It is said “first Wittgenstein” because the work of this eminent 20th century philosopher of language is commonly divided into two parts: the one referring to the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, that will be seen here, and the Philosophical Investigations. O Tractatus, as it became known, it was the first work of contemporary thought that intended to apply not only to mathematics and its rigor to language, but also to understand the ontological relationship that exists between the world and the thought. This was the first step in Ludwig Wittgenstein's thinking.
According to the author, the world is divided into smaller parts. The complex representation of the real is subdivided into what became known as atomic facts. In this way, language, through propositions, reaches the real because it is part of its structure. Language can also be subdivided into elementary principles that are phrases, words and letters that, properly shaped, would be able to exactly mirror reality.
Wittgenstein seems to recover an old discussion established in the book.
Cratylus from Plato that deals with the correctness of names and the natural link that exists between them and things. Thus, he develops from the Platonic understanding that the name imitates its thing, its pictorial or figurative theory, in which language exactly represents the world. However, the symbolic structure is not given from letters and syllables, nor at least from the isolated word. The smallest unit of meaning established in language is the proposition (thus referring no longer to the Cratylus and yes to the dialogue Sophist from Plato where it is clear that thought is propositional). just as there atomic facts, There are also atomic propositions that properly express reality.There is thus a close connection also between Wittgenstein and Kant. This said that our knowledge could only be phenomenal, that is, through an alliance between what we perceive (intuition) and what we judge (concept), according to transcendental forms. It was precisely this anti-metaphysical character that made the researchers of the Vienna Circle interested in Wittgenstein's philosophy. However, there is the unspeakable, there is the that one which cannot be said and which therefore promotes the distinction between the Circle and Wittgenstein: for the Vienna group, which cannot be said, does not even exist and for that reason, natural science and adequate language constitute the totality of the world, while for our philosopher, “what one cannot speak, must be silent”, that is, for Wittgenstein, the unspeakable, the ineffable is more important than the sayable. Ethics and metaphysics cannot be translated into discourse. And that's what the mystical aspect of the Tractatus.
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Wittgenstein's inspiration is clear. For him, philosophy is not a doctrine, it is not a set of knowledge ready to be used by the natural sciences, as they intended Vienna Circle scholars and neopositivists, but it is a useful activity to correct the language and therefore the thought.
Therefore, for the first phase of Wittgenstein's thought, there is a way to understand the world, which is to analyze language, since “the world is what happens” and it is also an “exact proposition”. “The proposition is a function of truth” and “the logical representation of facts is thought”.
By João Francisco P. CabralCollaborator Brasil Escola Graduated in Philosophy at the Federal University of Uberlândia - UFU Master's Degree in Philosophy at the State University of Campinas - UNICAMP.
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
CABRAL, João Francisco Pereira. "Science and Mystique in the first Wittgenstein"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/filosofia/ciencia-mistica-no-primeiro-wittgenstein.htm. Accessed on June 29, 2021.