§134
Wittgenstein starts discussing a new topic in §134. Up to §133 he had been discussing philosophy but in §134 he discusses the general propositional form. In the Tractatus Wittgenstein had said that, "This is how things are" is the general form of propositions.
Wittgenstein wants to reject this:
(i) "This is how things are" is itself a sentence...
(ii) Moreover, it is a sentence that is used in a distinctive way. It is used to allude to some other sentence/proposition. (Wittgenstein is here using the method of looking at how a proposition is used ordinarily and correctly). The variable p might be used to stand in for a proposition in some contexts, and in that case it is being used in a similar way to "That is how things are". But we wouldn't say that p is the general propositional form (and so we should not say that "This is how things are" is the general propositional form).
(iii) 'Proposition' is a family resemblance concept.
Thinking that all propositions agree or disagree with reality is obviously mistaken because "This is how things are" is a proposition and it does not agree or disagree with reality.
I'm trying to get clear on the sense in which it doesn't agree or disagree with reality. If you said 'that's how things are' in a particular situation, meaning to allude to some other sentence that had been said, then your utterance would agree or disagree with reality. Just like 'that's true'.
ReplyDeleteOut of context, 'that's how things are' doesn't agree or disagree with reality, but neither does 'the cat is on the mat': it depends on which cat and which mat you're talking about.
I suppose one difference is that 'that is how things are' requires another statement to get a grip on reality, whereas the cat sentence only requires a concrete context.