Thursday 10/4

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 6.4-7

Discussion Questions

First Question: Ethics

Why is it that "ethics cannot be put into words"? (6.421)

Second Question: The World of the Happy Man

Wittgenstein draws 6.43 to a close by enigmatically asserting "The world of the happy man is a different one from that of the unhappy man." In what does the world of the unhappy man consist such that it differs from the world of the happy man? Conversely, in what does the world of the happy man consist such that it differs from the world of the unhappy man?

Third Question: Riddle Me This

Consider 6.5:

When the answer cannot be put into words, neither can the question be put into words.

The riddle does not exist.

If a question can be framed at all, it is also possible to answer it.

How might we best go about justifying the view that properly framing a question presupposes the possibility of answering it, such that absent that possibility, the question has not been asked?

Fourth Question: The Problem of Life

What is Wittgenstein asserting at 6.521 where he claims, "The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of the problem"?

Fifth Question: Kicking Out the Ladder

At 6.54 Wittgenstein famously asserts,

My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them—as steps—to climb up beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.)

What point is Wittgenstein making about the Tractatus itself? Is he right? Is the project of the Tractatus successful in your view, or not?