The following is a summary of what I take to be Ludwig Wittgenstein’s place in the philosophical universe.
We must imagine what Socrates was telling the Athenians. He was teaching them a lesson. The lesson was his assessment of how we understand reality. The lesson is really about his own foundationalism. That is, our understanding of everything is like a house. That house has to be built on a firm and steady foundation. For him, the foundation of our understanding is the way we argue. The way we argue, according to Socrates, is a matter of logical argument.
By logical argument, Socrates meant that such arguments were a matter of just a premise and a conclusion, where the premises were supposed to be evidence or arguments for the claim or conclusion of the argument. Socrates’ preference for this account of argument was in contrast to an alternative account of argument involving not just two, but three terms, including a controversy which arguments are about, a claim made about that controversy, and support given for the claim.
According to Socrates, it was very important that people accept his lesson that arguing logically was the basis or foundation for our understanding of anything.
When Socrates began telling the Athenians about his lesson, part of what he said was that people who thought they were great carpenters, or soldiers, or barbers, or butchers, and so on, really were not because one of the implications of the lesson he needed to teach was that, because of the way we understand things, we are not in a position to know the meanings of our words. How could a son be pious, or revere the Gods, if he didn’t really know what the word piety meant?
When the Athenians first heard what Socrates was telling them, they stopped him, and refused to accept his teachings, because if his lesson was true, and understanding of reality was based on logical argumentation, then life as they understood it would be impossible. On the view that Socrates was pushing, no one would know anything, morality would be impossible, and life would not be worth living.
But, Socrates thought awhile, and came back to the Athenians with an addendum to his lesson. Not only did he want everyone to know that the way we argue logically is the foundation for our understanding of reality, but that reality is a matter of the Allegory of the Cave. There are other metaphors which also describe the way things are. But, they are all consistent with his Allegory of the Cave.
After Socrates offered his excuses, the Athenians no longer thought that the Socratic lesson made life impossible. They eventually came to accept what Socrates said about logic and our understanding.
Then, Ludwig Wittgenstein came along and noticed that the Allegory of the Cave, along with other philosophical “theories” like the idea that we are like kids on a playground run by bullies, or that we are like zombies driven by our insatiable hungers or the commands of our voodoo masters, makes life unbearable. And so he worked hard to find ways to reject them.
He wanted to say, for example, that these philosophical theories exist because, in the past, people were confused about the way we communicate with language. Specifically, we were confused about meaning and what makes some piece of language meaningful, verses what makes it nonsense. According to Wittgenstein, this issue was clarified by Frege when he pointed out the distinction between “sense” and “reference,” and when he showed that the way we argue logically is by way of a calculus. According to Wittgenstein, the Allegory of the Cave, and its attendant metaphors, were nonsense because they did not reference things in the world. On the basis of his argument in either the Tractatus (TLP) or the Investigations (PI) he wanted to argue that they were nonsense, and so could be rejected.
That is, no one has to commit suicide because of these theories about reality.
However, Socrates will come back and say he understands that Wittgenstein complains about his Allegory, and its like minded metaphors, because they make life unbearable. But, so says Socrates, if you get rid of them because they make life unbearable, and you still think the way we argue is logically, then you will make life impossible. According to the Athenians, the lesson that says our understanding is based on the way we argue logically makes language, and its fruits, for example, and other issues including knowledge, values, justice, truth, and the ability to resolve conflict all impossible, and life so understood not worth living.
So long as we adopt the basic lesson, we have a choice. If we be dogmatists and accept the Socratic excuses including the Allegory of the Cave, and its attendants, then - according to Wittgenstein - life will be unbearable. If we reject these Socratic theories, because, according to Wittgenstein, they don’t refer to reality, then, according to Socrates, life will be impossible.
Wittgenstein approaches the Allegory and its attendants differently than other philosophers. So, with respect to the playground metaphor, Marx, for example, accepts the terms of the metaphor saying it’s an accurate metaphor for us. He then notices that the kids are having their lunch money taken by the bully and argues that this is an injustice that can be fixed only if the kids band together and fight off the bully. Fight fire with fire, so to speak. Wittgenstein argues that a better strategy to improve life would be to question whether the metaphor itself should have any credibility. So, he argues, the metaphors involving the playground, or zombification, or the Allegory, are themselves not based on facts in the world, as in TLP, or are examples of “language gone on holiday,” as in PI, and so are really nonsense. We should reject these theories because, though they sound like they are true, and make sense, they really have no meaning.
Wittgenstein thought he had a good argument because it gave a better response to Ivan Karamazov’s problem than giving back one’s ticket, or the problems people, like his siblings, who commit suicide have. This is why the film “It’s a Wonderful Life” seemed like such an apt summary of his life’s project.
But Wittgenstein continued to accept the basic Socratic lesson that the way we argue logically is the foundation for the way we understand reality. And so, his argument left him implying that, after we reject the Socratic theories, life so understood would be impossible. Kripke in his On Rules and Private Language points this out, arguing, when you look at the PI, ( along with TLP and On Certainty,) and examine Wittgenstein’s theories of meaning therein, and put aside the Socratic excuses that have otherwise made these theories acceptable, language is impossible. According to Kripke, then, Wittgenstein is trying to navigate between the Scylla of rejecting philosophical theories that make life unbearable and the Charybdis of having no such philosophical theories making life impossible.
The value of Wittgenstein’s work is not that he successfully refuted these philosophical theories that have made life unbearable. Wittgenstein was correct that these theories have, in fact, caused suffering. His “linguistic turn” and the claim that we start off on the wrong foot with them because we have been confused about meaning is mistaken because - as strategy - it is still one step too far down the path. The value of Wittgenstein’s work is to show that the place to attack is one step farther back. We must go to Socrates’ original lesson that our understanding of reality is based on the way we argue logically. Socrates was mistaken that argument has anything to do with logic.
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