Pulling Up The Ladder: The Metaphysical Roots of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

This book is a unique, patient apology for the thinking behind the Tractatus. It appeals to philosophy professors who give seminars on the early Wittgenstein and to their students.Rather than merely saying Wittgenstein contradicted himself by using the very ladder he claimed was "nonsensical," Prof. Brockhaus attempts to show how Wittgenstein's philosophy was "consistent." His thesis: "the Tractatus is best seen as an extremely purified version of Schopenhauer's voluntaristic monism, cleansed of objectionable elements through interaction with Frege's robust logical realism and through a modification of Hertz's views on the nature of scientific laws."Those who prefer the plain style of J.L. Austin and of the later Wittgenstein, however, may dislike reading sentences like this: "Hertz's own neo-Kantian analysis, purified by Wittgenstein of any hint of psychologism (transcendental or not) points towards the Tractarian view of science." P. 216-7. As a rule, I dislike seeing proper names used so often as adjectives in philosophy. "Russellian," for example, can mean a dozen different things.When the book reached the subject of atomic propositions, I thought it was finally time to skewer Wittgenstein for not giving any examples, but Brockhaus refrains, on P. 143, saying instead why Wittgenstein didn't feel the need to at the time. The critique the reader may long for is outside the scope of his book's thesis, and therefore, its omission is not a fair basis for criticism. Collateral matters should be omitted.But what I took to be of greater philosophical import is what was omitted there, which made it frustrating. For example, on the subject of atomic propositions, I would have liked to have given the reader something solid to take away, such as adding this:In 1930, Wittgenstein made a more mature clarification of his early aims for logic in "Some Remarks on Logical Form." He chased the chimera of a "perfect notation." He wrote,"Where ordinary language disguises logical structure, where it allows the formation of pseudopropositions, where it uses one term in an infinity of different meanings, we must replace it by a symbolism which gives a clear picture of the logical structure, excludes pseudopropositions, and uses terms unambiguously. Now we can only substitute a clear symbolism for the imprecise one by inspecting the phenomena... however... the ultimate analysis of the phenomena... has not yet been achieved."But in 1932, Wittgenstein wrote tellingly that he and Russell had "a wrong idea of logical analysis; logical analysis is taken as being like chemical analysis. And we were at fault for giving no examples of atomic propositions... We both in different ways pushed the question of examples aside... There are no hidden atomic propositions." And later he wrote, "It makes no sense at all to speak absolutely of the simple parts of a chair." PI #47.Wittgenstein would also say later that he used the word "proposition" in too restrictive a sense in the Tractatus, contrary to its normal "grammar." And, "Philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language." Thus, what he once called "nonsensical" pseudopropositions were really OK. And, "Ordinary language is all right." The ladder need not be thrown away after all.Yet, to get back to Wittgenstein's thinking when he wrote the Tractatus, Brockhaus's book is indispensable.

Doctor Richard R. Brockhaus is an inspiration to humanity. His philosophy and personal wisdom enlighten the masses in this collection of mind-bending topics raning from Work done on a existential, romantic, personifcation conundrum to the epistimological treatise of a southern aristocrat. On other occaisions, Dr. Brockhaus dives into the logistics of saving the world. Truly magnificent.God bless the man that is Doctor Richard R. Brockhaus.