Ethiek en logica in de Tractatus. Verkenning van een analogie | Amsterdam University Press Journals Online
2004
Volume 115, Issue 2
  • ISSN: 0002-5275
  • E-ISSN: 2352-1244

Abstract

Abstract

I explore an analogy between logic and ethics, as Wittgenstein understands them in the In the first section, I argue that Wittgenstein regards logic as a condition of the possibility of meaning, in the sense that logic makes meaningful language and thought possible. In section two, I ask why Wittgenstein calls both logic and ethics ‘transcendental’. I suggest that, while logic is a condition of the possibility of meaning, ethics is a condition of the possibility of meaning. Without ethics, life could not be meaningful. In section three, I show that harmony and agreement play a crucial role in Wittgenstein’s accounts of logic and ethics. A meaningful proposition can be true or false, a meaningful life can be happy or unhappy, and both truth and happiness consist in some kind of harmony or agreement with reality.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.5117/ANTW2023.2.002.MESE
2023-05-01
2024-03-28
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Akhlaghi, F. (forthcoming) Meta-Ethical Quietism? Wittgenstein, Relaxed Realism, and Countercultures in Meta-Ethics, in: J.Beale & R.Rowland (reds.), Wittgenstein and Contemporary Moral Philosophy. London: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Appelqvist, H. (2013) Why Does Wittgenstein Say That Ethics and Aesthetics Are One and the Same?, in: P.Sullivan & M.Potter (reds.), Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. History and Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 40-58.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Appelqvist, H. & Pöykkö, P.-M. (2020) Wittgenstein and Levinas on the Transcendentality of Ethics, in: H.Appelqvist (red.), Wittgenstein and the Limits of Language. New York: Routledge, pp. 65-89.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Balaska, M. (2019) Seeing the Stove as World. Significance (Bedeutung) in Early Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 42(1), pp. 40-60.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Buekens, F. (1998) Semantiek en de zin van het leven, Bijdragen, 59(3), pp. 315-337.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Christensen, A.-M. (2011) Wittgenstein and Ethics, in: O.Kuusela & M.McGinn (reds.), The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 796-817.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Conant, J. (2005) What ‘Ethics’ in the Tractatus is Not, in: D.Z.Phillips & M.Von Der Ruhr (reds.), Religion and Wittgenstein’s Legacy. London: Routledge, pp. 39-88.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. De Mesel, B. (2014) Surveyable Representations, the ‘Lecture on Ethics’, and Moral Philosophy, The Nordic Wittgenstein Review, 3(2), pp. 41-69.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. De Mesel, B. (2015) Wittgenstein, Meta-Ethics and the Subject Matter of Moral Philosophy, Ethical Perspectives, 22(1), pp. 69-98.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. De Mesel, B. (2018a) The Later Wittgenstein and Moral Philosophy. Cham: Springer.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. De Mesel, B. (2018b) Wittgenstein en ethiek, Filosofie, 28(1), pp. 10-14.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. De Mesel, B. & Kuusela, O. (reds.) (2019) Ethics in the Wake of Wittgenstein. New York: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Diamond, C. (2000) Ethics, Imagination and the Method of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, in: A.Crary & R.Read (reds.), The New Wittgenstein. London: Routledge, pp. 149-173.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Fairhurst, J. (2019) The Ethical Subject and Willing Subject in the Tractatus. An Alternative to the Transcendental Reading, Philosophia, 47(1), pp. 75-95.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Fairhurst, J. (2021) Ethics is Transcendental (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 6.421), Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 7(3), pp. 348-367.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Glock, H.-J. (2015) Wittgensteinian Anti-Anti Realism. One ‘Anti’ Too Many?, Ethical Perspectives, 22(1), pp. 99-129.
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Goldman, A.H. (2018) Life’s Values. Pleasure, Happiness, Well-Being, and Meaning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Kauppinen, A. (2012) Meaningfulness and Time, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 84(2), pp. 345-377.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Martela, F. (2017) Meaningfulness as Contribution, The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 55(2), pp. 232-256.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Mulhall, S. (2002) Ethics in the Light of Wittgenstein, Philosophical Papers, 31(3), pp. 293-321.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Prinzing, M.M. (2021) The Meaning of ‘Life’s Meaning’, Philosophers’ Imprint, 21(3), pp. 1-14.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Thomas, J.L. (2019) Meaningfulness as Sensefulness, Philosophia, 47(5), pp. 1555-1577.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. van Roojen, M. (2018) Moral Cognitivism vs. Non-Cognitivism, in: E.Zalta (red.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 edition). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-cognitivism/
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Wittgenstein, L. (1979) Notebooks 1914-1916. Oxford:Blackwell. Second edition. (NB)
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Wittgenstein, L. (1998) Culture and Value. Oxford: Blackwell. Second edition.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Wittgenstein, L. (2000) Wittgenstein’s Nachlass. The Bergen Electronic Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Wittgenstein, L. (2022a) Tractatus logico-philosophicus. Amsterdam: Octavo. Vertaald door P. Huijzer & J. Sietsma. (TLP)
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Wittgenstein, L. (2022b) Tractatus. Logisch-filosofische verhandeling. Amsterdam: Boom. Vertaald door V. Gijsbers. (TLP)
    [Google Scholar]
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.5117/ANTW2023.2.002.MESE
Loading
/content/journals/10.5117/ANTW2023.2.002.MESE
Loading

Data & Media loading...

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error