Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, Volume 1 by Soames Scott;

Author:Soames, Scott;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2009-02-18T16:00:00+00:00

Section 2.02 tells us that there are metaphysically simple objects (which Wittgenstein takes to be referents of logically proper names). Section 2.0201 is a compressed statement of his commitment to the fundamental parallel between language and the world. Since simple sentences consist of predicates and logically proper names, they report the relations that metaphysical simples bear to one another; thus, sentences that talk about complex objects must themselves be complex. Since all complex sentences are ultimately to be explained in terms of the atomic sentences that they are logically dependent upon, statements about complex objects are ultimately analyzable in terms of sentences about the simple objects that make them up. Section 2.021 reminds us that this process of analysis, of moving from the more complex to the less complex, must come to an end—in metaphysically simple objects, on the side of the world (and in logically proper names and atomic sentences composed of them, on the side of language).

So far these doctrines are simply asserted without argument. Sections 2.0211 and 2.0212 are meant to provide an argument for this last claim—i.e., for the claim that the process of decomposition and analysis must terminate in the metaphysically simple. What, precisely, that argument is supposed to be is not made fully explicit. However, given other assumptions of the Tractatus, one can make an educated guess. As I see it, the most likely argument is the following: (i) suppose there were no metaphysical simples; (ii) then the simplest elements in language—logically proper names—would refer to composite objects; for example, the logically proper name n might refer to an object o, made up of a, b, and c composed in a certain way; (iii) in that case, whether or not o existed, and, hence, whether or not n referred to anything, would depend on whether or not it was true that a, b, and c were composed in the requisite way; (iv) since the meaning of n is simply its referent, it would follow that whether or not n had a meaning at all, and hence whether or not any atomic sentence containing n had a meaning, would depend on the truth of the proposition that a, b, and c are composed in the requisite way; (v) moreover, if there were no metaphysical simples, then this process could be repeated for a, b, and c—i.e., whether or not it was even meaningful that a, b, and c were related in the requisite way would depend on the truth of still further propo- sitions—and so on without end; (vi) the process could also be repeated for every name and every atomic sentence; (vii) finally, the result extends to all logically complex sentences, since (as we shall see) it is a central doctrine of the Tractatus that the meanings of all complex sentences are dependent on the meanings of atomic sentences; (viii) thus, if there were no metaphysically simple objects, then whether or not any sentence whatsoever had a meaning would depend on the truth, and

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