Witti-Buch2 2001.qxd - Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society

Is Wittgenstein a Possibilist?
Though interesting, the thesis that Wittgenstein would be a possibilist still hasn’t
received the assent of much tractarian specialists nor did it even receive much attention
in the literature. Part of the reason why the possibilist interpretation received so little
credit certainly comes from the fact that Bradley’s arguments, as they stand, are not
convincing.
This notwithstanding, there is in Bradley’s book an ongoing argument which is much
more taken to be true than shown to be the case and on the basis of which we can build
up a strong argument in favor of the possibilist interpretation of the Tractatus. What
makes the argument so strong and so interesting is, first of all, that it shows without
saying that if the interpretations on which it rests are true, then it follows that
Wittgenstein would admit the existence at least of possible nonactual states of affairs
and, second of all, that these interpretations or close versions of these interpretations
are endorsed by a number of specialists of the Tractatus and may even be considered
in some cases as standard interpretations of the Tractatus. Thus, if, as I shall show, it is
possible to build up a strong argument in favor of the possibilist interpretation of the
Tractatus, then either must we admit that Wittgenstein is committed to possibilism or we
must revise at least one of the standard interpretations of the literature on which the
possibilist reading rests. In what follows, I shall first formulate the strong argument in
favor of the possibilist interpretation and argue that it rests on a misinterpretation of the
Tractatus. I shall next shortly sketch a possible actualist alternative interprettion to the
possibilist’s.
2. Argument in favor of the possibilist reading of the Tractatus
Central to the tractarian theory of the modalities is the fact that what a proposition
represents is a possibility. The argument I would like to set out in favor of the possibilist
reading of the Tractatus consist of a certain interpretation of this particular aspect of the
picture theory along with a certain interpretation of the notion of Sachverhalt or state of
affairs. The argument rests on the following three interpretative theses:
(i) As a picture of reality, the meaningful proposition necessarily
represents something (er stellt etwas dar), a possibility, independently of what is
the case, i.e. independently of it’s truth-value and it is only when the state of
affairs that the proposition represents is the case that the proposition may be
said to picture (abbilden) the state of affairs of which the proposition is said to
be a picture of.
(ii) What a proposition represents independently of what is the case is
a state of affairs.
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