Abstract
This essay presents a heterodox reading of the issue of solipsism in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (TLP), out of which the whole of the TLP can be re-read. Inspired by, though not dependent on, the themes of virtuality and singularity found in Deleuze’s ‘transcendental empiricism’ (presented as a Wittgensteinian ‘immaculate conception’), Wittgenstein’s concept of ‘logical space’ is here complexly related to the paradoxes of the ‘metaphysical subject’ and ‘solipsism,’ within which the strictures of sense are defined, and through which the logico-pictorial scaffolding of the TLP precipitates its own systematic dissolution. It shows how nonsense envelopes not only not idle chatter, and metaphysical confusion, but sense itself.
References
Boltzmann, Ludwig. Lectures on Gas Theory. Trans. Stephen G. Brush. New York: Dover Publications, 1995.Search in Google Scholar
Boltzmann, Ludwig. Theoretical Physics and Philosophical Problems. Trans. Paul Foulkes. Ed. Brian McGuiness. Boston: D. Reidel, 1974.Search in Google Scholar
Carnap, Rudolf. The Logical Syntax of Language. Trans. Amethe Smeaton. Peru, IL: Open Court, 2002.Search in Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gilles. The Logic of Sense. Trans. Mark Lester. New York: Columbia UP, 1990.Search in Google Scholar
Griffin, James. Wittgenstein’s Logical Atomism. Oxford: Claredon Press, 1964.Search in Google Scholar
Floyd, Juliet. “The Uncaptive Eye: Solipsism in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus.” Philosophies of Loneliness, 79-108. Ed. Leroy S. Rouner. South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998. Online.Search in Google Scholar
Hertz, Heinrich. The Principles of Mechanics. Trans. D. E. Jones and J. T. Walley. New York: Dover, 1956.Search in Google Scholar
Hacker, P. M. S. Insight and Illusion: Themes in the Philosophy of Wittgenstein. London: Oxford UP, 1997.Search in Google Scholar
Hamilton, Kelly. “Darstellungen in the Principles of Mechanics and the Tractatus: The Representation of Objects in Relation in Hertz and Wittgenstein.” Perspectives on Science 10:1 (2002): 28-68.10.1162/106361402762674799Search in Google Scholar
Harré, Rom. “Wittgenstein: Science and Religion.” Philosophy 76:2 (2001), 211 - 237.10.1017/S0031819101000249Search in Google Scholar
Hintikka, Jaakko. “On Wittgenstein’s ‘Solipsism’.” Mind 67:265 (1958), 88-91.10.1093/mind/LXVII.265.88Search in Google Scholar
Kallenberg, Brad. “Rethinking Fideism Though the Lens of Wittgenstein’s Engineering Outlook.” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 71:1 (2012), 55-73.10.1007/s11153-011-9327-0Search in Google Scholar
Kenny, Anthony. Wittgenstein. Malden, MA: Blackwell. 2006.10.1002/9780470776643Search in Google Scholar
Nolte, David D. “The Tangled Tale of Phase Space.” Physics Today 63:4 (2010), 33-38.10.1063/1.3397041Search in Google Scholar
Monk, Ray. Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. London: Jonathan Cape, 1990.Search in Google Scholar
Pârvu, Ilie. “‘Meine Grundgedanke ist…’ The Structural Theory of Representation as the Metaphysics of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.” Synthese 129:2 (2001), 259-274.Search in Google Scholar
Pears, D. F. “Wittgenstein’s Treatment of Solipsism in the Tractatus.” Crítica: Revista Hispanoamericana De Filosofía 6:16/17(1972), 57-84.10.22201/iifs.18704905e.1972.133Search in Google Scholar
Pihlström, Sami. “A Solipsist in a Real World.” Dialectica 50:4 (2005), 275-90.10.1111/j.1746-8361.1996.tb00014.xSearch in Google Scholar
Swoyer, Chris. “Structural Representation and Surrogative Reasoning.” Synthese 87:3 (1991), 449-508.10.1007/BF00499820Search in Google Scholar
Tang, Hao. “Transcendental Idealism in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus.” The Philosophical Quarterly 61:244 (2011), 598-607.10.1111/j.1467-9213.2011.697.xSearch in Google Scholar
Turner, Jason. The Facts in Logical Space: A Tractarian Ontology. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2016.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199682812.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Wilson, Mark. “Wittgenstein: Physica sunt, Non Leguntur.” Philosophical Topics 25:2 (1997), 289-316.10.5840/philtopics199725215Search in Google Scholar
Weisstein, Eric W. “Singularity.” MathWorld-A Wolfram Web Resource. Online. 22 Apr. 2017. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Singularity.html.Search in Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Notebooks, 1914-1916: 2nd Edition. Ed. G. H. v. Wright. Trans. G. E. M. Anscombe. Chicago: U. Chicago, 1984.Search in Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated by C. K. Ogden [and F. P. Ramsey]. London: Routledge &Kegan Paul, 1922.Search in Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated by D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness. London: Routledge, 2001.Search in Google Scholar
© by M. Curtis Allen, published by De Gruyter
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.
