Preproceedings 2006 - Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society

Regaining the Sense of the Tractatus: Wittgenstein’s Logical
Mysticism
Paul Poenicke, Adrian, USA
In recent decades, scholarship regarding Wittgenstein’s
religious outlook has begun to rescue the Tractatus from
its dominating Positivist interpretation, an orthodox reading
that views the document as a logical and linguistic classic
with some minor mystical aphorisms, appendices that can
be safely excised without damaging the text. Writers,
presenting their work in this Symposium and elsewhere,
have forced the academic community to realize the affect
of religion on Wittgenstein’s early life and the importance
of his mysticism in the Tractatus. Unfortunately, this
research bifurcates the book into logical and religious
portions, leaving the reader with a schizophrenic author
whose mystical revelations are totally detached from his
linguistic enterprises.
This paper is an attempt to understand how
Wittgenstein’s mysticism completes his logical work and
why it is essential for the Tractatus as a whole. Tractarian
mysticism blooms in proposition 6.41; however, assuming
Wittgenstein’s dictum, where succeeding decimal figures
are comments on the proceeding proposition
(Wittgenstein, 2000, p.31), the starting point for my
analysis will be proposition 6, and progress through 6.4,
pointing out how various seemingly non-religious
sentences establish the unique logical nature of Tractarian
mysticism. From propositions 6.41 until 7, Wittgenstein
slowly evolves his conception of the mystical, which
emerges from his linguistic study by way of time. Through
time, Wittgenstein explores his mysticism, and quickly falls
into paradoxical language—echoes of Tolstoy’s Gospel In
Brief, the final link between the mystical and logical in the
Tractatus.
Foundations of Tractarian Mysticism:
Propositions 6-6.4
The genesis of Tractarian mysticism begins at 6, “The
general form of a truth function is: [ , , N( )]. This lays
out the structure of propositions, which occur in logic as
tautologies (6.1), that which characterizes and forms logic
(6.12). Thus, logic is sinnlos, senseless; it cannot mean
anything, and, if it did, it would necessarily be false
(6.111). Presenting the scaffolding of the world (6.124), all
logical propositions are of equal rank (6.127). Mathematics
is actually a logical method (6.234), where equal signs are
hidden tautologies (6.22, 6.2341, 6.24). The first source of
Wittgenstein’s mysticism appears here: when 6.127 is
combined with 6.13, “Logic is not a theory but a reflection
of the world,” Wittgenstein reveals that logic and the world
are of the same rank, with no higher value than true or
false. Language and its logical foundation cannot
understand value or ever appreciate it, blocking humanity
from what is higher. Neither science, the correct
philosophical method (6.53), the unification of mathematics
and observation, nor logic could provide proof that
traditional thinkers, like Anselm, Aquinas, or the
Pythagoreans, found for value in the factual world.
Proposition 6.3 provides the second source of
Wittgenstein’s mysticism, the arbitrary nature of life in the
world. Scientific laws and other seemingly necessary
propositions are, despite the confidence of their creators,
not logical laws (6.37, 6.371), but rather forms of a law
(6.34). Logic, in its ability to provide a descriptive structure
for facts, allows for the possibility of scientific laws (6.33,
6.3431). The law of causality provides “uniform
connections” (6.361), descriptions of the natural world that,
through scientific laws, makes thought and language
concerning the world possible (6.362). Yet this is a farce:
the law of causality, while a general form of a law, is still
not a logical law; its assertions, such as the rising of the
sun tomorrow (6.3611), do not provide anything other than
a helpful psychological respite (6.3631), for these beliefs
rest only on repeated observation and descriptive scientific
observations. Wittgenstein regards this accidental
characteristic as affecting not only the modern scientific
worldview but also personal causation—“The world is
independent of my will” (6.373). Intentions are not
necessarily connected with our physical form or actions
(6.374), further revealing that neither science nor mind
provides the ultimate answer as to why the world appears
so consistent and regular.
Thus, at the end of 6.3, the two foundations of
Wittgenstein’s mysticism, the lack of value in the world and
its arbitrary nature outside of logic, combines into a
palpable angst that explodes in 6.41. All propositions have
the same value, that is, none, since the world’s accidental
nature does not allow for value to be expressed in
language or in events. Wittgenstein believes that there
exists something higher outside the expressible that shows
itself through ethics and art (6.42, 6.421), despite the
world’s indifference to these higher values (6.432).
Wittgenstein, in his description of the world’s “valuing,”
which “…places a stone on the same moral level with
beasts and men,” (Wittgenstein, 1979, p. 84) sounds more
like an existentialist than a proto-Positivist, providing a
glimpse into the pathos of, and the reasons for,
Wittgenstein’s logical mysticism. The world’s sense cannot
be answered by a perfect, omniscient science (6.52), or by
eternal life (6.4312). This meaning (6.41), and the problem
of the world’s inability to account for it, cannot be put into
language (6.5); its solution comes through its vanishing
(6.521), which Wittgenstein believes will occur after using
his words to see the world rightly (6.54).
Time: The Unappreciated Mystical Link
Discussions of time, beyond recasting many of the issues
concerning the mystical’s foundation, become a
weathervane for Wittgenstein’s journey from logic and
language to mysticism and the ineffable. Initially,
Wittgenstein argues that time is related to objects (2.0251),
the fundamental Tractarian substance (2.021). Unlike the
object, time has no substance (6.3611), and is primarily
ordered through logic (Wittgenstein, 1979, 24). When
these comments are combined with other propositions,
such as those concerning color, another form of objects
(4.123), it appears that Wittgenstein considered time a part
of the world’s structure. If so, time must be a hallmark of
the world: any world made up of chains of objects, facts, if
combined according to logic’s structure, must be in time;
such a world, because of its factual construction, will be
void of any value or necessity, thus making time a sign of a
257