Witti-Buch2 2001.qxd - Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society

Is Wittgenstein a Possibilist?
Jimmy Plourde
Das Bild muss nun wieder seinen Schatten
auf die Welt werfen.
Jener Schatten, welchen das Bild gleichsam auf
die Welt wirft: Wie soll ich ihn exakt fassen?
Hier ist ein tiefes Geheimnis.
(Notebooks 1914-1916, 6 &15.11.14)
1. Introduction
In his 1972 and 1982 papers on Wittgenstein and modal logic, Georg Henrik von Wright
first suggested that there would be something like a non extensionalist conception or
theory of modalities in the Tractatus. Claiming that the modalities are taken by
Wittgenstein to be primitive notions and being mainly interested in the logical systems
that would best express Wittgenstein’s theses about modalities, von Wright does not
however tell us in that article what the non extensionalist tractarian theory of modalities
should consist of. Since then, the project of spelling out the tractarian theory of
modalities has however been undertaken by specialists of the Tractatus and we do now
find interesting accounts of the theory in the literature.
Despite the fact that the problem has received more attention in the literature in the
past few years, accounts of what the tractarian theory of modalities should commit
Wittgenstein to on the ontological level are still wanted. Until now, the only systematic
and extensive attempt to provide an answer to that question is the one given by Ray
Bradley in his book The Nature of All Being published in 1992. In this book, Bradley
argues in favor of a modal realist or possibilist interpretation of the Tractatus. According
to Bradley, the tractarian theory of modalities would be a possible world theory that
commits Wittgenstein to the existence of an infinity of nonactual possible worlds,
nonactual possible states of affairs and nonactual complex and simple possible objects.
Thus, Wittgenstein would be, according to that interpretation, a forerunner of the modern
semantics of possible worlds as well as a forerunner of the contemporary realist
interpretations of these semantics.
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