Философские идеи Людвига Витгенштейна

Hence, the scientific theories don't belong to the "total natural science", as described in (4. 11). This sound rather paradoxically. Nevertheless this does follow from Wittgenstein's own definition of a true proposition. Wittgensteinian treatment of scientific theories might be understood as his answer to the situation of the scientific revolution which had refuted such respectable scientific views as Newtonian mechanics, atomism, theory of aether in their role of the descriptions of reality. So, Wittgenstein treats scientific theories as conventions. They cannot be neither true nor false. Hence, there are no epistemological problems of their justification. In contrast with the members of Vienna Circle, Wittgenstein doesn't care about verification of scientific theories or elimination of theoretical terms because he doesn't believe that theories need some epistemological foundation or justification of their truth. They need not, becauce they are in reality pseudopropositions.

All that has been said pose a problem regarding Wittgenstein's treatment of philosophical propositions. Most of them are senseless, he says. But so are most of the scientific propositions, as we have seen. And even more: propositions of mathematics violaty the condition of bipolarity too, so they are pseudopropositions. The law of logic, as Wittgenstein says, are without sense (4. 461). (Though he doesn't call them senseless). He states that "tautology and contradiction are not pictures of reality" (4. 462).

II

We have seen so far that scientific theories, mathematics, logic are situated outside the sphere of senseful propositions. We have discovered therefore that a number of Timportant and respectable intellectual activities generate senseless propositions. No wonder that Wittgenstein writes a treatise on philosophy confessing that its propositions are senseless. Contrary to what is often said, it is not a full-size paradox. Wittgenstein realizes the significance of various propositions violating his conditions of being a senseful proposition.

How can we understand then Wittgenstein's attack upon philosophical propositions and problems that are not false but senseless? Why does he attacks philosophy and doesn't attack physics or mathematics? As we have seen, the senselessness cannot be an explication here, - or, at least, it cannot be a full explication. We need something else to explain this.

Phycical laws and hypothesis are not senseful propositions, but they are devices for generating such propositions. They serve to provide us with them. Hence, they are auxiliary to the sphere of senseful.

About mathematical propositions it is written in the "Tractatus": "In life it is never a mathematical propositions we need, but we use mathematical propositions only in order to infer from propositions which do not belong to mathematics to other which equally do not belong to mathematics" (6. 211).

Logical propositions give us the forms of inferences of some senseful propositions from other. They are auxiliary, too, Hence, propositions of scientific theories, of mathematics and logic serve us to move from some senseful propositions to others. They are intermediates.

What about philosophy? Wittgenstein's own propositions in the "Tractatus" "are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speek throw away the ladder after he has climbed up on it). He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly" (6. 54). So, the propositions of his own "Tractatus" are also intermediate and auxiliary. As such they have a right to the existence. But they are intermediate in the manner different from that of the propositions of scientific theories, of mathematics and logic. For the latters serve to pass from propositions to propositions. The propositions of the "Tractatus" serve to pass from propositions to the insight introducing into the sphere of what can't be said by propositions. Here is a pecularity of philosophy.

So we can say: Wittgenstein doesn't denounce philosophy because of its senselessness. For him the sphere of senseless propositions are acceptable but only as intermediate and auxiliary. The proper place of such propositions is in between.