Sobre el concepto de objeto en el "Tractatus"

Abstract

I. According to the Tractatus the world is made up of the whole body of facts. Some of these are used in order to convey other facts. Language, composed of the whole body of propositions, is a collection of facts reproducing other facts. Every proposition can be constructed by starting from basic propositions. Basic propositions are the linguistic primaries. Basic propositions reproduce atomic facts. Atomic facts are combinations of objects. Objects combined in atomic facts become the final reference of language.
On the other hand, objects make up the substance of the world; they are what is unalterable and subsistent. Thus objects are the fundamental ontological elements and at the same time the ultimate reference of language. No study of the Tractatus which deals with the problem of language can proceed without first establishing a satisfactory notion of the concept ‘object’.
In this article two questions are investigated: (1) What is the place of the concept ‘object’ in the Tractatus? and, in particular, is it or is it not an assumption within the system developed in the Tractatus? and (2) How must the concept ‘object’ be interpreted?
II. The only passages in which the need for the concept ‘object’ is stated are 2.021 to 2.0211. Their general meaning is as follows: If we were to deny the existence of objects, then propositions would lose their elementary character, and both their sense and their truth value would have to be referred to new propositions. The sense of any given propositions would thus be lost in a ‘regressus ad infinitum’. But as there are propositions with sense it is essential to accept the existence of objects. The passage has the form of a ‘reductio ad absurdum’. Reduced to its simplest form it would read: Propositions are classified into elementary and non elementary ones. The sense of non elementary propositions depends on the sense of elementary propositions and the sense of the latter depends on the existence of objects. Hence the sense of any proposition depends in the last resort on the existence of objects. If we deny the existence of objects we must deny the existence of meaningful propositions. Since meaningful propositions do exist we must assume the existence of objects. If our interpretation is a correct one the existence of objects is an assumption, because if we consider the reduction as a demonstration we must conclude that it is a false one. Which is the answer to our first question.
III. As regards the second question, two tendencies are noticeable among the interpreters of the Tractatus: one that defends the thesis that the language referred to in the work is, in the last resort, ordinary language, while the other defends the thesis that the language referred to in the Tractatus is not a historically given language but an ideal language towards which any given language tends, or should tend. One of the most radical representatives of this latter thesis is Max Black. He holds that the semantics of the Tractatus “is that of a lingua abscondita grounded in ‘elementary propositions’ whose existence is guaranteed only by metaphysical inference. We can produce no elementary propositions and would not recognize them if we had them”.
Against this interpretation it might be argued that the non elementary propositions referred to by Wittgenstein are those of ordinary language, as is demonstrated in many passages. If elementary propositions were unknowable the meaning and truth value of non elementary propositions could be determined without reference to them, which contradicts Wittgenstein’s thesis, or it would be absolutely impossible to determine them. Hence, either elementary propositions are knowable, or language can not communicate any meaning at all.
IV. Nor can the concept of ‘object’ mean either ‘thing’ (in the ordinary meaning of the word) or ontological entities, which are interpretations mentioned by, among others, A. Maslow. The word ‘object’ can not be taken to mean ‘things’, as the latter are neither simple, nor unalterable nor subsistent, as in the former. Nor can ‘object’ be used to refer to the final ontological entities of a ‘world in itself’. Because if by ‘world in itself’ we understand ‘a world completely independent of the knowledge that we have about it’, there is no mention of this, nor is this problem dealt with in the Tractatus. Furthermore, the limits of the world are identical with those of language, and what is outside those limits is said in the “Prologue” to be ‘nonsense’.
V. Favrholdt considers the interpretation of the concept of object as sense-data, based on 2.013 and 2.0131. Although he feels that Wittgenstein rejects this interpretation in other passages, he insists that the Tractatus leads up to it. Nevertheless, two arguments can be adduced against this: (1) Supposing that simple sense-data could be determined, they would be changing and unstable, which is contrary to what Wittgenstein says about objects. (2) The physical propositions that analyze such simples would fall outside language, which is contrary to what is said in 6.3431. In fact such propositions can not be elementary propositions because they do not refer to configurations of objects, and they can not be truth functions of elementary propositions because (according to the interpretation in question) the latter would be propositions about complexes, since simple sense-data are physically analyzable.
VI. By objects, E. Stenius understands particulars, properties and relations. But this interpretation is based on arguments whose validity is very doubtful. The exegesis is based on the construction of a heuristic analogy between Wittgenstein’s ‘field of perception’ and his ‘world as a fact’. The analysis of the field of perception, which can be analyzed into particulars and predicates, is transferred to the world as a fact, without giving any reason for such a step or justifying the analogy. Furthermore, there are passages in the Tractatus that lead us to reject this interpretation. For example, 4.23 can not be interpreted, as Stenius does, i.e., meaning that in the elementary proposition ‘Φ (x, y)’, both ‘x’ and ‘y’ and the sign of relation ‘Φ’ are names, and therefore represent objects. If in fact ‘Φ’ represents an object a new relation would be required to relate these three objects (x, y and Φ); we should then have a new proposition: θ (Φ (x, y) ), and so on ad infinitum.
VII. The interpretation of the concept of object that is best adapted to the Tractatus and enjoys the greatest measure of support is the so-called nominalistic interpretation. One of the best explanations of it is given by Copi. Copi starts with the supposition that the concept ‘object’ must be equivalent to one or more of the traditional metaphysical categories: particular, property and relations. By means of various arguments he establishes that the objects of the Tractatus can be neither properties nor relations. He then tries to establish what kind of particulars they must be. Admitting that there is evidence in the Tractatus that objects have material properties, Copi is nevertheless inclined to interpret them as mere particulars without properties, on the basis of a great deal of argument. While the interpretation of objects as particulars is accepted by many authors, their characterization as mere particulars is generally contested.
In the first place, the textual evidence regarding material properties of the object is of considerable importance. In addition, the problem to be solved in the nominalistic interpretation is that Wittgenstein says that a proposition may be symbolized by ‘fa’, whereas we have reached the conclusion that ‘f’ in ‘fa’ can be neither a name, nor a symbol of a property nor a symbol of a relation. Griffin’s interpretation is that the elementary proposition might be written as ‘a-b-c-d’, made up of nothing but names, and that ‘f’ in ‘fa’ may be regarded as an abbreviation of a configuration of names; this would designate a configuration of objects not yet analyzed (for example ‘b-c-d’) that is in relation with the object designated by ‘a’; in this way ‘fa’ may be called an elementary proposition, since it designates a configuration of objects. This explanation may be applied to the fact that the object has a material property. We may consider the particular configuration of the objects designated by ‘b’, ‘c’, ‘d’ in the elementary proposition ‘a-b-c-d’ as a material property as long as it is not analyzed. We shall then use ‘f’ as an abbreviation to represent the configuration ‘b-c-d’. This would allow us to explain that, although isolated objects have no material properties, these may be attributed to them because they occur in configurations of objects.
Apart from a few atypical uses of the term ‘object’, the other propositions in which it appears in the Tractatus can be satisfactorily explained on the basis of the nominalistic interpretation, which is coherent with what we call defining context. But the price to be paid for this is very high. We are faced by an eminently verbal interpretation. A different name is given to what the Tractatus calls ‘objects’ and the impression is given that this is related to traditional philosophical concepts. The particulars established in the Tractatus are not in fact the particulars of philosophical tradition. The former are simple, and we have no means of knowing what test of simplicity differentiates them from other particulars. We still do not know how we are to interpret the ‘objects’ of the Tractatus, and under the system set forth in the work it is essential to know it. So long as we are ignorant of this the work can be no more than a collection of notes affording possible hypotheses for the study of language. We think that the concept of object in the Tractatus is not susceptible of an interpretation that might satisfactorily resolve the problems which the system is intented to resolve and that might furthermore be compatible with the most important propositions of the defining context.