apr 22 2012 3:21 PM

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Following up on what I wrote here, the content of section 2 through 2.063 is going to be deep stuff.

1. He talks a lot about "objects". Now, since "facts" do not exist in our Universe, but in "logical space", as he wrote earlier [see above link], and he claims that objects are parts of facts [=2.01 An atomic fact is a combination of objects (entities, things)], then of course the apple I am about to take a bite out of is not the kind of object he is talking about. That apple exists in the physical universe, not in "logical space". Also, that apple does have an existence independent of any facts about it, it would seem to me. An apple is an apple. But the objects he is going to talk about live in "logical space", not in the physical Universe, and he is going to show that they are pretty strange creatures.

2. Let's talk a little about this "logical space". He says some odd things about it. For one thing, he used two different phrases, "logical space" and "the world". A fellow on Witt's level would not use two phrase for the same thing unless he made it quite clear that they are indeed the same thing. So that we must conclude that the world [=the set of all true facts] is a proper subset of logical space. There are more things hanging around logical space than just facts and just "the world". What else is there remains to be seen.

First of all, not just truths hang around in logical space. Falsities do also. Socrates being American is a falsity, and it also is sitting in some pub in logical space, drinking a beer. He says this quite clearly in 2.06:

(The existence of atomic facts we also call a positive fact,

their non-existence a negative fact.)

The "facts" that are true, that "exist", that are positive ["true", "exist", and "positive" are three ways of saying the same thing], are the elements of the set he calls "the world". He states this explicitly in 2.04:

2.04 The totality of existent atomic facts is the world.

Just to be absolutely clear, "existence" [as used by Witt] for a fact means the idea it conveys is true in our real physical universe. But non existent facts [=facts that convey ideas that are false in the real world, such as Socrates being American], are "facts" as well; they are negative facts. They are fair game for logic to study, and so they exist in logical space [to the extent anything exists there], although they would not be said to "exist" in the very special and technical sense of "exist' [=true in our physical world] that Witt gave to that word.

So I'm beginning to think that the inhabitants of this twilight zone he calls logical space are the concepts and ideas that logical thinking thinks about.

[Again, it doesn't really matter whether there really "is" a logical space out there somewhere, or if it's all in our heads. Just as it doesn't really matter to a mathematician whether there really is such a thing as a set, or a number, so too everything Witt says about logical space remains valid whether that space is "real" in any sense or not.]

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