Witti-Buch2 2001.qxd - Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society

Lambert Vincent Stepanich
structurally related, say, to the activity of operating a train. The practice of bringing a
train to a stop by engaging the brake-lever and the brake-lever itself could not be what
they are without standing in this relation to each other. This relation is therefore internal,
or constitutive of the relata. But then the activity itself cannot be the ground of the
essence of the object or objects it involves; nor of course could the object or objects
determine the activity. Generally, one relatum can never constitute another, at least
where the two are related internally.
It is true that our practices and the objects they involve are internally related to each
other, and therefore that neither is the origin of the other. As Wittgenstein encourages,
we must "see" that such relation holds (Lee 1980, 56). But the structural relation
between object and activity also follows from the supposition that the latter is ground of
the former. Wittgenstein's weak idealism, therefore, is incoherent. For if x constitutes y,
x and y are internally related; if they were externally related, y could be what it is
independently of any relation to x, which is to say that x did not constitute it. Yet if x and
y are internally related, neither can constitute or ground the other. This of course would
not be true for all uses of "constitute" or "ground," and in particular for merely empirical
uses. We must remember, however, that ours is a conceptual investigation-we might
also say an ontological investigation, since our concern is with the relation between our
practices and what objects are. Though it is a matter that merits further reflection, it
would thus appear that there could never be an ontological or conceptual ground. In the
beginning, therefore, was neither the object nor the deed.
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