Wittgenstein's Tractatus - Video 2 (English) - 2-2.063

In this series, we will look at Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I have just published a new Dutch translation of the book with Boom Uitgevers, which I will use in the Dutch version of these videos, but in these English videos we will be using the English translations.

[clone]

This is incredibly helpful! In a work like the tractatus where the language usage is so minimal and enigmatic the translation can really obscure and invite misunderstandings, having someone with such familiarity with the original text is really great

[paulmusgrove]

Sir,
I refute your your contention ( 2520 -25:42).
Yours Sincerely, Victov Bladhugelgijsbers.

[linconflsilva]

Thank you for share this informations!! I have been loved your videos!

[MV-vvsg]

Thank you for going over in so much detail. I appreciate you cannot and have reason for not covering all points. But if possible could you share some light on 2.0251, are ‘Space, Time and Being Coloured’ examples of the simple objects perhaps? Or what does he mean if they are forms belonging to objects? Surly colour is not a form that persists in every possible world?

Similarly what do you think of 2.024? If structures of facts consist of the structure of states of affairs, is he talking on the clausal and sentence construction being the same in structure? Or does he mean something else? Like; states of affairs that are the case, have a structure that is like the linking of chains analogy about objects interaction?

Thanks again for your insight and tolerance of my many comments on this video!

[MV-vvsg]

22:54 Is Wittgensteins claim about there being but not the knowing objects thereof, influenced or in agreement consciously in anyway with Kant’s Transcendental Idealism and Things-In-Themselves?

I’d like to think so in my bias to wanting my favroute Philosophers to agree, but it’s hard to know when Wittgenstein is famous for not having read a lot of historical philosophy. Does anyone know if he read CoPR?!

[albertusmagnus]

How do we know whether "Victor Bla Doodel Gijsbers" exists or not - by the way he loves chocolate ice cream ;-) Thank you for this series and all your others...

[snbh]

6:35 The video is heplful, but (I don’t want to be THAT guy but I think it’s important) you made some mistakes about the chemistry: the representation you talked about for the atom is called lewis notation and a free oxygen atom wouldn’t be represented with two lines but rather with with two single points around (representing electrons) from which you can draw the two lines to make the bonds. That’s not the important thing though, and the analogy still holds perfectly anyways, what is really important is that it’s not called an ion, an ion is a charged coumpound, but a free oxygen atom is neutral even if it’s free.

[Tl-clou]

Thank you for these videos! They are really informative and clear.

I'd like to ask two questions related to objects. First, are complexes themselves states of affairs or facts? On the one hand, a state of affairs is objects combined/configured in a specific way, and a complex seems to be just its constituent parts (which can be analyzed down to objects) combined/configured in a specific way, so they appear to be identical in their definition. On the other hand, the word for a complex is not by itself a proposition (Socrates), but a proposition is supposed to represent a possible fact.

Second, does each object have many copies? Suppose there are only three objects without any copies: a, b, c. And there are two states of affairs: "a-b" and "a-c". Then it seems like the existence of these two states of affairs is dependent. If "a-b" exists, then "a-c" couldn't exist, since the object a is already "used up". To avoid this situation, it seems like each object has to at least have n copies, where n is the total number of possible ways for that object to appear in mutually exclusive configurations.

[shadigaafar]

Can you please answer my question: How all of this relates to fact/value distinction?

[bart-v]

Hi, my name is Victor Bladoudov Gijsbers (but they call me Bart for short) and I like ice cream. Could you please correct the mistake in your (otherwise wonderful) video?

[MV-vvsg]

Premise 2.0122 is my favroute so far in the Tractatus. Before really analysing it and finding what Wittgenstein means, as well described in this video, it seems mysterious and very confusing. It uses paradoxical language and contains a subliminal instruction that leads to two confusing conclusions. Check out my other comments on this vid for more explanation.

But essentially he very cunningly and intelligently uses Language to show the misunderstanding we have of language. Or his case for our misuse of language is self evident through him trying to use language to explain ideas and it at face value being mysterious, paradoxical and confusing.

[MV-vvsg]

14:50 I do not believe any connection between this and QM but I think there is a nice analogy to be shared between all possible states of affairs and superpositions.

Following 2.014 you might be inclined to say that word Apple is in a superposition of all possible states of affair it can have.
Only once it is written in a sentence the probability function collapses such that the word is used in the sentence where it has an actual state of affair with another object. Thus the idea of a Word or Object being know fully is like knowing the Wave Function in QM where it has possibilities for states of affair. It is only once ‘observing’ the object in actuality or rather using the word in a sentence that it no longer is in a superposition but is in actuality, in a specific state of affair with something else.

[marcobrambilla]

Very good explanation. I suspect anyway that Italian translations work better than English ones. Indeed Italian is a perfect language for Philosophy

[MV-vvsg]

2.014 + 2.0141 = An object contains all its possible states of affairs.
2.01 “A state of affairs is a combination of objects” this is supported by 2.03 “in a state of affairs, objects fit into one another like links of a chain”


This suggests you can know from knowing one object know all other objects, for in knowing state of affair ‘p’ (By knowing X) which contains objects X and Y means you know all of X’s possible states of affairs, and surly know Y and so all of Y’s states of affairs, and knowing Y you know a state of affair ‘ q’ which contains objects Y and Z and so on? Right? Which seems paradoxical because Wittgenstein later asserts in 2.062 the not knowing of the existence of one state of affairs from the other.

So is it the case that you can not know objects from knowing only some and not all of their states of affairs they appear in?

[militaryenthusiast]

Hi, nice videos, will you go through whole Tractatus?

[aleksandravicus]

26:06 refering to the world requires names. Does Wittgenstein believe the existence of the world is impossible without the language? The way non-philosophers image world existing independently of us. And that we as autonomous individuals are sort of immersed in this independent self-subsistent world. But Wittgenstein is really following and blazing further the I. Kant's path of Transcendental Idealism? In that the world really is the way it is and what it is only in 'our heads', in our language, logic and outside of this linguistic universe we are not aware of anything. And the way world and individual identity appear to be to lay person, is more a religious view based on mistaken use of language. In that the way most people imagine the way things are, doesn't really mean anything.