Abstract
In this paper, I discuss the similarity between Wittgenstein’s use of thought experiments and Relativity Theory. I begin with introducing Wittgenstein’s idea of “thought experiments” and a tentative classification of different kinds of thought experiments in Wittgenstein’s work. Then, after presenting a short recap of some remarks on the analogy between Wittgenstein’s point of view and Einstein’s, I suggest three analogies between the status of Wittgenstein’s mental experiments and Relativity theory: the topics of time dilation, the search for invariants, and the role of measuring tools in Special Relativity. This last point will help to better define Wittgenstein’s idea of description as the core of his philosophical enterprise.
Different drafts of this paper have been presented—in 2012 at the EPILOG Seminar in Genoa and at the “In Wittgenstein’s footsteps” Conference at the University of Iceland in Reykjavìk; in 2014 at the University of East Anglia and at a conference on “Wittgenstein and Physics” at St. Cross College, Oxford. I thank all participants for their useful comments and criticism, especially Joanna Maria Antonia Ashbourn, Mikael Karlsson, Oskari Kuusela, Ray Monk, Valeria Ottonelli, Silvia Panizza, Rupert Read, Mauricio Suarez. A special thanks to Diego Marconi, Brian McGuinness and Nino Zanghì for their suggestions and encouragement.
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Notes
- 1.
Mach’s paper “Über Gedankenexperimente” was first published in 1897 in a little known journal of chemistry and later included in his book Erkenntnis und Irrtum (1905; 2nd ed. 1906) where Wittgenstein might have read it. It is probable that Wittgenstein was implicitly referring to Einstein’s thought experiments, given the time of the entry in the late twenties, when Wittgenstein used to discuss with Waismann and Schlick, one of the main interpreters of Einstein’s work (we find an echo of the discussions on Einstein’s simultaneity problem in the first chapter of Waismann 1965)
- 2.
I will speak interchangebaly of “thought experiment” and “mental experiment”, keeping in mind that they are not intended as analysis of our psychological and biological activities but as the analysis of concepts. Wittgenstein was not studying the biological development of our capacity of categoriziation, but had an idea of concept more similar to the Fregean one. See Marconi (2015) for the contraposition between cognitive and metaphysical views of concepts. Roux 2011 defines the characteristic features of mental experiments as (i) counterfactual reasoning (ii) referring to concrete scenarios (ii) linked to a specific cognitive intention. Wittgenstein’s thought experiments can be framed as counterfactual reasoning, with a concrete scenario (e.g. what if thing were different from what they normally are, for instance if a rigid rod shrinks? RFM I: 119). This does not imply a metaphysical viewpoint on possible worlds (as in Williamson 2007; see Marconi 2017 for a criticism) but a style of reasoning.
- 3.
From Horowitz-Massey (1991) to Ierodiakonou-Roux (2011) the literature on mental experiments has incredibly increased. Here I will simply use the basic classification given by Brown (1986) between constructive and destructive mental experiments, which I think helps understanding different roles of mental experiments in Wittgenstein’s work. Wittgenstein’s mental experiments are liable of being represented as arguments, although not always easy, given that we often need to reconstruct his arguments from scattered remarks. However, reconstructing arguments seems to be the best way to avoid “bad intuition pumps” (cfr. Brendel 2004).
- 4.
Picardi (2009) sees primitive language games as having the function “to enable us to arrange phenomena along a scale”, using different extensions or expansions of it, as happens with the language game of the builders. One of the main claims of this remarkable paper is that “the conceptual tools required in certain extensions of the language depend on the availability of conceptual resources acquired at a lower level. Thus, in Dummett’s terminology, there is a relation of relative priority among language-games; there is (partial) order in the motley”.
- 5.
The distinction is not so sharp, and many interpretations are more nuanced than it may appear. I make just one classical example: Winch (2014) attempts to do with Edward Evans Pritchard and his judgment on Zande culture what Wittgenstein did with James Frazer. Winch criticizes Evans Pritchard for thinking that Western scientific explanations are “in accord with the objective facts”, while we cannot define a reality which is independent of social practices and institutions (e.g. Winch 1976: 12). He seems therefore to be a strong cultural relativist, and to support the idea that what is real depends on human mind (see also Burley 2012). Against the standard interpretation of Winch as a relativist, Hutchinson et al. (2008) claim that a correct rendering of Winch ideas is not as a relativist, but as a proponent of a more subtle and complex stance that would be not so different from what I propose in this paper.
- 6.
It is worth remarking that the anti-relativistic interpretation has been supported by Anscombe’s translation of the passage of Philosophical Investigation 206 quoted above, where the phrase “die gemeinsame menschliche Handlungsweise” is translated as “the common behaviour of mankind”. Accepting Anscombe’s translation implies that there is a clear reference to something like universal features of human behaviour. Savigny (1991) was the first to point out the problem of an ambiguity in the German text. In a later edition (2009) the English translation has been changed into “shared human behaviour”, permitting also a relativistic interpretation of the passage, where we might think of specific features of behaviour and reasoning shared in a local community. However, the German text permits both interpretations and is of no use in deciding which of the two is the right one. For a discussion of the development of the different editions of Wittgenstein’s texts see Erbacher (2014).
- 7.
Quoted from Einstein (1919), also reported in Einstein (2002): Volume n. 7, ch. 28. It is reasonable to imagine that Wittgenstein, coming back to Wien at the end of the war in 1919, could not avoid having a look at the many remarks on the topic in newspapers available in most Viennese cafes (and at home). On the presence in German newspapers of news about the confirmation of relativity theory see Elton (1986). Unfortunately there is no research on the presence of articles on relativity theory in the Austrian newspaper Neue Freie Presse, that Brian F. McGuinness suggested me to consult. As far as I have verified, Einstein himself was requested to publish a paper by the Neue Freie Presse, but he had to answer (December 6, 1919) that he could not give them the content of a paper already published in The Times on November 28 1919; however he would later publish an article on the Theory of Relativity for the Neue Freie Presse in 1920 (July 24: “Die hauptsächlichen Gedanken der Relativitätstheorie”) and in 1921 (January14). The Berliner Tageblatt and the Vossische Zeitung had already published articles on the confirmation of Einstein’s Theory by the solar eclipse (October 6, 1919 in Berliner Tageblatt: “The sun brings it to light”; October 15, 1919 in Vossische Zeitung: “solar Eclipse and Relativity Theory”, where specifications of the bending of the light beam were given in details); the 14th of December 1919 the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung published the famous picture of Einstein on its front page; The Neue Freie Presse continued to publish articles on Relativity theory (e.g. by Oskar Kraus on September, 11, 1920 and on October 27, 1923). German newspapers can be consulted at http://zefys.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de; Austrian newspapers at: http://anno.onb.ac.at.
- 8.
Views of the kind were not absent from the Vienna Circle, where Duhem’s work was well known and discussed, given the translation into German, with a preface by Mach, in 1908.
- 9.
The debate on rule-following is almost endless. There are at least two dilemmas: Platonist versus communitarian justifications of rule-following (truth conditions vs. assertibility conditions) and individualistic versus communitarian mastering of rule-following (Kusch’s communitarian view is dealing with the latter). This duplicity makes it difficult to give a proper assessment of the contrasts among interpretations. For a discussion see also, Baker-Hacker (2009), §IV and Horwich (2010: 133). In RFM VI 49 Wittgenstein suggests the following anti-consensualist view: “If what a proposition of logic said was: Human beings agree with one another in such and such ways (…) then its contradictory would say that there is here a lack of agreement. Not that there is an agreement of other kind. The agreement of humans that is a presupposition of logic is not an agreement in opinions, much less in opinions on questions of logic”. An anti-consensualist view is developed by Crispin Wright who claims that Wittgenstein’s analogy between his philosophy and Relativity theory suggests a more constructive kind of response to the rule-following considerations, that partly undermines the interpretation of Wittgenstein’s quietism (see also Footnote 15).
- 10.
For a more complete list of quotations we can find in different phases of Wittgenstein’s philosophy see Penco (2010).
- 11.
While Wittgenstein often uses the term “coordinate system” (since PR 46, 83, 206) or “system of reference” he also uses, although rarely, the term “system of concepts” (e.g. RPP I 47).
- 12.
The following analysis is coherent with the general idea of “hinge epistemology” (Coliva 2016). My suggestion is that we may view the idea of “hinge” as a metaphor of a coordinate system. What is a coordinate system if not a theoretical hinge on which we rely to organize our descriptions?
- 13.
- 14.
Wright (2002: 32–35) presents the comparison with Relativity theory as follows: “Just as, from the relativistic standpoint, we abandon the idea that our measurement practices answer to absolute and independently constituted determinations of spatiotemporal values, instead regarding those very practices as grounding of our concepts of spatio-temporal parameters and of the content of statements concerning them (…) so we should abandon the idea that in basic rule-following, our moves and judgments answer to independently constituted determinations of correctness, instead regarding our propensities to convergence as grounding our concepts of what it is to follow such rules correctly and the content of the judgments on which we converge.” At first sight it might appear that these remarks could be interpreted as a move from an absolute Platonist account towards a communitarian or consensualist account of rule-following (as claimed, following Kripke, by Kusch 2013). However, as Wright insists, rule-following still cannot be identified, as a matter of conceptual necessity, with what most human beings converge on. Although arising from our primitive dispositions to converge, we cannot identify convergence or consensus as what constitutes or guides our basic rule-following, e.g. judgments about colours (see RMF VI, 28 where Wittgenstein connects his analogy to Relativity theory to rule-following considerations). In these basic cases we are not really “guided” by anything. It is correct to say that “basic rule-following, like all rule-following, is rational in the sense that it involves intentionality and a willingness to accept correction in the light of error.” (Wright 2009: 497–8). But this does not mean that it requires a justification on some further level of analysis, e.g. that it depends on consensus. We rely on the rigidity of our basic judgments on colours just as we rely on the rigidity of clocks and rods. This rigidity permits us understanding what is error and what is correct and incorrect application.
- 15.
Kusch (2015) abundantly uses the mental experiment of wood sellers to verify the compatibility of Wittgenstein with a “standard model” of relativism defined according to a model of “metrological relativism”. However I will avoid this kind of comparison, in order to find a fresh start on Wittgenstein’s similarity with Relativity theory independent of the debate on relativism.
- 16.
Speaking of logical madness Frege (1893) appears to hint at some way of thinking in which we cannot participate. However, as Cerbone (2000) has shown, it is not as simple as that. There is in Frege both a normative strand (logical laws are a norm of correct thinking; there may be people that do not follow them, and therefore are wrong in their judgments—and we might not be able to think the way they think) and a constitutive strand (logical laws do not prescribe how we should think but form the background that constitutes thinking; in principle there cannot be people who think and at the same time disagree with logical laws). According to Cerbone, Wittgenstein would follow the second strand, concluding that if we imagine beings who infer and argue, then we cannot imagine them as if they were outside the realm of logic. However which logic are we speaking about when speaking of language games is not clearly defined.
- 17.
It is difficult to understand how much Wittgenstein knew about Relativity theory. Probably his remarks fundamentally concern Special Relativity and Wittgenstein maybe influenced by the idea of preferred global space-time coordinates to which Einstein gave a direct physical and intuitive reading. On this limitation of Special Relativity see Dieks (2018).
- 18.
This is obviously a very simplified vision of the institution of potlach, in which natives of the northwestern coast of America gave away things of great value as gifts. The institution of potlach was prohibited because it was considered irrational. However it was much studied after the work by Durkheim’s nephew, Marcel Mauss in his Essay sur le done (1925), until it became apparent that the economy of potlach is of a completely different kind from ours, and its prohibition from Western colonialism was based on misunderstanding (see for instance Bracken 1997). Another example of correcting a bad interpretation derived by not realizing that our concept cannot be applied as such in alien systems comes from Malinowsky’s critique of Frazer and Durkheim. They claimed that Australian aborigines just “lacked” an economy, as if they were a primitive stage of human society; contrary to this idea Malinowsky shows that totemism amounts to a “magical economy”, very different from ours (e.g. Thornton et al. 2006, p. 45). Wittgenstein’s critique of Frazer is probably an application to anthropology of his idea that our normal concept cannot be applied as such to an alien system.
- 19.
Cerbone (2000).
- 20.
We may interpret in this way what Tripodi (2013) claims regarding the point of these experiments: to see how far our concepts can be stretched. This is not done without a purpose; we try to stretch them in order to find out how we can understand others.
- 21.
Marconi (2017: 115) shows that the difference with wood sellers and us may be interpreted both as a semantic difference (we have different concepts) and as difference of facts (we have different habits). The thought experiment may be intended to show something about difference concepts of selling and buying, measuring, “more of” and “less of”, etc., but also that for them “sales are not necessarily what we had assumed them to be”.
- 22.
And later: “what counts as an adequate test of a statement belongs to logic. It belongs to the description of the language game” (OC 82).
- 23.
In this concern the latest Wittgenstein is no more certain of his grammatical systems of the intermediate period: “What am I after? The fact that the description of the use of a word is the description of a system, or of systems.—But I don’t have a definition for what a system is” (RPP I: 294).
- 24.
In Wittgenstein’s work there are many examples of different kinds of descriptions (internal or external, verbal descriptions or conventional descriptions,…) but the main difference seems to rely on the kind of objects being described: geometrical constructions (PR 131, 135), logical forms (PG 40), visual space (PR 87), states of mind (LW 1,20–51), colour patches (PR 213), language uses (LW 121, 294…969), feelings (LW I, 400–1), perceptions (LW I, 540–553, PI II; xi), moods (LW I.614), etc. But what is to be taken as a description depends on the language game in which words are used; e.g.: “are the words ‘I am afraid’ a description of a state of mind? It depends on the game they are in” (PI II, ix, pp. 187f).
- 25.
The debate on the boundary between semantics and pragmatics (from Travis 2000; Recanati 2011; Carston 2013; Unnsteinsson 2015 and others) seems an attempt to define these kinds of systems. Donnellan’s distinction between attributive and referential uses may be a paradigmatic application of the kind of work Wittgenstein was aiming to (Penco 2017).
- 26.
This attitude seems more supported from the kinds of alien mental experiments where Wittgenstein imagines different physical laws. If things disappeared irregularly should we have a different mathematics? For instance, a probabilistic mathematics? Something like Quantum Logic? But also, if things disappeared irregularly, our classical mathematics might help to detect how many things disappeared while calculating.
- 27.
- 28.
Gert (1997) gives a clear analysis of this attitude: “…in the quotation from Philosophical Investigations §24 he [Wittgenstein] does not ask us to describe facial expressions, sensations, or moods, or the use of terms for facial expressions, sensations, or moods. He asks us to compare descriptions of facial expressions, sensations, and moods. And in Zettel §204 he does not ask for a description of an attitude, nor does he ask how attitude is used. He asks what a description of an attitude is like. In all of these passages the topics are the descriptions themselves.” Besides a criticism of Kripke’s view on rule-following, Gert seems to derive conclusions not dissimilar to ours, although given in a different context.
- 29.
Cf. Gert (1997: 226).
- 30.
This remark does not oblige the reader to accept the interpretation of the Wittgensteinian use of “we” as a transcendental “we” intended to supersede the transcendental ego of the Tractatus (as in Williams 1974 or Lear 1982). Actually we (scholars) would need some more evidence about Wittgenstein’s different uses of the term “we” in different contexts, and a search in the electronic data may offer space for this work. I didn’t have time to make an extensive search, and I rely on my limited understanding in reading the texts, with the help of Andronico (1998, 2013) who discusses different trends in the Wittgensteinian uses of “we”.
Abbreviations
- BT:
-
The Big Typescript, TS 213. Edited and translated by G. G. Luckhard and M. A. E. Aue, Oxford: Blackwell 2005
- LFM:
-
Lectures on the Foundation of Mathematics, Cambridge, 1939. Edited by Cora Diamond, Ithaca: Cornell U.P. 1976
- LW:
-
Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology, vol. 1, Blackwell, Oxford, 1982
- OC:
-
On Certainty/Über Gewissheit. Oxford: Blackwell, 1974
- PR:
-
Philosophical Remarks/Philosophische Bemerkungen. Oxford: Blackwell, 1964. Engl. transl. Oxford: Blackwell, 1975
- PI:
-
Philosophical Investigation/Philosophische Untersuchungen. Edited and translated by G.E.M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell 1968
- RFM:
-
Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics. Oxford: Blackwell, 1978 (Third edition)
- RPP:
-
Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, 2 voll., Oxford: Blackwell, 1980
- VB:
-
Vermischte Bemerkungen. Edited by Von Wright, Frankfurt aM, 1977
- Z:
-
Zettel. Oxford: Blackwell, 1967
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Penco, C. (2020). Wittgenstein’s Thought Experiments and Relativity Theory. In: Wuppuluri, S., da Costa, N. (eds) WITTGENSTEINIAN (adj.). The Frontiers Collection. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27569-3_18
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