Sharing and debating Wittgenstein by using an ontology (original) (raw)
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Тhe semantic ontology in Wittgenstein’s philosophy
2020
The aim of this article is to sketch the place the theory of meaning has in the overall conception of young Wittgenstein, and to derive from that some of it’s general and central characteristics. The idea of extracting a theory of meaning from the Treatise does take a central stand in this work, since it presupposes an interpretation of the book as a whole.
The ontology of Wittgenstein's Tractatus. A bibliography
2016
Frege's notion of concept-the reference (vs. the sense) of a predicate-is here compared with cognate notions in Husserl's Logical Investigations and in Wittgenstein's Tractatus. Their common trait is unsaturatedness or existential dependency: the different treatment of this chief notion of formal ontology is in turn examined comparatively, with regard to the conflicts and the alliances taking tacitly place between the three. In Frege's notion of concept, at any rate, an inner tension arises from its twofold nature of property and of truth-function: saturation and function/argument are too heterogeneous models. Hints for a way out suggested." 17.
Some Observations on Developments towards the Semantic Web for Wittgenstein Scholarship
Mind, Language and Action: Contributions to the 36th International Wittgenstein Symposium, 2013
The nature of Wittgenstein’s Nachlass makes it perhaps particularly well-suited for the development of digital tools enabling scholars to navigate (browse, search, reference) a vast collection of material “criss-cross in every direction” in an informed and efficient manner. (The Bergen Electronic Edition of the Nachlass is an example of such a tool.) The advantage of an online digital platform is being able to do so on different hardware and software systems when- and wherever. And an advantage of Open Access, Open Source solutions is that these resources are available for free and the underlying code and datasets open to scrutiny by all (see e.g. Wittgenstein Source and the Agora platform). A valuable addition to current technology will be lemmatized searching, enabling search for different forms of terms across both the English and German. Moreover, the development of semantically driven tools promises opportunities, yet presents challenges.
Ontology, semantics and philosophy of mind in Wittgenstein's Tractatus: A formal reconstruction
Erkenntnis, 1988
This paper presents a formal explication of Wittgenstein's early views on ontology, the syntax and semantics of an ideal logical language, and the propositional attitudes. It is shown that Wittgenstein gave a "language of thought" analysis of propositional attitude ascriptions, and that his ontological views imply that such ascriptions are truth-functions of (and supervenient upon) elementary sentences. Finally, an axiomatization of a quantified doxastic modal logic corresponding to Tractarian semantics is given. First published in Erkenntnis 29 (1988), 35-75. ISSN 0165-0106.
Essays on the philosophy of Wittgenstein
2010
This is the first of two volumes containing the proceedings of the 32 nd International Wittgenstein Symposium in Kirchberg/Lower Austria, August 2009. The overall topic of this conference, "Language and World", can be seen as central to Wittgenstein's philosophy. When he was once asked by Yorick Smythies what he regarded as the greatest problem in philosophy, Wittgenstein's answer was "Subject and predicate". We have decided to dedicate this first volume solely to Wittgenstein's philosophy. The four sections only provide a very basic structure. Several contributions easily fit into more than one section. Some of the contributions even might have needed an altogether different heading. The chapter "Wittgenstein's Nachlass" results from a workshop on new aspects of Wittgenstein's published and unpublished writings. The editors would like to express their gratitude to all the contributors and to those who took part in the many and lively discussions during the conference. Without them this volume would never have happened. We would also like to thank the board of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society and our publisher Dr. Rafael Hüntelmann for supporting us all the way through. This volume and the conference were sponsored by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Research as well by the Government of the Province of Lower Austria. We are very grateful for their generous funding.
The Ontology of Wittgenstein's Tractatus
2018
The Ontology of Wittgenstein's Tractatus INTRODUCTION "The Tractatus comprises four parts, which correspond to stages of its rocky development: the theory of logic (1912-14), the picture theory (1914), the discussion of science and mathematics (1915-17), and the discussion of the mystical (1916-17). The structure of the book is as follows: Ontology (1-2.063): although the Tractatus is concerned with symbolic representation (Preface), it starts with ontology, since the nature of representation, and of what represents (thought/language), is isomorphic with the nature of what is represented (reality). Depiction (2.1-3.5): having claimed that the world is the totality of facts, the Tractatus proceeds to investigate a subset of that totality, namely pictures, in particular PROPOSITIONS, that is, facts which are capable of representing other facts. Philosophy (4-4.2): unlike science, philosophy does not consist of propositions, since the logical form shared by language and reality cannot be expressed in meaningful propositions, but shows itself in empirical propositions (see SAYING/SHOWING). Theory of logic (4.21-5.641, 6.1-6.13): Wittgenstein uses truth-functional operations to explain the construction of molecular propositions out of elementary ones-thereby providing an account of the GENERAL PROPOSITIONAL FORM-and to establish that logical propositions are tautologies. Mathematics (6-6.031, 6.2-6.241): mathematics is also explained as an aspect of the logical operations by which propositions are derived from each other. Science (6.3-6.372): science is treated along Hertzian lines as containing a priori elements, the network of our description of the world. Mysticism (6.373-6.522): ETHICAL and AESTHETICAL value is ineffable. Kicking away the ladder (6.53f.): the Tractatus aims to indicate the limits of the sayable, but acknowledges that its own pronouncements are on the far side of the limit. They should be used as a ladder which can be kicked away once climbed. 'Whereof one cannot speck, thereof one must be silent' (7)." (p. 364) From: Hans-Johann Glock, A Wittgenstein Dictionary, Oxford: Blackwell 1996. FREGE AND WITTGENSTEIN "For Frege there is some kind of connection between the categories of ontology and the categories of signs. The two primary ontological categories, namely object and function, (39) are in fact linked to the two principal categories of signs, namely saturated expressions and unsaturated expressions. All the different types of objects are linked to saturated expressions and all the types of functions are linked to unsaturated expressions. In what follows we will consider the two main kind of saturated expressions: names and propositions. As we all know, they have both sense and The Ontology of Wittgenstein's Tractatus https://www.ontology.co/wittgensteinl.htm 1 di 13 28/12/2018, 22:56 Notes (39) Note that function make up a number of other categories (1st level concepts, 2nd level concepts, ..., 1st level dyadic relations, etc.). (40) I follow Perzanowski's 1993 exposition here. See also Perzanowski 1984 and 1990. (41) See Suszko 1975.
Palgrave 2010
For all those who don't take the Tractatus as an extraordinarily ingenious and extremely ironic exercise in Kierkegaardian style, the problem of the interpretation of its ontology still stands as one of the most prominent among the unsolved, or perhaps one should say "unsolvable", questions surrounding that text. As known, it is not hard to extract from the Tractatus a skeletal ontological scheme, in which a general characterization of the entities playing the semantic role of references of names (objects) and of the entities playing the semantic role of senses of elementary propositions (states of affairs) can be given. No serious interpreter of the Tractatus, however, should be content with that ontological skeleton: too many explicit statements which are to be found in Wittgenstein's early masterpiece are destined to remain unexplained and desperately obscure if the interpreter accepts to confine him or herself to the limits of a schematic ontology. On the other hand, a strong impulse to the acceptance of those limits originates from other equally well known aspects of Wittgenstein's position: first, the mere but insurmountable fact that no instance either of an object or of a state of affairs is given in the Tractatus; second, Wittgenstein's clear and definite statement