Analytic Philosophy
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Gottlob Frege:
Sense
and reference: One of his
primary examples involves the
expressions “the morning star”
and “the evening star”. Both of
these expressions refer to the
planet Venus, yet they obviously
denote Venus in virtue of
different properties that it has.
Thus, Frege claims that these
two expressions have the same
reference but different senses.
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The reference of an expression
is the actual thing
corresponding to it, in the case
of “the morning star”, the
reference is the planet Venus
itself. The sense of an
expression, however, is the
“mode of presentation” or
cognitive content associated
with the expression in virtue of
which the reference is picked
out. (IEP)
Meaning
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The reference of an entire
proposition is its truth-value,
either the True or the False.
The sense of a complete
proposition is what it is we
understand when we
understand a proposition, which
Frege calls “a thought”
(Gedanke). Just as the sense of
a name of an object determines
how that object is presented,
the sense of a proposition
determines a method of
determination for a truth-value.
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The propositions, “2 + 4 =
6″ and “the Earth rotates”,
both have the True as their
references, though this is in
virtue of very different
conditions holding in the two
cases, just as “the morning
star” and “the evening star”
refer to Venus in virtue of
different properties.
Bertrand Russell
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Three passions, simple but
overwhelmingly strong, have
governed my life: the longing
for love, the search for
knowledge, and unbearable pity
for the suffering of mankind.
These passions, like great
winds, have blown me hither
and thither, in a wayward
course, over a deep ocean of
anguish, reaching to the very
verge of despair. … This has
been my life. I have found it
worth living, and would gladly
live it again if the chance were
offered me. (1967, I, 3–4)
How is knowledge possible?
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The world consists of a complex
of logical atoms (such as “little
patches of colour”) and their
properties. Together these
atoms and their properties form
the atomic facts which, in turn,
are combined to form logically
complex objects. What we
normally take to be inferred
entities (for example, enduring
physical objects) are then
understood to be logical
constructions formed from the
immediately given entities of
sensation, viz., “sensibilia.”
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If you are too hot or too cold, you
can be perfectly aware of this fact
without asking the physicist what
heat and cold consist of. … We may
give the name ‘data’ to all the things
of which we are aware without
inference (1959, 23).
We can then use these data (or
sensibilia or sense data) with which
we are directly acquainted to
construct the relevant objects of
knowledge.
To be justified, every indirect
knowledge claim must be capable of
being derived from more
fundamental, direct or intuitive
knowledge claims. (SEP)
Definite Descriptions
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Just as we distinguish three
separate senses of “is” (the is of
predication, the is of identity,
and the is of existence) and
exhibit these three senses using
three separate logical notations
(Px, x=y, and ∃x respectively)
we will also discover other
ontologically significant
distinctions by being made
aware of a sentence's correct
logical form.
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(1)The present king of France is
bald.
∃x[(Kx & ∀y(Ky → y=x)) & Bx].
By appealing to this analysis, it
follows that there is a way to
deny (1) without being
committed to the existence of a
present King of France, namely
by accepting that “It is not the
case that there exists a present
King of France who is bald” is
true.
The value of philosophy
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The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be
sought largely in its very uncertainty. The
man who has no tincture of philosophy
goes through life imprisoned in the
prejudices derived from common sense,
from the habitual beliefs of his age or his
nation, and from convictions which have
grown up in his mind without the cooperation or consent of his deliberate
reason. To such a man the world tends
to become definite, finite, obvious;
common objects rouse no questions, and
unfamiliar possibilities are
contemptuously rejected. As soon as we
begin to philosophize, on the contrary,
we find, as we saw in our opening
chapters, that even the most everyday
things lead to problems to which only
very incomplete answers can be given.
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Philosophy, though unable to tell
us with certainty what is the true
answer to the doubts which it
raises, is able to suggest many
possibilities which enlarge our
thoughts and free them from the
tyranny of custom. Thus, while
diminishing our feeling of certainty
as to what things are, it greatly
increases our knowledge as to what
they may be; it removes the
somewhat arrogant dogmatism of
those who have never travelled into
the region of liberating doubt, and it
keeps alive our sense of wonder by
showing familiar things in an
unfamiliar aspect
Ludwig Wittgenstein (18891951)
Tractatus Logico-Philosphicus
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1. The world is everything that
is the case. 2. What is the
case, the fact, is the existence
of atomic facts. 3. The logical
picture of the facts is the
thought. 4. A thought is a
proposition with sense. 5.
Propositions are truth-functions
of elementary propositions. (An
elementary proposition is a
truth function of itself.) 6. The
general form of truth-function is
[p, ξ, N(ξ)]. This is the general
form of proposition. 7. Whereof
one cannot speak, thereof one
must be silent.
Early Wittgenstein
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Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus The picture
theory of propositions. My whole task
consists in explaining the nature of
sentences. A proposition is a picture of
reality.
When we put a sentence together, we are
constructing a model of reality. The model
shares its logical form with the state of affairs
it refers to. If the model correctly represents
reality, the sentence is true.
An important event in the philosophical
world (Bertrand Russell)
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Can we construct a logically
perfect language (free of
ambiguity and vagueness)?
What occurs in our mind
when we use language to
convey meaning?
What is the relation between
thoughts, words, and
sentences and the realities
they refer to?
How do sentences convey
truth rather than falsehood?
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What is the relationship
between a statement and
the symbol which represents
it?
A logically perfect language has
rules of syntax which prevent
nonsense, and has single
symbols which always have a
definite meaning.
Language asserts and denies
facts- so the structure of the
sentence must image the
structure of the fact. The
sentence must show (not just
say) what this structure is.
The misuse of language in philosophy
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Most propositions and
questions that have been
written about philosophical
matters are not false but
senseless….Most questions
and propositions of the
philosopher result from the
fact that we do not
understand the logic of our
language. They are [like]
the question whether the
Good is more or less
identical than the Beautiful
(4.003)
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Gedanke- The logical picture
of a fact which may or may
not correspond to the fact
pictured.
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The…record, the musical
thought, the score, the
waves of sound, all stand to
one another in that pictorial
internal relation which holds
between language and the
world. To all of them the
logical structure is common.
The nature of thought.
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A thought is a sentence
with a sense. Thinking
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is not possible without
language.
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Thinking is a kind of
language. For a
thought too is...a logical
picture of a sentence,
and therefore it is just a
sentence..
A thought describes a
possible state of affairs.
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Philosophy indicates
what cannot be said (or
thought) by finding
what can be said.
Names stand for
objects. A sentence
combines names into a
certain configuration
(The cat is on the mat.)
Outside of logic,
everything is accidental.
Later Wittgenstein
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Rejection of linguistic essences. The meaning
of a word is its use in a language.
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There is no universal property shared by all
‘games’, there is, rather, a complicated
network of similarities overlapping and crisscrossing...a set of family resemblances.
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To understand a sentence, then, one must be
a participant in the language-game that
displays the use of the sentence.
Task of Philosophy
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It is of the essence of our
investigation that we do not
seek to learn anything new
by it. We want to
understand something that is
already in plain view....Our
investigation is therefore a
grammatical one. Such an
investigation sheds light on
our problem by clearing
misunderstandings away.
Misunderstandings
concerning the use of
words....
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Philosophy may in no
way interfere with the
actual use of language;
it can in the end only
describe it.
What is your aim in
philosophy? To show
the fly the way out of
the fly bottle.
Impossibility of a
private language.
Wittgensteinian Aphorisms
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A nothing would serve just as well as a
something about which nothing could be said.
(PI, 304)
Always get rid of the idea of the private
object in this way; assume that it constantly
changes, but that you do not notice the
change because your memory constantly
deceives you. (PI, Pt II ix)
It is humiliating to have to appear like an
empty tube, which is simply inflated by a
mind. (Culture and Value, p. 11)
The beetle in the box
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Wittgenstein invites us to
imagine a community in which
the individuals each have a box
containing a "beetle". "No one
can look into anyone else's box,
and everyone says he knows
what a beetle is only by looking
at his beetle."[16]
If the "beetle" had a use in the
language of these people, it
could not be as the name of
something -
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because it is entirely possible that
each person had something
completely different in their box, or
even that the thing in the box
constantly changed, or that each
box was in fact empty. The content
of the box is irrelevant to whatever
language game it is used in.
By analogy, it does not matter that
one cannot experience another's
subjective sensations. Unless talk of
such subjective experience is
learned through public experience
the actual content is irrelevant; all
we can discuss is what is available
in our public language.