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A NOTE ON FREGE'S AND RUSSELLS INFLUENCE ON WITTGENSTEIN'S TRACTATUS RICHARD MCDONOUGH Philosophy / University of Tulsa Tulsa, OK 74I04-3189, USA I n the Preface to the TractatusI Wittgenstein acknowledges only Frege and Russell: "I will only mention that I am indebted to Frege's great [grossartigen] works and writings of my friend Mr. Bertrand Russell for much of the stimulation of my thoughts."2 Many important commentators have detected a slant towards Frege. Wittgenstein 's reference to Frege's "great works" is, prima facie, stronger than his praise for Russell. This has had a profound influence on generations of commentators. Dummett writes, "The Tractatus pays a profound homage to Frege, homage that is pointedly more intense than that paid to Russell."3 Anscombe writes that "His [LW's] relative estimate of [Frege and Russell] comes out in the acknowledgements he I All references to Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [TLP], trans. D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness (London: Routledge, 1961), except to the Preface, are by proposition number. All references to Zettel (Los Angeles: U. of California P., 1970) are by paragraph number. All references to Wittgenstein's Culture and Value (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980) and Notebooks, I9I4-I6 (New York: Harper & Row, 1969) are by page number. 2 The Ogden translation of the sentence, which Wittgenstein approved, reads: "[ will only mention that to the great works of Frege and the writings of my friend Bertrand Russell [ owe in large measure the stimulation of my thoughts." The original German is: "Nur das will ich erwiihnen, dass ich den grossartigen W't?rken Freges und den Arbeiten meines Freundes Herm Bertrand Russell einen grossen Teil der Anregung zu meinen Gedanken schulde." l M. Dummett, Frege: Philosophy o/Language (London: Duckworth, 1981), p. 662. russell: the Journal of the Bertrand Russell Archives McMaster University Library Press n.s. 14 (summer 1994): 39-46 ISSN 0036-0163' 40 RICHARD MCDONOUGH makes to them in the Preface."4 Carruthers has recently defended an extreme version of this view. He holds that "Frege and Russell, are the only known influences of TLP'''5 Of the two, he regards Frege as the more important: "My impression is that Wittgenstein was partly contemptuous of Russell as a philosopher, whereas Frege he revered from the beginning to the very end ..." (ibid., p. 187n.14). Carruthers goes beyond the common observation that the praise for. Frege seems greater than that reserved for Russell. First, he wants to use the acknowledgements to exclude other possible influences, besides Frege and Russell, on the interpretation of TLP. Second, he employs the acknowledgements to justify a specifically Fregean interpretation of specific doctrines in TLP (for example, in support of his view that the TLP notion of the thought is a "quasi-Fregean" notion of a mind independent bearer of truth values6 ).7 But the first of these claims is demonstrably false, and the second is unwarranted. With regard to the first claim, at TLP 4.04 Wittgenstein instructs the reader to compare his account of the proposition with Hertz's account of "dynamical" mental systems. There are other known influences on TLP besides Frege and Russell. With regard to the second point, it is simply unwarranted to extend the general praise for Frege in the Preface to the interpretation of specific doctrines of TLP. Finally, I argue that Wittgenstein's acknowledgements do not justify the interpretation that Frege is the paramount influence on the doctrines of the Tractatus. Although I am here more interested in general principles of interpretation than specific doctrines, I illustrate these points with regard to a mentalistic interpretation of Tractatus thoughts (which has connections with both Hertz and Russell). First, let us look at the sense in which the pair, Frege and Russell, are singled out at the expense of other influences. Consider Wittgenstein 's precise wording, and the context, in the acknowledgements. It 4 G. E. M. Anscombe, An Introduction to Wittgenstein's Tractatus (London: Hutchinson, 1959), p. 12. j P. Carruthers, Tractarian Semantics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), p. 9. 6 "The Tractatus is a pure essay in the theory of meaning, from which every trace of epistemological or psychological consideration has been purged as thoroughly as...

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