Frege, Wittgenstein, and the competing metaphysics of idealism and realism...

The Duty of Genius by Ray Monk (p189--190):

However, further evidence of Wittgenstein's preoccupation at this time with the competing metaphysics of idealism and realism is provided by a letter from Frege--the last Frege is known to have written to Wittgenstein--dated 3 April

 

Frege was evidently responding to criticisms Wittgenstein had made of his essay 'The Thought', in which Wittgenstein had spoken of 'deep grounds' for idealism.  'Of coarse I don't take exception to your frankness,' Frege began:

 

But I would like to know what deep grounds for idealism you think I have not grasped.  I take it that you yourself do not hold the idealist theory of knowledge to be true.  So, I think, you recognise that there can, after all, be no deep grounds for this idealism.  The grounds for it can then only be apparent grounds, not logical ones.

 

The rest of this long letter is taken up with an analysis by Frege of the lack of clarity of the Tractatus.  This time he concentrates solely on the first proposition: 'The world is everything this is the case.'  Assuming, he argues, that the 'is' in this statement is the 'is of identity', and further assuming that it is meant to convey information and not simply to provide a definition of 'the world', then, in order for it to mean anything, there must be some way of identifying the sense of 'the world' and that of the phrase 'everything that is the case' independently of the statement of their identity.  How is this to be done? 'I would be glad', he wrote, 'if you, by answering my questions, could facilitate my understanding of the results of your thinking.'

 

This is the last preserved communication between the two.  Frege died four years later, presumably no nearer to understanding a word of the famous book inspired by his own work.  The 'deep grounds' for idealism which Wittgenstein perceived are undoubtedly connected with the account of the world which he gives in propositions 5.6-5.641 of the Tractatus. 'The world is my world', 'I am my world. (The microcosm.)', and yet I am not in my world: 'The subject does not belong to the world; rather it is a limit of the world.' Thus, solipsism, 'when its implications are followed out strictly', coincides with pure realism: 'The self of solipsism shrinks to a point without extension, and there remains the reality co-ordinated with it.' The realism of Frege is thus seen to coincide with the idealism of Schopenhauer and the solipsism of Weininger.

 

It is a view that gives a philosophical underpinning to the religious individualism adopted by Wittgenstein and Engelmann.  I am my world, so if I am unhappy about the world, the only way in which I can do anything decisive about it is to change myself. 'The world of the happy man is a different one from that of the unhappy man.'

 

Nevertheless, in a sense Frege was right to find the metaphysics of this view unintelligible.  On Wittgenstein's own theory, its expression in words can lead only to nonsense.  And yet, though he was unable to explain it to Frege, unable to convince Russell of its truth, and unable to find a publisher for its expression as the outcome of a Theory of Logical Symbolism, Wittgenstein remained firmly convinced of its unassailability.  Though he had suffered greatly from 'external' causes in the last year--The death of Pinsent, the defeat of the Habsburg Empire, the problems of publishing his book--he looked only to an 'internal' solution.  What, in the final analysis, did it matter if his book remained unpublished? By far the most important thing was to 'settle accounts with himself'.

The essence of this is something David Pacini over at Emory has tried to push me on.  At least I think...

 

You have to skip the metaphysical hiccups--as they will or won't be resolved by us mere mortals.  And resolved yourself only to that which one has control of--my internal solution can only be created by my 'self' and "settling accounts with myself" is the only way to be "in the world" rather than "of the world."  Being "of the world" is discord... it perpetuates discord.  Being "in the world" is to be at peace yet staying attached rather than detached.

 

At least I think thats what he's driving at....

Posted via email from Jim Nichols