Tejedor-Palau, María Asunción; (2001) World and mind in Wittgenstein's "Tractatus". Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

A significant level of controversy remains as to how exactly the Tractatus' views on the world and the mind ought to be understood. This thesis offers an exegesis of Wittgenstein's thinking. It culminates in a new, more securely based interpretation of his early writings, which shows their direct relevance to current philosophical preoccupations and emphasises the strong interdependence that exists between his early thoughts on these two areas. The first task of the thesis is to show that the Tractarian 'world' should be understood as the world as it can possibly be given in experience: objects possess a distinct form and content and are able to produce, by combining with each other, ordinary reality. Having established this, the metaphysical and ontological status of objects is explored in detail, leading to the conclusions that objects can be neither phenomenal nor material, that they are not perceivable and that it is unclear that Wittgenstein had in mind a definite ontology of objects when he wrote the Tractatus. I then put forward a new understanding of Wittgenstein's account of the meanings of names and of his Picture Theory, and show that there is a definite direction of determination from world to language in the Tractatus, a view which has recently been put into question. Wittgenstein's distinction between sense, senselessness and nonsense is then elucidated, and his account of the connection between language and the world explored. This allows me to establish that the Tractatus does not posit a transcendental, representing self at the limits of the world, as some authors have suggested. No such self is required for representation to be possible, according to Wittgenstein. The issue of whether the Tractatus posits another kind of subject at the limits of the world is then examined in the context of Wittgenstein's remarks on solipsism.

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