Wittgenstein Workshop: Zalabardo
In his paper, "Reference, Simplicity and Necessary Existence in the Tractatus", Jose Zalabardo argued that, contrary to the majority of interpreters of the Tractatus, that work does not contain a version of the 'Empty Name Argument' - which argument is intended to show that there must be simple objects and propositional constituents that refer to them. He argued that whilst some version of each of the premises required to secure that conclusion is plausibily attributed to Wittgenstein, there is no valid version of the argument all the premises of which are so attributable.The passage that is most commonly thought to support an attribution of the empty name argument (the argument for substance at 2.011-2.012), Jose argued, can only do so if considerable violence is done to the text. He went on to offer his own interpretation of the passage which, he claimed, does better justice to the context in which Wittgenstein places the remarks.
posted by Joel at 10:46 am
1 Comments:
One issue that came up in discussion more than once was whether there was a simpler reading of 2.011-2.012, since Jose's own account of the passage seemed to some to be overly complex. However, Jose pointed to evidence from the notebooks that suggests that Wittgenstein was thinking of this issue in the context of Russell's theory of judgment. Another concern was that, given that formal facts concern the range of possibilities, the argument that Jose attributed to Wittgenstein in those remarks appears to be invalid unless it is assumed that "it is possible that it is possible that P" entails "it is possible that P". But, in response, what reason is there to suppose that Wittgenstein did not (perhaps implicitly) accept such a thesis?
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