Chatper 2

2.
0 CHAPTER TWO: WITTGENSTEIN’S CONTRIBUTION TO SEMANTIC

THEORY
2.1 MEANING AND SEMANTIC VALUE IN FREGE
Gottlob Frege (1848-1925) is undoubtedly one of the most influential Philosophers in the
Analytic Philosophy of Language. Trained as a Mathematician, his work in Philosophy started
as an attempt to provide an explanation of the truths of arithmetic. In the course of this attempt,
he not only founded modern Logic but also had to address fundamental questions in the
Philosophy of Language and Philosophy of Logic1. Michael Dummett affirms in this regard
that “many of the philosophical problems which Frege posed were, or easily could be expressed
by asking after the sense of some expressions or sentences”2. Frege is generally seen (along
with Russell and Wittgenstein) as one of the fathers of the Analytical method, which dominated
Philosophy in the early twentieth century. His distinction between sense (Sinn) and reference
(Bedeutung) has been one of his most influential contributions to Philosophy, which also forms
the basis of his philosophical thoughts and ideas. His ideas are therefore said to be greatly
prominent and had led to immense growth in the philosophical enterprise, especially with
regard to the semantic articulation, meaning, and language as a basic tool in this discourse.
Simultaneously, the commentaries of many authors on his works have also degenerated into
voluminous literature for the good of philosophical speculations3.
Frege was the first to raise the issue of meaning by formulating an organized theory of meaning
for a part of natural language as the theory of meaning is at the core of the philosophy of
language. This is evident in his principle of compositionality. He also emphasizes that words
have meaning only in the context of a sentence (context principle). In this vein, Albert Newen
affirms that “the analysis of sentences proves to be the best means, as via regis, for the
investigation of thoughts, because thoughts are expressed most clearly in sentences. Frege's
philosophy of language still serves as a guide for many authors today, because he presented a
systematically developed theory of sense and reference”4. In order to move into Frege's theory
1
Cf. Edward N. Zalta: Gottlob Frege, in: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2022, Stand: 12.07.2021,
https://stanford.library.sydney.edu.au/archives/win1997/entries/frege/.
2
Michael Dummett: Truth and Other Enigmas, London 1992, P. 92
3
Cf. Michael Potter &Tom Ricketts: The Cambridge Companion to Frege, London 2010, P. 220.
4
Albert Newen: Analytische Philosophie, zur Einführung, Hamburg 2005, P. 30 (translated by me). „Die Analyse
von Sätzen erweist sich dabei als beste Mittel, als via regis, für die Untersuchung von Gedanken, denn
of meaning and semantic value deeply, the treatment of sentences will have to be taken both
semantically and syntactically, as he did not propose a sharp distinction between the syntactic
and semantic treatment of sentences. He is rather concerned with determining the truth value of
sentences, which is to be decided by the latter. Jeffrey C. King and UC Davis point this issue
out:
A primary purpose of semantics for a natural language is to compositionally assign to
sentences semantic values that determine whether the sentences are true or false. Since
natural language contains contextually sensitive expressions, semantic values must be
assigned to sentences relative to contexts. These semantic values are propositions . ..
Propositions are the primary bearer of truth and falsity.5
Frege’s initial step aimed at overcoming the limitations of Aristotelian logic, particularly
Aristotle’s understanding of the structure of sentences. He started by analyzing indicative
sentences not into subject terms and predicate terms (‘Socrates is wise’ – S is P), as Aristotle
and his followers did, and further into function and argument. He refers to the argument as
saturated, and the function as unsaturated. The argument is in most cases an individual or a
thing that can stand for itself. The function, however, is incomplete, and unsaturated, but gets
saturated by argument6. This resulted in him strictly calling truth values ‘the True’ and ‘the
False’, in order to avoid the misunderstanding that truth would be a property of sentences7.
Truth and falsity are therefore not properties of sentences, they are rather their denotations.
Hence, indicative sentences are analyzed as functions that map arguments onto truth values.
Semantic theory in the general sense refers to the explanation or description of semantic
relations, of reference (denotation), of satisfaction and fulfillment, of sense and truth. It deals
with explaining the meaning of the words and expressions in the language in relation to reality.
Frege’s theory of sense and reference forms the foundation and the basis of his theory of
meaning. According to him, linguistic items, such as terms, predicates, and sentences, each
have both a referent and a sense. They are mutually exclusive in such a way that sense can
determine reference, but the reference does not determine sense, though a sense of reference is
Gedanken werden am deutlichsten in Sätzen zum Ausdruck gebracht. Freges Sprachphilosophie dient heute
noch viele Autoren als Orientierung, weil er eine systematisch durchgeführte Theorie von Sinn und Bedeutung
vorgelegt hat‟.
5
Jeffrey C. King and UC Davis: Tense, Modality, and Semantic Values, in: Philosophical Perspectives , 17,
Language and Philosophical Linguistics, John Hawthorne & Dean Zimmerman (ed), Oxford 2003, P. 34.
6
Cf. Edward N. Zalta: Gottlob Frege.
7
Cf. Michael Dummett: Frege: Philosophy of Language, London 1981, P. 2.
provided when the reference of some expression is brought to the limelight (true or false)8.
Michael Dummett describes further Frege’s theory of sense in these words:
. . . to the sense of a sentence belongs only to that which is relevant to determining its
truth or falsity; any feature of meaning which cannot affect its truth or falsity belongs
to its tone. Likewise, to the sense of an expression belongs only that which may be
relevant to the truth or falsity of a sentence in which it might occur; any element of its
meaning not so relevant is part of its tone.9
Dummett talks about such a feature of meaning that will not affect a sentence's semantic
value. But also agrees with Frege that truth and falsity are not properties of sentences but
denotations of sentences. That means that a sentence can either be true or false depending on
its truth conditions. It is this kind of feature of meaning which is in line with Frege that
Dummett talks about. Wang Lu pointed this out in affirmation that:
It is clear that this framework is based on some of Frege’s concepts. Dummett took the
theory of reference and sense as the principal of the theory of meaning, which is
exactly the primary content of Frege’s philosophy of language. That he regarded the
theory of reference as the central concept directly coincides with Frege’s formulation.
Dummett takes Frege’s entire formulation of reference to constitute the core of the
theory of meaning. Hence, the theory of meaning should inherit Frege’s results of
reference and take them as the basis of discussion and development. To this extent, the
central core of the theory of meaning clearly correlates with reality and truth, because
the core of Frege’s theory of meaning is the notion of truth.10
Wang Lu portrays the picture of the theory of meaning which puts fundamental emphasis on
the theory of reference and which is conceptually directed towards the concept of truth.
Therefore, for Frege, the referent of a simple subject-predicate sentence is a truth value and is
determined by the referent of the subject and the referent of a predicate. The referent of the
subject term is an object, and the referent of the predicate is a function, which takes an object
as input and yields a truth value as output11. The sense of a simple subject-predicate sentence
is a proposition (or, in Fregean terms, a thought), and is determined by the sense of the
subject term and the sense of the predicate. The nature of the sense of a subject term can be
conceived of as a description associated with the subject term. Like its referent, the sense of a
predicate may also be conceived as a function, which takes the sense of a singular term as
input and yields a proposition as output12.
8
Cf. Michael Dummett: Frege and other Philosophers, Oxford 2003, P. 238.
9
Michael Dummett: Frege: Philosophy of Language, P. 2.
10
Wang Lu: Theories of Meaning, in: Frontiers of Philosophy, China 2008, P. 2.
11
Cf. Albert Newen: Analytische Philosophie, P. 36 (translated by me).
12
Cf. Ibid.
Every sentence for him expresses a thought and the thought is the content of the sentence, that
which is expressed by the sentence. The thought is the bearer of the truth- value (true or false).
Newen affirms that “thoughts are introduced in question as something about which truth can
come into question at all, i.e. when something is true or false, then this must be a thought. Since
something that is true cannot be subjective, thoughts must be objective”13. Frege therefore
identifies the thought with the sense of the sentence and propositions as bearers of truth values.
The question of truth further requires that our words have reference as well as sense, according
to him. And it is this question which drives him into concluding that at least some sentences
must have a reference as well as a sense. Dummett in this regard attests that “the sense of an
expression is, to repeat that part of its meaning which is relevant to the determination of the
truth-value of, sentences in which the expression occurs”14.
Frege’s recognition of the two intimately related semantic properties of reference and Sense in
the theory of meaning did not contradict his earlier works, but rather provided a more plausible
and succint description of his theory. He could visualize what sort of analysis he worked with.
This according to Dummett, could be seen in the kind of system provided where propositions
become the bearers of the truth values which seems to be the ultimate objective of the theory of
meaning suggested by Frege15. In this regard, Sikander Jamil in his theory of meaning
concerning proper names writes:
The function is in turn introduced by the concept expression ‘ξ is wise’, which is
formed by omitting a proper name, that is, ‘Peter.’ Putting any proper name in place of
‘ξ’, satisfying the corresponding object, that is, wise object, the concept expression
will yield an atomic sentence, which is determined with the possession of truth value
(in terms of possessing significance of a complete sentence). And this function
presents only such object, that is, wise object on to the truth value as true16.
On the one hand, a proper name may fail to designate or denote an object and hence be devoid
of reference and also fail to supply an atomic or elementary sentence in which it lies with an
argument to the function expressed by the predicate. Any such atomic or elementary sentence
will be devoid of any truth value. Frege authorizes it by stating that the sentence is neither true
nor false. It simply shows that the sentence falls short of having any truth value at all17.
13
Ibid., P. 31 (translated by me). „Gedanken werden bei Frage als etwas eingeführt, bei dem überhaupt Wahrheit
in Frage kommen kann, d.h., wenn etwas wahr oder falsch ist, so muss dies ein Gedanke sein. Da etwas, was
wahr ist, nichts Subjektives sein kann, müssen Gedanken objective sein‟.
14
Michael Dummett: FREGE Philosophy of Language, P. 89.
15
Ibid., P. 54.
16
Sikander Jamil: Frege: The Theory of Meaning Concerning Proper Names, Oxford 2011, P. 153.
17
Cf. Ibid.
Dummett suggested elsewhere that Frege was thinking of a third value which is a member of
the undesignated value class. Gareth Evans affirms in this regard that “If Frege would have
recognized such third value, then his concepts would have treated objects as per broader
category of entities, in this case too a sentence would have devoid of any truth value, as there is
no argument displayed to the function that is appropriate”18. On the other hand, a concept
expression may fall short of introducing a function that maps objects onto truth values. This
situation can occur particularly in cases where the function of concept expression is not clear
which affects the meaning because such expressions cannot be used in general language to
make some significant and important assertions regarding the facts in connection with the truth
value19. And if such expressions are allowed then naturally some atomic sentences would
display the absence of truth value, particularly universally quantified sentences. Frege,
regarding empty singular terms concerning their meaning, points out in his unpublished work
Seventeen Key Sentences on Logic that “a sentence can be true or untrue only if it is an
expression for a thought. For instance, the sentence ‘Leo Sachse is a man’ is the expression of a
thought only if ‘Leo Sachse’ designates something. And so too the sentence ‘ this table is
round’ is the expression of a thought only if the words ‘this table’ are not empty sounds but
designate something specific for man”20.
Meanwhile, Fregean Semantics is based on the notion of truth-conditions. Hence, knowing the
meaning of a sentence is tantamount to knowing its truth-conditions, not its truth value, of
course. This idea dates back to Wittgenstein that “to understand a sentence means to know what
is the case if it is true. (one can understand it, therefore, without knowing whether it is true or
false). It is understood by anyone who understands its constituents (the words).”21. The
truth-conditions of a sentence are therefore determined by its sense, thought or proposition. The
sense of the predicate expression (conceived as a function) maps the sense of its argument onto
a thought. Words according to Frege’s context principle have meaning only in the context of a
sentence. In the introduction of his Grundlagen, he writes thus; “never to ask of the meaning of
a word in isolation, but only in the context of a proposition”22. This implies that the concept of
compositionality and the context principle go hand in hand. In this regard, Dummett opines:
18
Gareth Evans: The Varieties of References, New York 1982, P.11.
19
Cf. Sikander Jamil: Frege, P. 153.
20
Gottlob Frege: Posthumous Writings, Oxford 1979, P. 174.
21
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, London 1988, 4.024.
22
Gottlob Frege: Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik, J.L.Austin (trans): The Foundation of Arithmetic, London
1953. P. x.
Frege’s view was that we human beings can grasp thoughts only as expressed in
language, which implies that language is involved in our assumptions of any
propositional attitude. The theory of Sinn and Bedeutung was not, for Frege, exclusively
about linguistic expressions, in that thoughts do not owe their existence to being
expressed, but have as intrinsic constituents the sense of the words composing the
sentences that would express them, while Bedeutung attaches primarily to the sense and
only mediately to the expression”23.
Furthermore, Frege used logical analysis to specify the truth-conditions of any meaningful
sentence. This entails a two-stage procedure, starting with the analysis of elementary sentences,
followed by the analysis of molecular sentences, that is, the result of combining elementary
sentences by the use of logical connectives. These connectives map the truth-values of their
constituents, elementary sentences, onto the truth-values of the molecular sentence24. The truth
values of molecular sentences solely depend on, and are determined by, the truth values of their
constituents, the elementary sentences. It transpires that the specification of the truth-conditions
of complex sentences boils down to the specification of the truth-conditions of elementary
sentences.
However, at the heart of Frege’s idea is a theory of reference (denotation), which ascribes
semantic values (or Bedeutungen) to expressions of all syntactic categories25. In as much as
semantic theory aims at explaining how semantic relations are established or determined, the
semantic relation of reference or denotation plays an important role in determining the truth
value of propositions. For Frege, what bestows a truth value on propositions or thoughts is
reference (denotation) and predication. The Denotation of an expression is its reference, the
object in the reality to which it refers to, what is interpreted. Reference or denotation is
therefore mediated by sense such that every name as well as every expression has both a sense
and a denotation. A name designates or denotes its denotation, and expresses its sense: “A
proper name (word, sign, sign-compound, expression) expresses its sense, and designates or
signifies its denotation. We let a sign express its sense and designate its denotation”26. Hence,
the important relation between the sense and the denotation of a given name is that the sense of
a name determines its denotation. In this regard, the sense and denotation of the names are
basic; but sense and denotation of the sentence as a whole can be described in terms of the
sense and denotation of the names and the way in which those words are arranged in the
23
Michael Dummett: The Sea of Language, Oxford 1993, P. 225.
24
Cf. Ibid.
25
Cf. Michael Dummett: FREGE Philosophy of Language, P. i.
26
Gottlob Frege: Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik, P. 220.
sentence27. This is quite related to the semantic relation of satisfaction and fulfilment in that a
proposition is true if and only the if the predicate F satisfies, applies to, or is true of, the
denotation of the singular term which has reference. What the sense of a name denotes or
connotes is considered to be satisfactory and obtainable in as as much it has refernce to truth
value.
Frege consequently argues that the semantic value of a sentence is its truth-value and that the
semantic values of other expressions are their contributions to the truth-values of sentences in
which they occur. These semantic contributions are subject to a principle of compositionality,
according to which the semantic value of a complex expression is determined as a function of
the semantic values of its individual sub-expressions and the sense of an expression is seen in
the mode of presentation of its semantic value28. Since this mode of presentation includes the
way in which the semantic value of the complex expression is determined by a function of the
semantic values of its simple constituents, the sense of an expression inherits a certain
compositionality from the underlying semantic theory. Dummett further asserts that:
In particular, the sense of a sentence is given by its canonical truth-condition, which

displays how its truth-value depends functionally on the semantic values of all of its
simple constituents. Truth-conditions therefore involve Referents: The canonical
truth-condition of a sentence S involves the referents of all singular terms that occur in
referential positions in S, in the sense that names of these referents must occur in
referential positions in the characterization of S’s canonical truth-condition in the
meta-language29.
It follows therefore that in a formal system, the semantic value of a sentence is that which is
associated with the linguistic expressions that are involved. In other words, it implies that
unless we are talking about a language, the semantic value is something non-linguistic.
Rodrigues affirms in this context that in compositional semantics, the semantic value of a
complex expression depends functionally on the semantic values of their constitutive parts and
on the way they are combined. He states an instance as follows: “Let v be the semantic value of
an expression A. When A is part of a more complex expression (...A...) the semantic value of
(...A...) depends on v and on the structure of (...A...). Moreover, if (...A...) is a sentence, the
27
Cf. Edward Zalta: Gottlob Frege, in: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2022, Stand:18.11.2022,
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2022/entries/frege.
28
Cf. Michael Dummett: FREGE Philosophy of Language. P. i.
29
Ibid.
truth-value of (...A...) also depends on v and on the structure of (...A...). The semantic value
associated with an expression A may be a referant of A” 30.
From the above expressions, it follows that inasmuch as dealing with the atomic sentences is
concerned, that is, the object of our perception being followed by some proper name earlier
seen as its reference, Frege’s model seems to be quite safe and justified. But dealing with
objects of perception that are not followed by some proper reference seems for Frege quite
illogical. This is so because, with regard to thought operation on objects, we possess very little
knowledge of the extremely complex psyche of the human mind31. Therefore, the consideration
of a particular object in such a way that it reflects the non-existence of that object, its reference,
poses specific hinges on the expression of thought. And this has a strong influence against
Frege’s model of referring expressions such that it falls short to be applied in natural
language32.
However, worthy of note is the fact that the theory of reference has its foundation on the notion
of proper names which in turn directly affects the theory of sense. It is inseparably connected
with the theory of meaning which leads to determining the truth value of sentences by
reflecting their semantics which in turn is linguistically preserved by the notion of reference33.
And as a result, ontologically speaking, there is an immediate display of an object
corresponding to the utterance of a proper name by some speaker of language. This is why
Rodrigues makes a splendid remark in emphasizing the role of reference in the theory of
meaning when he states in this regard that “Davidson’s suggestions to drop the reference from
the theory of meaning may not be accepted. Above all, both the theories, that is, the theory of
sense and the theory of reference concerning proper names are nothing but an ingredient in the
theory of meaning prescribed by Frege”34.
In addition, both Dummett and Evans agree with regard to the notion of proper names and
refernce that the Frege’s model of communication is the Ideal one35. This is because it refers to
the claim that we hardly understand one another perfectly. But still, the conception of proper
30
Ab´ılio Rodrigues: Frege Semantics Values, in: South American Journal of Logic Vol. 5, n. 2, California 2019,
P. 380.
31
Cf. Ibid.
32
Cf. Ibid.
33
Ibid.
34
Ibid., P. 381.
35
Cf. Michael Dummett: Frege: Philosophy of Language, P.105.
names serves some purpose of effective communication as linking with the object under
consideration. And Frege’s model of communication of reference still possesses strong
influence on semantics in its application. On the matter, Dummett writes:
. . . the practice of speaking a language and the theory of meaning which gives an
account of that practice can thus not be separated, except in thought: they constantly
interact with one another. The notion of sense, therefore, not a mere theoretical tool to
be used in giving an account of a language; it is one which, in an inchoate fashion, we
constantly appeal to or make use of in our actual practice (as, for instance, when we
challenge someone to make precise the sense in which he is using some expression)36
In the Grundgesetze, Frege gives a number of arguments whose purpose is to show that the
axioms and rules of the Begriffsschrift are, respectively, true and truth-preserving. There are
the semantic justifications of the axioms and rules, found scattered throughout Part I of the
work and there is the argument of sections 30–31, which is supposed to show that every
well-formed expression has a reference. These arguments have explicitly semantical
conclusions, and they make heavy use of semantic notions or terms. Their character makes it
extremely unlikely that they are intended merely as a peculiar sort of foreign language
instruction37
2.2 THE CONCEPT OF NAME IN THE TRACTATUS
Ludwig Wittgenstein is generally considered to be one of the greatest philosophers in the 20th
century who played a central role in the analytic philosophical thought in diverse issues of logic
and language, perception and intention, ethics and religion, aesthetic and culture. This is visible
through his philosophical works and thoughts which exert strong influence towards the
transformation of the nature of philosophical enterprise38. He is generally said to be greatly
influenced by Ruselle and Frege’s writings, ideas and thoughts which form the basis of his
Tractatus39 . Dummett affirms that, “the first attempt to make a radical modification in Frege’s
conception of how language functions was the picture theory, perhaps, better, the diagram
theory, of the Tractatus”40.
36
Cf. Ibid., P.107.
37
Ibid.
38
Priyanka Weerasekara: A Study on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Concept of Language Games and the Private
Language Argument, in: Sabaragamuwa University Journal Volume 12 Number 1, Sri Lanka 2013, P. 83.
39
Cf. Joachim Schulte: Wittgenstein, Eine Einführung, Stuttgart 2001, P. 58. (translated by me).
40
Michael Dummett: Frege and other Philosophers, P. 241.
In writing the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, first published in German as
Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung, in which the influence of logic is already evident in the
presentation, Wittgenstein attempted nothing less than the dissolution of all the problems of
philosophy41. He believed that this Herculean task was possible because he was committed to
the idea that philosophical problems can be solved or dissolved more accurately by paying
closer attention to what language really is and how it really works. This is because as stated in
the preface of the Tractatus “the method of formulating these problems rests on the
misunderstanding of the logic of our language. Its whole meaning could be summed up
somewhat as follows: What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak
thereof one must be silent”42. Schulte in this regard affirms that “the Tractatus not only wants
to clear up certain misunderstandings of the logic of language, but at the same time condemn
the misuse of language…43 It implies that the problems arise because we misapply words and
concepts in our theorizing. By straying beyond the limits of language, we stray beyond the
logical limits of thoughts, and although these thoughts have the form of genuinely valid ideas,
what we tend to do at this point is entertaining nonsense. In this regard, Johannis Aziz affirms
that “by paying closer attention to language and its limits, Wittgenstein wanted to clearly
delineate the dividing line between sense and nonsense, in order that we can know when to stop
theorizing and prevent our falling into nonsense”44. Thus, for Wittgenstein, proper
understanding of language makes classic philosophical problems not problems that can be
legitimately argued about and discussed in logical or rational fashion, but rather a kind of
mirage created out of our linguistic confusions and misuse. This idea plays a significant role in
the formulation of some concepts and ideas in order to proffer a solution to these linguistic
confusions. Kant’s method in the critique of Pure Reason is said to have a domineering
influence also on him in the quest for this intellectual struggle45. And the Name theory and
picture theory stand out so prominent in this regard.
The meaning of a name in Frege’s description refers to the object it denotes. But the nature of
the relationship between names and objects raises grave difficulties and challenges: For Frege,
Objects are given to us, they are accessible to perception and recognition, and the manner in
41
Cf. Albert Newen: Analytische Philosophie, P. 79. (translated by me).
42
Ludiwg Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Oxford 2019, P. 19.
43
Joachim Schulte: Wittgenstein, Eine Einführung, P. 60 (translated by me). „Der Tractatus will also nicht nur
über gewisse Mißverständnisse der Sprachlogik aufklären, sondern zugleich den Mißbrauch der Sprache
verurteilen…‟.
44
Johannis Aziz: The Influence of Ludwig Wittgenstein in Political Theory, Berkeley 2014, P. 21.
45
Cf. Georg Römpp, Wittgenstein, Ein philosophische Einführung, Wien 2010, P. 12. (translated by me).
which they are given determines the sense of the names denoting them. But Wittgenstein
explicitly opposes these views and seems to leave obscure the nature of objects and the manner
in which they are given. The nature of objects and the manner in which they are given are not
included among the actual data but are taken to be a transcendental condition on the possibility
of language. The notion of name ("Name") in the Tractatus, therefore, emanates as one of the
attempts Wittgenstein made in order to arrive at a plausible solution to certain semantic
problems arising due to the issue of reference which was quite dominant from the time of Frege
and Russell46. Consequently, he tries to analyze language, its conceptual expressions, and their
relations in order to attain a kind of simple homogeneous elements that are not further
analyzable. These ultimate constituents of language in which no differences can be found are
described as the Tractarian names47. For Wittgenstein then names represent simple objects, but
do not play the role of singular terms and thus do not refer to or denote. The meaningfulness of
language, therefore, resides in the existence of names such that it is essential to names that,
they are not analyzable any further, because they are indefinable48. Naming for him implies first
and foremost, the act of making a metaphysical preparation for language use and propositions.
This is in line with his initial premise in Tractatus that “the world is everything that is the
case”49.
The notion of name is basically presented and discussed by Wittgenstein in paragraphs

3.2-3.263 of the Tractatus. A name for him is a simple sign (einfache Zeichen) which stands
for a simple object; it is the ultimate constituent of the proposition. “A name is a primitive
sign (Urzeichen), an indefinable sign”50. Simple signs in the same vein are the elements of the
propositional sign that have objects as their meaning. Therefore, “simple signs employed in
propositions are called names.”51. Names represent the objects in the context of a
propositional sign. He further analyses that the relation between a name and an object is
metaphysically a representational one such that the name stands for the object; it is the
representative of the object (vertritt)52. It follows that a name has its meaning only in the
nexus of a proposition, in the sense that the fixation of the meaning is determined by the use
46
Cf. Mario Cerezo: Lógica y Lenguaje en el Tractatus de Wittgenstein, Pamplona, 1998, P. 169.
47
Cf. Mario Cerezo: On Naming and Possibility in Kripke and in the Tractatus, Philosophy of Language,
Stanford University, Stand: 14.07.2021, https://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Lang/LangCere.htm.
48
Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-philosophicus, 3.26.
49
Ibid.,1.
50
Ibid,
51
Ibid., 3.202.
52
Cf. Ibid., 3. 22.
of the sign, which makes the sign into a symbol53. Wittgenstein in this regard opines that the
meaning of names depends upon the grammatical rules that govern their use, upon their
position in propositions and in language54. Hence, “only the proposition has sense; only in the
context of a proposition has a name meaning”55. A sign is what can be perceived, a symbol is
a sign taken together with its logico-syntactical use, and the meaning is the objects a sign
stands for, which can only be determined by the logic-syntactical use of the sign. He affirms
thus:
Every defined sign signifies via those by which it is defined, and the definition shows
the way. Two signs, one a primitive sign, and one defined by primitive signs, cannot
signify in the same way. Names cannot be taken to pieces by definition (nor any sign
which alone and independently has a meaning. What does not get expressed in the
sign is shown its application. What the signs conceal, their application declare56
Meanwhile, Tractarian names possess logical form based on the way they occur in sentences.
The Tractarian names invariably do not have sense. The way the names combine in the
propositional sign depicts its sense. But, the case is quite different as regards Tractarian
names and objects such that the ideas of sense cannot exist here since they are simple and not
parts oriented57. It becomes then important to look more closely at two aspects of this notion
of the name as Mario Cerezo presented it. First is the indescribable nature of simple objects
and the impossibility of determining the meaning of names by means of sense, by analyzing
them into parts. This implies then that names can only get their meaning by having recourse
to their use58. This is deductible from Wittgenstein’s position that each simple sign contains
virtually all the possible combinations in the propositional sign of which it may form part59.
Second is the stand that a simple object has an ineffable character because it is not complex
in the sense that it does not have complexity. It, therefore, follows that the reference of a
name cannot be understood as its content, as conceived by Frege, but the relationship that
exists between a name and an object is described by Wittgenstein in terms of “a replacing
relation”60. In this regard, Mario Cerezo affirms that “the name replaces or takes the place of
the object in the picture because it has the same form. As a result of the isomorphism between
53
Cf. Mario Cerezo: On Naming and Possibility.
54
55
Ibid, 3.3.
56
Ibid., 3.261-2.
57
Cf, Mario Cerezo: On Naming and Possibility.
58
Cf, Ibid.
59
60
Ibid., 3.203.
the language and the world, just as the name occurs in a proposition, but also can occur in
others, so the object occurs in one state of affairs, but can also occur in other states of affairs,
and the replacing connection is established in terms of those possibilities”61.
However, these paragraphs on the notion of name tend to bring out two ideas that are not
completely compatible namely: propositions in relation to thought and meaning. . On the one
hand, thoughts are seen as pictures of reality and the logical picture of facts is thus thought
oriented62. It then follows that the elements of pictures for Wittgenstein are the
representatives of objects and they are correlated (Zuordnungen) with objects63. Hence, “in
propositions thoughts can be so expressed that to the objects of the thoughts correspond the
elements of the propositional sign”64. Wittgenstein further explicitly states that "a name
means an object and the object is its meaning (“A” is the same sign as “A”)”65. The object
might be then considered as an isolated thing, as that thing which a name stands for, and the
name would be the mark that enables us to identify an object. On the other hand, it is "only in
the nexus of a proposition does a name have meaning"66. This implies that the meaning of
names seems to be reduced to its role and contribution in propositions. It depicts that states of
affairs and propositions are in the same logical space, such that there is no world separated
from a logical space. The meaning of a name would therefore be subjected to the role it plays
in the proposition67. In this regard, Wittgenstein affirms : “Objects I can only name. Signs
represent them. I can only speak of them. I cannot assert them. A proposition can only say
how a thing is, not what it is.”68
Therefore, the issue of the derivation of the meanings of tractarian names involves the totality
of language, and the role played by names in it (their logico-syntactical use). It also entails
finding a basis for the meaningfulness of language in the metaphysical constitution of the
world. This projection establishes the pictorial relation which obtains between
thought(sentence) and the state of affairs. The thought is the projection of a possible state of
61
Mario Cerezo: On Naming and Possibility.
62
Cf. Ibid., 3.
63
cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-philosophicus , 2.1514.
64
Ibid., 3.2
65
Ibid., 3.203.
66
Ibid., 3.3.
67
68
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-philosophicus, 3.221.
affairs, and in this sense a logical picture of reality. Such a projection also concerns the
mapping out of one totality onto the other totality69. Cosequently, the basis could be seen in
the Tractatus notion of form; and form is considered within the framework of the relationship
between name, proposition and language, and the corresponding relation between object,
state of affairs and in relation to the world. Therefore, the condition of correlation of name
and object is seen in the close link that exists between propositional components and the
things they represent70. This concerns primarily the pictorial relation, not the naming relation.
It relates also to the connection of objects in the state of affairs and of names in the
proposition71. In this wise, Hide Ishiguro writes thus:
The Tractatus [and the Investigations] view entails that it is the use of the Name which
gives you the identity of the object rather than vice versa....If the object can be
identified by a description we can learn the reference and use of a name by correlating
it to the object picked out by the definite description, as indeed we normally do....The
Tractatus theory of names is basically correct, however, in so far as it is a refutation of
views which assume that a name is like a piece of label which we tag onto an object
which we can already identify. A label serves a purpose because we usually write
names - which already have a use - on the label72
The names spoken of in the Tractatus are not mere signs (that is, typographically or
phonologically identified inscriptions), but rather signs together with their logical form which
determines their possible occurrence in elementary sentences. Being symbols, names are
identified and individuated only in the context of significant sentences. Ian Proops affirms that
“A name is semantically simple in the sense that its meaning does not depend on the meanings
of its orthographic parts, even when those parts are, in other contexts, independently
meaningful” 73.
Nevertheless, the concept of the name in the Tractatus faced a lot of criticism from both
Wittgenstein himself in the Philosophical Investigations and other Philosophers in the
twentieth century. It is observable and important to note that a considerable part of the
Investigations is concerned explicitly or implicitly with criticizing fundamental commitments
69
70
Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein: Notebooks 1914-1916, G. H.Wright & G. E. M. Anscombe (ed), London 1979, P. 5.
71
Cf. García Suarez: Sobre el pretendido realismo básico del Tractatus, in: Filosofía analítica hoy, Universidad
de Santiago de Compostela , M. Torrevejano (ed), Santiago de Compostela, 1991, PP. 35-47, here: P. 37.
72
Hide Ishiguro: Use and Reference of Names, in: Studies in the Philosophy of Wittgenstein, Peter Winch (ed.),
Oxford 1969, P. 34-35.
73
Ian Proops: Wittgenstein's Logical Atomism, Names and Objects in: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
Edward N. Zalta (ed), Stanford 2011, Stand: 15.07.2021,
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/wittgenstein-atomism/.
not only of the Tractatus but also of the whole tradition of philosophical thought which
culminated in the ambiguity, misconception and misuse of terms74. For instance, the idea that
the meaning of a name is the object it stands for is seen as a misconception. This is because it
involves a misuse of the word “meaning”. And anyway, ‘standing for’ or ‘represent’ is not a
semantic relation. There is no such thing as the name-relation, and to think that the essence of
words is to name something, is a misconception beacuse words have infinitely many roles75.
Nasrullah Mambrol buttressed it further on the fact that “although words may be connected to
reality in all manner of ways (one may stick a label on a bottle on which is written “Shake
before use,” wear a name-label on one’s lapel, print the name of a book on its cover, hang an
“Enter” notice on a door, etc.), none of them determines the meaning of a word; they
presuppose it”76. For him, there is a supposition that they are derived from a misapprehension of
ostensive definition, which connects a word with a sample, as when one explains what a color
word means, for example: “This color is black.” But the sample invoked is an instrument of
language and belongs to the means of representation, not to what is represented. The ostensive
definition does not describe anything, but gives a rule for the use of the word “black.” It is akin
to a substitution rule, for instead of saying “My shoes are black” one can say “My shoes are
this color; employing the sample, ostensive gesture, and phrase “this color” in place of the
word “black”77.
In conclusion, the Naming relation for Wittgeinstein is internal and part of the logic of
representation. It is however built into the use of language which is deeply ‘de dicto’ and
holistic dependent on an already existing logic and language equipped with meaningful signs
(=names) and that is why for him the propositional sign is a fact78. To consider the first part of
this relation, it can be said that to name is to name something, in other words, a name is the
name of something, not a reference of something. That is to say, every name supposes an
internal relation in which the representation of something in some way is unavoidable. In order
to be able to talk about a name, we have an inevitable internal relation to what is non-name or
an object. It implies that without relation to an object, it is impossible to speak of a naming
activity. The act of naming then entails the act of naming something or an object. Where an act
74
Cf. P.M.S. Hacker: Wittgenstein, in: The World’s Great Philosophers, Robert L. Arrington (ed), Oxford 2003,
PP. 316-332, here: P. 324.
75
Cf. Ibid.
76
Nasrullah Mambrol: Key Theories of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ohio 2019, P. 10.
77
Ibid., P. 11.
78
of naming is supposed, the existence of an object to be named is also supposed79. For him,
every name must have meaning simply by depending upon the existence of an object to which
it represents80.
Therefore, the only ‘semantic’ in the sense of ‘truth-evaluable’ for Wittgenstein is the pictorial
relation, the sentence as a picture or projection of a possible state of affairs. Names name
objects and outside any system of representation, there is no world. Therefore, the Tractatus has
no theory of reference in the strict sense. The only semantic relation - language -world relation
is the pictorial relation of sentences. He asserts that logical pictures can depict the world. The
picture has a logical form of representation in common with what it pictures. The picture
represents a possible state of affairs in logical space81. In this respect, he goes beyond Frege
who claims that names have sense and reference. For Frege, the sense is a way (method) of
fixing (giving) the reference. But for Wittgenstein, the sense is at the bottom of the pictorial
relation between thought (sentence) and possible state of affairs. It is thus worth noting also
that for Wittgenstein the representational use of names presupposes that names have meaning82.
Hence, the naming relation in the Tractatus is no referential relation, but a representational one.
This is above all the line of demarcation between him and Frege, that meaning(sense) entails
more than just reference. One could speak of a non-semantic notion of meaning, in the sense,
that a symbol, say a traffic sign or a cross has meaning. However, semantic relations consist of
reference and truth. While standing for’, ‘being a proxy for’ or ‘represent’ are semiotic
relations, not necessarily tied to language, unlike semantic relations which are necessarily tied
to language. Consequently, Wittgenstein in the Tractatus skips over the issue of reference and
concentrates exclusively on the pictorial relation between thought and facts. Thus, for him “the
picture is linked with reality; it reaches up to it. The picture can represent every reality whose
form it has. The spatial picture, everything spatial, the coloured, everything coloured,etc”83.
And the relationship between proposition and picture is something internal - Isomorphic.
79
Cf. Sam Cumming: Names, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed), 2019, Stand:
10.09.2021, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2019/entries/names/.
80
81
Cf. Ibid., 2.19, 2.202.
82
Cf. Ibid, 3.203.
83
Ibid., 2.1511, 2.171.
2.3 LOGICAL STRUCTURE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS
In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein developed a project that could be termed ‘linguistic Kantianism’.
This is in the sense that it follows from the conception that the limits of thought are the limits
of the world and as such the limits of language84. This implies that what can be said or
linguistically expressed has to be clearly said and we must remain silent to what cannot speak
or lingustically expressed. Hence,“Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man
schweigen”85- whereof man cannot speak, thereof man must be silent. He consequently
constructed a philosophy of language, which provides a link between Russell’s logical atomism
and logical positivism. All these philosophies for William Lawhead rally around two central
projects namely, “the refutation of traditional metaphysics of elementary propositions that
would correspond with observable facts and the attempt to develop a theory of language that
would establish boundaries of meaning”86.
By this, Wittgenstein is of the view that whatever can be thought can be expressed in language.
It then follows that the limits of thought can be set out by determining the limits of language.
Hence, the limit of what is intelligible. For Wittgenstein, propositions are meaningful insofar as
they picture states of affairs or matters of empirical fact. Therefore, the propositions of ethics
and metaphysics are not meaningful. The ethical and the mystical are ‘ineffable’, but real. They
are beyond the limits of language and, therefore, about which one must be silent because they
are inexpressible87. This among others has been an influential reading of the part of the
Tractatus. However, this has led to puzzles in the Tractatus because the use of words like
“objects' ', “reality”, and “world” is illegitimate. These concepts are purely formal or a priori88.
And for Wittgenstein, the object for instance “is the fixed, the existent; the configuration is the
changing, the variable”89. This implies that “Objects form the substance of the world. Therefore
they cannot be compound”90. A statement such as; these are objects in the world does not
picture a state of affairs. Rather it is presupposed by the notion of a state of affairs. Philosophy,
84
Cf. William Lawhead: The Voyage of Discovery: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy, Wadsworth 2002, P.
511.
85
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractactus Logico Philosophicus, 7.
86
William Lawhead: The Voyage of Discovery, P. 512.
87
Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractactus Logico Philosophicus, 6.522, 6.54.
88
Cf. Duncan J. Richter: Ludwig Wittgenstein, in: The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 1995, Stand:
11.09.2021, https://iep.utm.edu/wittgens /.
89
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractactus Logico Philosophicus, 2.0271.
90
Ibid., 2.021.
then, has the task of presenting the logic of our language clearly. This will not only solve
important problems but will also show that some things we take to be important problems are
really not problems at all. The gain is not wisdom but an absence of confusion in order to avoid
ambiguity. Wittgenstein, therefore, took philosophical puzzlement very seriously indeed, but he
thought that it needed dissolving by analysis rather than solving by propounding theories91.
This is evident in the notion of logical structure and consequence in the Tractatus which aims
at untying a series of knots that are both profound and highly technical. He made a logical
construction of a philosophical system with the aim of finding the limits of the world, thought,
and language. He tries to dichotomize what is sensible and what is not sensible. In the preface
of the Tractatus, he writes:
The book deals with the problems of philosophy, and shows, as I believe, that the
method of formulating these problems rests on the misunderstanding the logic of our
language… the book will, therefore, draw a limit to thinking, or… to the expression of
thoughts; for, in order to draw a limit to thinking we should have to be able to think
what both sides of the limits… The limit can, therefore, only be drawn in language
and what lies on the other sides of the limit will simply be nonsense92.
One of the most distinctive doctrines of the Tractatus is the account of logical structure and
consequence exclusively in terms of the resources of truth-functional propositional logic. The
account is clearly expressed in proposition 5.11: If all the truth-grounds that are common to a
number of propositions are at the same time truth-grounds of a certain proposition, then we say
that the truth of that proposition follows from the truth of the others.
In spite of the conditional form of the sentence, the context makes it clear that it is meant as an
equivalence such that the truth of a complex or molecular proposition follows from the truth of
others if and only if the truth-grounds that are common to the latter are also truth-grounds of
the former93. The background to this account of logical consequence is well known. It is
evident in Wittgenstein’s earlier postulation that all propositions are truth functions of
elementary propositions, that is, that every truth-value assignment to the elementary
propositions yields a unique truth-value for the complex proposition in which it occurs94. This
is because elementary propositions are logically independent. And he has defined the
truth-grounds of a proposition as the combinations of truth values for elementary propositions
that make the proposition true; “...Those truth -possibilities of its truth-arguments, which verify
91
Cf. Duncan J. Richter: Ludwig Wittgenstein.
92
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractactus Logico Philosophicus, P. 19.
93
Cf. Ibid., 5.11.
94
Ibid., 5.
the propositions, I shall call truth-grounds. If the truth-grounds which are common to a number
of propositions are all also truth-grounds of some one proposition, we say that the truth of this
proposition follows from the truth of those propositions”95. Hence, in this sense, proposition
5.11 according to Zalabrado can be rephrased as the following account of logical consequence:
“A proposition p is a logical consequence of a set Γ of propositions just in case no truth-value
assignment to the elementary propositions makes every element of Γ true and p false”96.
This account of logical consequence has not received as much attention from commentators as
other Tractarian doctrines. One reason for this is that the account seems perfectly clear—it
doesn’t seem to require substantial exegetical work. Another reason is that the account seems
clearly wrong. Of course, truth-functional composition explains many instances of logical
consequence along the lines that Wittgenstein contemplates97. But there are lots of other cases
of a proposition following from other propositions that seem best construed in a different way
in terms of how propositions are put together from common sub-propositional components.
In the Tractatus, the account of logical structure and consequence comes after the metaphysics
and the picture theory of thought. The basic focus of the Tractatus is the pictorial relation
between thought and facts; reaching reality through the projection of possible states of affairs
and the possibility of independent things in as much as they occur in all possible circumstances.
He affirms thus; “The thing is independence, insofar as it can occur in all possible
circumstances, but this form of independence is a form of connexion with the atomic fact, a
form of independence”98. And the central idea of Tractarian semantics is that language makes
contact with the world through a correlation characterized by logical isomorphy; the idea that
the state of affairs and proposition share the pictorial form. Every proposition and its logical
form can be analyzed with regard to this background. So by the time, elementary propositions
are assigned the task of explaining logical consequences, (we have already seen that they have
to be logically independent in as much as they appear in all possible situations) their
constituents have to refer to simple objects99.
95
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractactus Logico Philosophicus, 5.101, 5.11.
96
José L. Zalabardo: The Tractatus on Logical Consequence, in: European Journal of Philosophy, London 2010,
Stand: 10.07.2021, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctyjlz/EJPsans.pdf.
97
Cf. Ibid.
98
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractactus Logico Philosophicus, 2.0122
99
Cf. Ibid., 2.0231, „Die Substanz der Welt kann nur eine Form und keine materiellen Eigenschaften bestimmen.
Denn diese werden erst durch Sätze dargestellt – erst durch die Konfiguration der Gegenstände gebildet‟.
The basic tenets of the logical atomism of the Tractatus follow from its account of logical
structure and consequence. This is absolutely related to the logical independence of elementary
propositions. It is unquestionable that the Tractatus is committed to this claim. It is also
obvious that Wittgenstein attached great importance to it, as the realization that elementary
propositions could not satisfy it, in general, appears to have been the main catalyst for the
disintegration of the Tractarian system. But the basic question that arises is: why did
Wittgenstein think that elementary propositions had to be logically independent of each other,
and why did he attach so much importance to this issue? This question can be immediately
answered in consideration of the role that elementary propositions have to play in the
explanation of logical consequences. Zalabrado explains it further in the following sentences:
A set Δ and a function f won’t satisfy the fundamental principle unless the elements of
Δ are logically independent of each other. To see this, notice that for the elements of Δ
not to be logically independent means that some truth-value assignments on Δ are
logically impossible. For instance, “Let v* be such an assignment which entails as a
special case that a truth-value assignment v on Δ is logically possible just in case there
is a truth-value assignment on Δ whose image under f includes v. But v* is a
counterexample to this—a logically impossible truth-value assignment included in the
image under f of a truth-value assignment on Δ, namely v* itself100.
What this argument shows is that the logical possibility for truth-value combinations of
arbitrary sets of propositions can be reduced to the combinatorial possibility for truth-value
combinations of elementary propositions only if elementary propositions are logically
independent. Hence, Anscombe affirms that Wittgenstein’s commitment to the reduction of
logical possibility to the combinatorial possibility for elementary propositions would suffice “to
explain his commitment to the logical independence of elementary propositions”101.
For Wittgenstein, elementary propositions have much to do with simple objects which they
represent. They are mutually related such that their constituents often refer to simple objects102.
This is quite arguable for Zalabrado in the presence of an assumption to which the Tractatus is
independently committed, such that a set of propositions and its function will not satisfy the
fundamental principle unless the constituents of the elements of the proposition refer to simple
objects103. The additional assumption that is needed is the claim that there are logical links
between propositions about complexes and propositions, about the constituents of these
100
Ibid.,
101
G.E.M Anscombe: An Introduction to Wittgenstein's Tractatus, Oxford 1971, P. 32.
102
Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractactus Logico Philosophicus, 2.02.
103
Cf. José L. Zalabardo: The Tractatus on Logical Consequence, P. 9.
complexes. Wittgenstein’s commitment to this principle is often an uncontroversial one.
Although some authors find it quite demanding and controversial. For instance, Hidé Ishiguro
asserts that Wittgenstein’s commitment to this claim in the Tractatus is as a result of the
misinterpretation of the relation of propositions and the facts they express which affects also
the relation between expressions and complex objects which they represent104. Since facts are
essentially linked to the propositions that describe them, the assimilation of complexes to facts
leads Wittgenstein to assume that the same goes for complexes. But this, according to Ishiguro,
is a mistake:
The Wittgenstein of the Tractatus (like Russell) is, however, wrong to talk about all
complex objects in the same way as he does about facts. For although the identity of a
fact cannot be settled except by settling the identity of the proposition which describes
it, the identity of complex objects such as General de Gaulle does not depend on our
articulating any one particular description. […] Therefore 3.24 is wrong when it says
‘A proposition about a complex stands in an internal relation to a proposition about a
constituent of the complex105.
Nonetheless, as it is clearly expressed in section 3.24: A proposition about a complex stands in

an internal relation to a proposition about a constituent of the complex. Earlier on,
Wittgenstein had given a slightly more detailed account of the relation he had in mind in
section 2.0201 that every statement about complexes can be resolved into a statement about
their constituents and into the propositions that describe the complexes completely. In the
Notebooks, it is also linked to an illustration of the kind of connection that Wittgenstein has in
mind: “φ(a). φ(b). aRb = Def φ[aRb]”106. This is the conception of statements about complexes
that is mocked in the Philosophical Investigations: “… does someone who says that the broom
is in the corner really mean: the broomstick is there, and so is the brush, and the broomstick is
fixed to the brush?”107. Meanwhile, some passages in the Notebooks clearly highlight the
importance that Wittgenstein attaches to the logical nature of the link. For Instance:
But suppose that a simple name denotes an infinitely complex object? For example,
perhaps we assert of a patch in our visual field that it is to the right of a line, and we
assume that every patch in our visual field is infinitely complex. Then if we say that a
point in that patch is to the right of the line, this proposition follows from the previous
one, and if there are infinitely many points in the patch then infinitely many
propositions of different content follow LOGICALLY from that first one 108.
104
Cf. Hide Ishiguro: Use and Reference of Names, in: Studies in the Philosophy of Wittgenstein, London 1969.
P. 37.
105
Ibid., P. 39.
106
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Notebooks, 1914-1916, G. E. M. Anscombe(trans) 2nd edition, Oxford 1979, P. 4.
107
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophische Untersuchungen, The German text with an English translation, 4th
edition, P.M.S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte (ed), London 2007, 60.
108
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Notebooks, P. 64.
These passages seem to presuppose that a statement about a complex is logically linked with
both statements about the constituents of the complex and its logical implications. This aspect
of the approach is much more plausible for the examples that Wittgenstein uses than for other
cases. It refers basically then to the metaphysical claim that there are simple objects, and the
semantic claim that language makes contact with reality in propositions that refer to simples. It
can thus be seen according to Zalabardo “as necessitated by the demands of the Tractarian
account of logical consequence, together with the commitment to the logical nature of links
between propositions about complexes and propositions, about their components”109.
Furthermore, there is also the emergence of existential claims of a fundamental principle. This
refers to the contention that the Tractarian account of logical structure and consequence carries
an extraordinary existential commitment. The plausibility of this account depends on the
possibility of a set of propositions such that every other proposition is a truth-function of
propositions in this set in order to reduce precisely the logically possible combinations to
combinatorially possible combinations for this set. And this requires that the propositions in the
set are logically independent of each other and that they are about simple objects110. With
regard to this commitment, Zalabardo raises at least three urgent questions. The first is the
question about the assurance of the existence of these propositions which Wittgenstein upholds.
This is connected to the account of logical consequence since it is independently motivated and
is subservient to existential claims in its application. On the other way round, this connection
works both ways, and the apparent implausibility of the existential claim should raise suspicion
concerning the account of logical consequence and its implication to semantics111. The second
question concerns Wittgenstein’s confidence that the logical relations between everyday
propositions that result from their relationship to elementary propositions will be largely
connected to the process of our intuitions. This implies that if logical relations between
everyday propositions arise from an unknown link to an unknown elementary proposition, then
there is the possibility of being docile to the discovery of unsuspected logical links or of the
contingent nature of links that are regarded as logical112.
109
José L. Zalabardo: Logical Structure, P. 12.
110
Cf.Ibid.
111
Cf. Ibid.
112
Ibid,. P. 13.
But such discoveries seem to be ruled out by Wittgenstein’s pronouncements against the
possibility of logical mistakes or surprises: From him, “Logic must look after itself. […]
Whatever is possible in logic is also permitted. […] In a certain sense, we cannot make
mistakes in logic. Self-evidence, which Russell talked about so much, can become dispensable
in logic, only because language itself prevents every logical mistake.—What makes logic a
priori is the impossibility of illogical thought”113.
Another way to raise this second question is to reflect on the importance that Wittgenstein
attached to the colour-exclusion issue and its application. He views colour-exclusion as a
perennial problem with regard to their logical and truth functionality. This is because colours
assert multiplicity in their application which can result in logical impossibility and thus a
contradiction such that it becomes logically impossible to attain a proper analysis of their
semantic and applicational representation.114. In this regard, Zalabardo affirms thus:
If logical links between propositions are determined by facts about truth-functional
composition of which we are ignorant, but which analysis is supposed to reveal, then
when Wittgenstein came to the conclusion that ‘this is red’ and ‘this is green’ couldn’t
be analyzed in such a way as to represent their logical incompatibility truth functionally,
one would expect him to contemplate the possibility that, contrary to initial
impressions, the propositions are not logically incompatible after all115.
Generally speaking, the account of logical structure and consequence in terms of contextually
defined elementary propositions and truth functions aims at offering a reading of the Tractarian
account that is in line with well-established readings of other aspects of the book and sustains
satisfactory answers to some important questions that other readings cannot handle adequately.
However, in the Tractatus, the elementary proposition is the core of Wittgenstein’s theory of
propositions. It refers to describing the world and the existence of an atomic fact and reality116.
Just as the facts are all determined in some sense by a class of basic facts – states of affairs – so
propositions are all, in a sense to be explained, determined by a class of basic propositions – the
elementary propositions. Elementary propositions, therefore, stand for states of affairs: “The
113
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, 5. 473- 5.4731
114
Cf. Ibid. 6.3751. „Dass z. B. zwei Farben zugleich an einem Ort des Gesichtsfeldes sind, ist unmöglich und
zwar logisch unmöglich, denn es ist durch die logische Struktur der Farbe ausgeschlossen. Denken wir daran,
wie sich dieser Widerspruch in der Physik darstellt: Ungefähr so, dass ein Teilchen nicht zu gleicher Zeit zwei
Geschwindigkeiten haben kann; das heisst, dass es nicht zu gleicher Zeit an zwei Orten sein kann; das heisst,
dass Teilchen an verschiedenen Orten zu Einer Zeit nicht identisch sein können. (Es ist klar, dass das logische
Produkt zweier Elementarsätze weder eine Tautologie noch eine Kontradiktion sein kann. Die Aussage, dass ein
Punkt des Gesichtsfeldes zu gleicher Zeit zwei verschiedene Farben hat, ist eine Kontradiktion.)‟.
115
116
Cf, Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractactus Logico Philosophicus, 2.
simplest kind of proposition, an elementary proposition, asserts the existence of a state of
affairs; an atomic fact”117. So just as all states of affairs are independent of all other states of
affairs, all elementary propositions are independent of all other elementary propositions: “It is a
sign of a proposition being elementary that there can be no elementary proposition
contradicting it”118. Inasmuch as elementary propositions are correlated with states of affairs; it
follows for him that “truth possibilities of elementary propositions mean possibilities of
existence and non-existence of states of affairs”119. There is also a connection between
Wittgenstein’s view about the relationship between elementary propositions and other
propositions, and his view about the relationship between states of affairs and other facts. If
elementary propositions are matched up one-to-one with states of affairs, then a list of all the
true elementary propositions will state all about the states of affairs. And if the states of affairs
determine all the facts, then it seems that all the true elementary propositions will say all that
there is to be said about the facts, and vice versa. But it is further clear that every proposition
has as its sense some possible state of affairs and whether a proposition is true depends on
whether the state of affairs obtains120. So it must be that the list of all the true elementary
propositions determines the truth values of all the propositions. Wittgenstein expresses this
conclusion when he says, “truth-possibilities of elementary propositions are the conditions of
the truth and falsity of propositions”121.
The Tractarian account of logical structure and consequence would no longer turn on the
independent availability of suitable items to play the role of elementary propositions, but only
on the formal constraints already associated with its given definitions. Furthermore,
Wittgenstein’s certainty that logical-possibility facts are in line with our intuitions would
appear entirely justified, since the facts about elementary propositions and truth functions, on
which logical possibility depends, are construed, precisely, in terms of these intuitions.
Zalabrado affirms this based on the stand that “it is not possible to infer a proposition p from a
proposition q if the truth-grounds of q are not truth-grounds of p simply because the fact that
we infer p from q is what makes it the case that the truth-grounds of q are truth grounds of
p”122.
117
Ibid., 4.21.
118
Ibid., 4.211
119
Ibid., 4.3.
120
G. P. Baker & P. M. S. Hacker: Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar and Necessity: An Analytical Commentary of
the Philosophical Investigations,Volume 2 of an Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations,
Essays and Exegesis of §§ 185-242, Oxford 1985, P. 85.
121
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, 4.41.
122
Finally, the ontological status of the system of elementary propositions and truth functions with
reference to logical structure and its application would no longer appear mysterious. For, on
this account, we can apply to them the words that Ishiguro used for simple objects as thus;
“They would be, not so much a kind of metaphysical entity conjured up to support a logical
theory as something whose existence adds no extra content to the logical theory”123.
2.4 THOUGHT AND PROPOSITION AS PICTURES
In his representation of reality, Wittgenstein employed the very idea of a picture. Pictures for
him do not only include paintings, drawings, photographs, and other pictorial representations in
two dimensions, but also maps, sculptures, three-dimensional models, and even such things as
musical scores, gramophone records, and indeed all facts in logical space124. For this reason, his
theory is perhaps best regarded as the theory of representation in general such that
representation can either be accurate or inaccurate; it can give a true or false picture of what it
represents125. Therefore, he sought to clarify the nature of the proposition by means of a general
theory of representation. In his treatment of representative pictures, Wittgenstein is of the view
that a picture consists of instructions plus a pictorial relationship. It is the relationship between
the elements considered as having pictorial relationships to the objects outside126. A picture
represents a possibility in the real world; it is by the pictorial form that pictures touch reality.
He affirms that “what a picture must have in common with reality, in order to be able to depict
it—correctly or incorrectly—in the way that it does, is its pictorial form.”127. This translation is
closer to the German original because Wittgenstein speaks of “Abbildung”, not of
“Repräsentation”. “Abbildung” has a quite precise meaning in mathematics and geometry
(“geometrical mapping”). For him, propositions are perceptual expressions of thought, and
thoughts are logical pictures of facts because the totality or sum of true thoughts picture of the
world128.
123
Hide Ishiguro: Use and Reference of Names, P. 61.
124
Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 2.11.
125
Cf, Ibid.,, 2.173.
126
Cf. Ibid., 2.13.
127
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Pears & McGuinness (trans), Routledge 1961, 2.17,
„Was das Bild mit der Wirklichkeit gemein haben muss, um sie auf seine Art und Weise – richtig oder falsch –
abbilden zu können, ist seine Form der Abbildung‟.
128
However, before Wittgenstein developed his picture theory of meaning, Russell’s theory of
judgement had laid a foundation upon which he built his theory on. Russell had already
determined that names were simple and propositions composite, that relations between the
components of propositions represented facts and that propositions represented reality by
depicting truly or falsely how things are, not by standing for something129. This multiple
relation theory of judgement for Russell Wahl holds that when one judges something, one is
related not to a complex object but to several objects, which one takes to be related in a certain
way. When, for example, “it is the case that S believes that aRb, the situation is not of the sort
J(S, aRb), but rather of the sort J(S, a, R, b). Thus, it is not the case that the complex entity aRb
need exist for someone to believe that aRb”130. For Bertrand Russell, therefore, a judgement is
true, when it corresponds to an actual complex: “In fact, we may define truth, where such
judgments are concerned, as consisting in the fact that there is a complex corresponding to the
discursive thought which is the judgment. That is when we judge "a has the relation R to b",
our judgment is said to be true when there is a complex "a-in-the-relation-R-to-b", and is said
to be false when this is not the case”131. However, what had not yet been determined was how
we can say how things are not and the possibility of falsehood, that is., that a proposition can
have meaning even when the state of affairs it depicts does not obtain132. But, for Wittgenstein,
there must be something identical in a picture and what it depicts, to enable one to be a picture
of the other at all. The common element is what is called Logical Form. Thus, “the picture has
the logical form of representation in common with what it pictures”133. This is because the
pictorial form is the possibility of a relationship between elements of the picture, and because
the pictorial form is also the possibility that the things represented are related in the same way
as the representing elements in the picture. A picture then represents a possibility in the real
world. For instance, an architect’s drawing or model shows a possible arrangement of
buildings.
Meanwhile, one may at this juncture ask: how does a picture connect with the reality it
represents? To this question, Wittgenstein will offer an inconsistent answer. For example, he
129
Cf. Bertrand Russell: Essays in Analysis, London 1973, P. 75.
130
Russell Wahl: Bertrand Russell's Theory of Judgement, in:Synthese 68, 1986, Stand: 10.08.2021,
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/BF00413618.pdf.
131
Bertrand Russell & A. N. Whitehead: Principia Mathematica, Cambridge 1962, P. 43.
132
Cf. Hans-Johann Glock: A Wittgenstein Dictionary. Oxford 1997, P. 229.
133
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 2.2.
says: “It is the pictorial form that pictures reality”134 Secondly, however, he argued that it is the
pictorial “correlation” between elements of the picture and the objects which are “as it were the
feelers of the picture’s elements, with which the picture touches reality135 This inconsistency
though apparent constitutes Tractatus’s main idea, which according to Wittgenstein also should
be counted as the cardinal problem of philosophy: “The main point is the theory of what can be
expressed (gesagt) by propositions – that is, by language – (and, which comes to the same,
what can be thought) and what can not be expressed by propositions, but only shown
(gezeigt).”136 It therefore implies that the essence of the picture theory of language is that what
shows what logically simple names, or primitive signs, stand for is the way they are used in
propositions. Without the logical framework of propositions, these signs are meaningless.
While the meaning of a sign is the object it goes proxy for, it is impossible to elucidate this
meaning without a proposition that shows the connection between the name and the object it
goes proxy for137.
Furthermore, the third proposition of the Tractatus needs further explication in this regard
because of its emphasis on the logical picture of the facts as a representation of thought138.
For early Wittgenstein, the essence of thought is to relate objects according to the rules of
logic. It is not inherent to the thought that it be shared or even expressed. Nonetheless, when
thoughts are expressed it is through a proposition: “in the proposition, the thought is
expressed perceptibly through the senses. We use the sensibly perceptible sign (sound or
written sign, etc.) of the proposition as a projection of the possible state of affairs”139. Since
thought—a picture—is expressed through propositions, there must be important similarities
between pictures and propositions. For Wittgenstein, propositions represent a possible
relation between objects, that is, they represent a possible state of affairs. The Tractatus
illustrates this very explicitly:
The essential nature of the propositional sign becomes very clear when we imagine it
made up of spatial objects (such as tables, chairs, books) instead of written signs. The
mutual spatial position of these things then expresses the sense of the proposition… to
134
Ibid., 2.12.
135
Ibid., 2.1515.
136
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Letter to Russell 19.8.19, London 1974, P. 71.
137
Cf. Gordon Hunnings: The World and Language in Wittgenstein’s Philosophy, New York 1988, P. 47.
138
Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 3. „Das logische Bild der Tatsachen ist der
Gedanke‟.
139
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 3.1, 3.11.
the configuration of simple signs [names] in the propositional sign corresponds the
configuration of the objects in the state of affairs140
The constituents of the proposition are names and the various ways names connect through
grammatical means are the relations. Further, the sense of a proposition is the state of affairs
represented by names and the relations between them. For Wittgenstein, reality by its internal
structure is perfectly ordered, such that the language which describes it must have its logic in
a similar structure. This is so because language is a picture of reality. The world is
represented by thought, which is a proposition with a sense, since the world, the thought, and
the proposition share the same logical form. Hence, thought and proposition are invariably
pictures of facts141. Starting with a seeming metaphysics, Wittgenstein sees the world as
consisting of facts, a totality of facts142. Facts are existent states of affairs and in turn, are
combinations of object. Objects can fit together in various determinate ways; they may have
various properties and may hold diverse relations with one another. Objects combine with one
another according to their logic, and internal properties143. That is to say, an object’s internal
properties determine the possibilities of its combination with other objects; this is its logical
form. Thus, it is the totality of the state of affairs, both actual and possible, that make up the
whole reality such that propositions represent possible states of affairs by describing them.144.
Baker and Hacker affirm that “a proposition pictures a state of affairs because it consists of
simple names that represent simple sempiternal objects that are constituents of state of
affairs”145.
To move to thought, and thereafter to language, is perpetrated with the use of Wittgenstein’s
famous idea that thoughts, and propositions, are pictures. Pictures simply represent logical
possibility146. Put in Wittgensteinian words: “The picture represents a possible state of affairs in
logical space”147. And Such representation is possible because the propositions themselves
cannot be negated. What can be negated is whether or not they obtain in reality148. Thus, he
commends that “a proposition is a picture of reality, a proposition is a model of reality as we
140
Ibid., 3.1431, 3.21.
141
Cf. Hans-Johann Glock: A Wittgenstein Dictionary, P. 299.
142
Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1.1
143
Cf. Ibid., 2.01231.
144
Cf. Henry Finch: Wittgenstein – The Early Philosophy: An Exposition of the Tractatus, New York 1971, P. 3.
145
G. P. Baker & P. M. S. Hacker: Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar and Necessity, P. 85.
146
Cf. Henry Finch: Wittgenstei, P. 10.
147
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 2.202.
148
G. P. Baker & P. M. S. Hacker: Wittgenstein, P. 85.
imagine it”149. A proposition pictures reality. A picture has something in common with what it
represents, the pictorial form, otherwise, it cannot be a picture of it, because “the picture cannot
place itself outside of its form of representation”150. This Wittgenstein calls the pictorial form.
Every picture is either a true representation of something or a false one151. And this applies also
to propositions. Logic is then based on the idea that every proposition is either true or false. If a
proposition describes its object as it is- that is, if it conveys or expresses what would be the
case if it were true, then it is a true proposition. But if it falls short of this, it is a false
proposition; because its aim which is true meaning is unrealized - “The proposition shows how
things stand, if it is true. And it says, that they do so stand"152. In other words, a true
proposition tells and communicates how things stand, and thus affirms the stand153. For
Wittgenstein, it is only the proposition as a picture of reality that has sense and shows its
sense.154. This goes to buttress that only facts and states of affairs can be fully intelligible and
meaningfully understood, for they fill the world. Therefore, a proposition consisting of names
combined in accordance with the rules of logical syntax expresses reality, because it describes
facts; and when all facts are described, the totality of the world is described. He reinstates;
The proposition determines reality to this extent, that one only needs to say “Yes” or
“No” to it to make it agree with reality. it must therefore be completely described by the
proposition. A proposition is the description of a fact. As the description of an object
describes it by its external properties so propositions describe reality by its internal
properties. The proposition constructs a world with the help of a logical scaffolding,
and therefore one can actually see in the proposition all the logical features possessed
by reality if it is true. One can draw conclusions from a false proposition155.
Also, very vital to picture theory is the analysis of propositions, elementary propositions which
for Wittgenstein consist of names in immediate combination156. A proposition then could be
said to be completely analyzed if the relations between the objects (or names) are clear and
exact. Thus, for him, the proposition expresses in a definite way, what it expresses. This is done
in a clearly specific way such that it is articulateíve in nature.157. Each thought and proposition,
if meaningful, contains an identifiable and unique relationship between the constitutive objects
such that each proposition can in principle be reduced to a proposition that clearly exhibits how
149
150
Ibid., 2.174.
151
Cf. Ibid., 2.173.
152
Ibid., 4.022.
153
154
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 4. 022,
155
Ibid., 4.023.
156
Cf. Ibid., 4.221.
157
Cf. Ibid., 3.251.
its constitutive objects relate to one another158. This implies in application that there is one and
only one complete analysis of the proposition in its explicit sense.159.
Further, a completely analyzed proposition will picture the existing state of affairs, that is, a
possible state of affairs too. He reiterates that “the proposition is a picture of reality, for I know
the state of affairs presented by it if I understand the proposition. And I understand the
proposition, without its sense having been explained to me”160. Proposition 4.01 also firmly ties
Wittgenstein’s propositional and pictorial theories together; “The proposition is a picture of
reality. The proposition is a model of reality as we think it is”161. Also, in Mirroring Hertz’s
terminology, “a proposition is a model relating a set of objects”162. For Wittgenstein, however,
pictures are models of the world by virtue of sharing the rules of logic with the world. This is
the case in the sense that logical form is very basic to every picture in relation to the reality it
should represent163. It is then possible for a proposition to represent the world because its
specific form of representation shares, through logical forms, the form of reality, and the logical
form endows a proposition with the ability to share a structural property with the state of affairs
it represents. Thus, Wittgenstein substantiates that “the proposition communicates to us a state
of affairs, therefore it is essentially connected with the state of affairs. And the connextion is, in
fact, that it is its logical picture”164. In sum, a proposition represents the world by picturing a
relation between objects and the world by sharing logical possibilities. This implies that the
relations between elements of a picture and objects in the world are logical, and as such,
pictures are able to represent the world.
For Wittgenstein, atomic facts, and combinations of simple objects making up a state of affairs
are the ontological elements of the world. His version of the picture theory claims that atomic
facts can be represented through propositions, that is, through names and the relations words
posit between names: “One name stands for one thing, and another for another thing, and they
are connected together. And so the whole, like a living picture, presents the atomic fact”165.
This is not to say that every proposition clearly represents atomic facts, but rather for
158
Cf. G. P. Baker & P. M. S. Hacker: Wittgenstein, P. 85.
159
Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 3.25.
160
Ibid., 4.021.
161
Ibid., 4.01.
162
Hertz Heinrich: Introduction to the Principles of Mechanics, London 1994, P. 12.
163
164
Ibid., 4.03.
165
Ibid., 4.0311.
Wittgenstein,“a proposition presents the existence and non-existence of atomic facts”166. That is
to say that propositions as pictures of reality can be true or false.
It further connotes that simple objects – what we call a ‘thing’ in everyday life could also be a
complex of atomic facts. These are objects which fill the world. Simple names are the ultimate
constituents of propositions and language, and thus correspond to the structure of reality.
Hence, “atomic propositions picture atomic facts while complex or molecular propositions
picture complex or molecular facts”167. This implies that our simplest descriptions are out in
atomic properties because of the fact that they describe atomic facts, that is, states of affairs.
Hence, Oliver Thomas affirms that “a non-atomic fact is expressed by a non-elementary
proposition. Non-elementary propositions are produced by performing operations on
elementary propositions”168. An atomic fact is a combination of objects. Objects are entities or
things. This is vague, but deliberately so because all non-atomic facts are, ultimately, composed
of atomic facts169. It follows then that all atomic facts are combinations of objects, and,
importantly, are only composed of objects. Wittgenstein’s notion of an object, then, has objects
as the atoms of the world. Elementary propositions express atomic facts and so represent the
state of affairs170. A combination of these results in a complex proposition because it is on the
other hand, a combination of states of affairs; at this point, the pictorial function of language is
done at the level of elementary propositions171 . The proposition has a form and a structure and
so does reality. And it is this form and structure that proposition pictures rightly, or wrongly,
such that “the world is completely described by the specification of all elementary propositions
plus the specification, which of them are true and false”172 .
So, we can say that Wittgenstein was influenced by Immanel Kant in the formulation of this
theory of language. Wittgenstein’s counterpart of the noumenal world is the mystical and the
ethical. According to Kant, the ‘noumenal’ is a limiting-concept. It limits our pretense of
knowing. The noumenal or thing in itself is the unknowable The world of noumena is forever
166
Ibid., 4.1.
167
Ibid., 4.221.
168
Oliver Thomas Spinney: Priority and Unity in Frege and Wittgenstein, in: Journal for the History of
Analytical Philosophy Volume 6, Number 5, London 2018, P. 15.
169
Cf. Morris Michael: Wittgenstein and the Tractatus, New York 2008, P. 31.
170
171
172
shut off from us. We cannot go beyond the phenomena173. The implication of this for Kant is
that metaphysics as science is impossible not because of its universality but because we cannot
assert certainty in the realm of the noumena which is shut from us. Wittgenstein is in this
regard more radical than Kant. Kant still speaks about the thing in itself. In Wittgenstein, there
is silence. The world that is accessible to us is the world that is structured and pictured by
proposition and language, and this coincides with the Kantian phenomenal world. This is
because for him the limits of language implies the limits of the world174.
Therefore one can deduce that an elementary proposition is a completely analyzed

proposition that either isomorphically corresponds to an atomic fact or not to it. But, true or
false propositions are in the same logical space - projection of a possible state of affairs such
that the negation of a false proposition can yield a true proposition, it can be false but also
meaningful175. Wittgenstein comments thus that “the simplest proposition, the elementary
proposition, asserts the existence of an atomic fact and since an atomic fact is nothing more
than a relation between objects, … [an] elementary proposition consists of names. It is a
connection, a concatenation, of names”176. All propositions are, in principle, reducible to a
specific set of elementary propositions to the effect that we could know exactly which
elementary propositions correspond to which atomic facts (and which fail to do so).
Wittgenstein is not stating here that we as a matter of practice analyse propositions into
elementary propositions, but rather that the meaningful use of propositions demands that
propositions in principle can be decomposed. Hence, by pictures of reality can proposition
can be true or false177. A picture must in principle be reduced to elements that do or do not
represent an atomic fact. The Tractatus’ picture theory thus promotes a strong interpretation
of pictorial representation. Wittgenstein’s theory demands an isomorphic relation between a
picture and what it represents, and although we may not in practice reach any complete
analysis of propositions, atomic facts, but the ultimate constituents of the physical world are
in principle discoverable and plausible.
173
Cf. Immanuel Kant: The Critique of Pure Reason, Oxford 1781, P. 363.
174
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 5.6, „ Die Granzen meiner Sprache bedeutet die
Granzen meiner Welt‟.
175
176
177
Cf. Ibid., 4.06.
Propositional representation is possible then due to a logical isomorphism between the
combination of propositional signs and the possible configuration of things in a depicted
situation. The proposition is false if it depicts a non-existing combination of things,
nevertheless, it remains meaningful when this combination of things is possible, such that the
state of affairs it depicts obtains178. All meaningful propositions are for Wittgenstein
truth-functions of elementary propositions. These elementary propositions are concatenations
of logically proper names which are further analyzable and their meanings are simple objects
they go proxy for. The sense of an elementary proposition is one possible combination of
these objects, that is, the state of affairs it depicts. One elementary proposition cannot contain
the sense of any other, so one cannot entail nor contradict another179. It follows then that an
assignment of a truth-value to one elementary proposition is logically independent of an
assignment of a true-value to any other. A false elementary proposition is not the negation of
a true one, it rather depicts the state of affairs that it does not obtain180.
The idea that language and reality share a definite pictorial form presupposes the
metaphysical claim that both an elementary proposition and the possible state of affairs it
depicts consist of ultimate elements. Although one of its motivations was to dissolve
problems concerning the relationship between elements and complexes, which Russell left
unsolved, the picture theory is connected with this atomistic metaphysics. This link according
to Radek Schuster is “actuated by two of Wittgenstein’s tendencies which are interconnected:
first, to describe the essence and limits of language, and second, to keep this effort as general
as possible. That means that, by describing the essence and limits of language, it also covers
this description because it is a part of the examined language”181.
Wittgenstein, further, analyses generally an elementary proposition as having two kinds of

relations, namely; Simple signs ‘stand for’, or represent, simple objects, and the combination
of simple signs mirrors, depicts the combination of objects. That is why he affirms that “If I
cannot say a priori what elementary propositions there are, then the attempt to do so must
lead to obvious nonsense.“182 The description of an element always entails some descriptive
178
Cf. Radek Schuster: Wittgenstein's Picture Theory of Language and Self – Reference, in: Papers of the 33rd
IWS, E. Nemeth, R. Heinrich, W. Pichler (ed), 2010, Stand: 18.08.2021.
http://wittgensteinrepository.org/agora-alws/article/view/2894/3512.
179
180
Cf. Radek Schuster: Wittgenstein's Picture Theory of Language and Self .
181
Ibid.
182
complex. This is why talking about a name or about an object is done with language and
because language is a part of reality and simultaneously to say that something is real is a
language expression that applies to a fact183. The generality of Wittgenstein’s analysis in the
picture theory is therefore embedded in the fact that language lacks self-referential power and
this seems to lead to paradox and senselessness. In this regard, he intends to show in the
Tractatus that posing problems of philosophy, that is, general problems, is a consequence of
misunderstanding the logic of our language184. That is why the aim of the Tractatus without a
doubt is based on drawing a limit to the expression of thought, that is, to determine a
boundary between what can be said clearly and what can only be shown with regard to his
notion of `logical space'. There are according to him things, essential things, that necessarily
cannot be expressed by any proposition; they can only be shown in language. He writes.
Propositions can represent the whole of reality, but they cannot represent what they
must have in common with reality in order to be able to represent it--logical form. In
order to be able to represent logical form, we should have to be able to station
ourselves with propositions somewhere outside logic, that is to say outside the world.
Propositions cannot represent logical form: it is mirrored in them. What finds its
reflection in language, language cannot represent. What expresses itself in language,
we cannot express by means of language. Propositions show the logical form of
reality. They display it185. (Tractatus 4.12-4.121)
This distinction in the Tractatus so to say could be said to possess no clear-cut demarcation in
his description of the proposition as argued by some of Wittgenstein's commentators.
However, Erik Stenius explains the saying-showing dichotomy as a logical distinction
between internal and external features or properties associated with propositions186. He draws
this distinction following Tractatus 4.122 on the sense of formal properties of objects and
atomic facts (internal relation)187. This lingustic division between what can be said and what
can only be shown is therefore made manifest in the Wittgenstein idea of the logical form
which is transcendental188. An important corollary of this viewpoint is that language entails
183
Cf. Radek Schuster: Wittgenstein's Picture Theory of Language and Self – Reference.
184
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, P. 19.
185
Ibid., 4.12 - 4.121.
186
Erik Stenius: Wittgenstein's Tractatus, New York 1960, P.176.
187
Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 4.122, “We can speak in a certain sense of formal
properties of objects and atomic facts, or of properties of the structure of facts, and in the same sense of formal
relations and relations of structures. (Instead of property of the structure I also say “internal property”; instead of
relation of structures “internal relation”. I introduce these expressions in order to show the reason for the
confusion, very widespread among philosophers, between internal relations and proper (external) relations.) The
holding of such internal properties and relations cannot, however, be asserted by propositions, but it shows itself
in the propositions, which present the facts and treat of the objects in question”.
188
Cf. Ibid., 6.13.
an enigmatic digression. It implies that Language shows much more than its users intend to
say. Every proposition tacitly presents much more than it actually displays as a picture such
that it says a fact in the world while simultaneously presenting the entire reality189.
Wittgenstein, therefore, sees the existence of an important relationship between proposition
and picture. This he describes as internal relation: “The existence of an internal relation
between possible states of affairs expresses itself in language by an internal relation between
the propositions presenting them”190. This internal relation can be contingent such that it can
exit or go out of existence as the case may be. It is not analyzable, but can only be
postulated. And this specific feature of internal relation according to Wittgenstein clears the
disputed question of “whether all relations are internal or external”191. This internal relation
above all creates harmony between the proposition and pictures, language and the world
which is in a clearer sense a kind of causal relation. For Baker and Hacker, it implies that “the
relation between a true proposition and the fact that makes it true is internal”192.
Furthermore, a Wittgensteinian saying-showing distinction at the same time prescribes

general propositions about the world and the realm of value as well as propositions about the
essence of propositional representation. According to Schuster, this is usually the case
because “unlike bipolar meaningful propositions and their limiting cases, tautologies and
contradictions, these propositions concerning transcendental preconditions of the world and
its symbolic representation are just pseudo-propositions”193. They are senseless attempts to
say things that could not be otherwise. Thus, Schuster further writes;
On one hand, Tractatus’s list of ineffabilia includes ethical and aesthetical values, the
logic of facts, the atomistic ontology, that there are laws of nature, that the world is my
world, that there is no soul, the meaning of life, everything that is higher, the mystical
etc. On the other hand, “we should pass over in silence that propositions and what they
depict share the pictorial form, the logical form or the logico-mathematical
multiplicity, that there are the meaning of signs and the sense of propositions, that
something falls under a formal concept such as a name or a number, that propositions
are linked together according to the rules of logical syntax and inferences, etc. In other
words, we should pass over in silence everything that is stated about the Picture
Theory above194.
189
Cf. Ibid., 4.023.
190
Ibid., 4.125.
191
Ibid., 4.1251.
192
193
Radek Schuster: Wittgenstein's Picture Theory of Language and Self – Reference.
194
Ibid.
Pertinent to note here is that Wittgenstein’s prohibition of logico-syntactic and semantic
categories is supposed to avoid difficulties encountered by Frege and Russell. This is evident
in the way of their applications in the Tractatus. For Schuster, Frege’s riddle of “concept of
concept, by which we try to name the unsaturated entity, that is, concept, although names can
only refer to something which is saturated, that, is, objects, as well as Liar-like paradoxes,
whose structure can be demonstrated on that of set-theoretic paradoxes, that is, R{X|X X} ↔R
R↔RR, are all based on circularity and self-referential or impredicative definition”195. Russell
tried to dissolve these paradoxes by means of his theory of types which was motivated by the
so-called “vicious-circle principle“ such that whatever involves one in a set of a collection
involves all196. According to Wittgenstein, Russell’s theory of types is superfluous and must
be done away with by a proper theory of symbolism. This shows the role symboles play in
differentiating the identity of things such that it is basically devoid of any possible
substitution.197. From the perspective of the saying-showing distinction, it is not possible to
establish rules of logical syntax by mentioning the meaning of a sign as Russell does. The
sign of a propositional function already contains the prototype of its argument and thus a
function cannot contain itself. Wittgenstein urges thus:
A function cannot be its own argument, because the functional sign already contains
the prototype of its own argument and it cannot contain itself. “In case some function
F(fx) could be its own argument there would be a proposition ‘F(F(fx))’, in which the
outer function F and the inner function F must have different meanings, since the
inner one has the form φ(fx) and the outer one has the form ψ(φ(fx)). Only the letter
‘F’ is common to the two functions, but the letter by itself signifies nothing. This
immediately becomes clear if instead of ‘F(Fu)’ we write ‘(φ):F(φu). ψu=Fu’. That
disposes of Russell’s paradox.”198
The pertinent question that follows is: is such a proper theory of symbolism that disposes of
self-reference and paradoxes conceivable? The senseless pronouncements of Tractatus itself
prove that such a theory is not conceivable. Tractatus is an example of a general therapy of
language, that is, the picturing theory of picturing, which flexes to the self-picturing and at
the same time tries to protect itself from this senseless-flexion. Wittgenstein agrees in this
sense that his “propositions ought to be only elucidatory and who understands them finally
recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them.
(He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must
195
Ibid.
196
Cf. Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell: Principia Mathematica, Vol.1, Cambridge 1927, P. 37.
197
Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein: Letter to Russell, P. 19-20.
198
transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright”199. Schulte in this regard
affirms that “If what we think makes sense, we form sentences that can be expressed and that
can help understanding. Sentences, it says in the Tractatus, are images of reality. This
pictorial character of the sentence becomes particularly clear in a schematic
representation”200.
Nonetheless, another pertinent question that arises is whether the picture of the world devoid
of these kinds of propositions is the right picture of the world? Indeed, elimination of the
senseless flexion from a language entails the loss of its enchanting ability of expressing an
infinity by finitely many expressions. On this, Schuster further affirms that “the self-reference
should be conceived as an essence of language, as something not to be disposed of. various
semantic paradoxes, such as Grelling's, Berry's, Richard's, Curry's etc., can be then perceived
not as a menace but as a celebration of the miracle of language”201. This position has much to
do with the reality of language as a veritable tool in the semantic articulation of propositions
and expressions.
However, Stephen Yablo on his part, has tried to prove that self-reference is neither necessary
nor sufficient for the Liar-like paradox with regard to Wittgensteinian propositions and
thoughts. He propounded the paradox that can be paraphrased as follows: “Every proposition
in an infinite sequence of propositions says that all subsequent propositions are untrue”202.
Paradox arises because it is not possible to decide the true-value of any proposition in the
sequence. But is this paradox really without self-reference? He responded by affirming that
the elimination of self-reference is only possible with the distinction between all subsequent
propositions and all propositions within an infinite sequence of propositions. This implies
that since the ability to determine a rule for such infinity comparison is not possible, infinitely
many propositions still collapse into one proposition such that this kind of infinity is being
spread by self-reference203.
199
Ibid., 6.54.
200
Joachim Schulte: Wittgenstein, Eine Einführung, P. 77 (translated by me). „Wenn dass, was wir denken, Sinn
hat, bilden wir Sätze, die sich zum Ausdruck bringen lassen und der Verständigung dienen können. Sätze, heißt
es im Tractatus, sind Bilder der Wirklichkeit. Dieser Bildcharakter des Satzes wird bei schematischer
Darstellung besonders deutlich‟.
201
Radek Schuster: Wittgenstein's Picture Theory of Language and Self – Reference, P. 14.
202
Stephen Yablo: Paradox without self-reference, in: Analysis, Volume 53, Issue 4, Oxford 1993, Stand:
18.08.2021, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3328245.
203
Cf. Ibid., P. 252.
The ability of saying anything, or more generally, picturing anything is based on the ability of
self-picturing which is a kind of language expression. This implies that whatever can be
counted as language must possess the capability to picture anything including the picture of
itself. Schuster attests that:
The creativity of language, that allows us to compositionally form an infinite number
of meaningful propositions with a finite number of marks and noises, is rooted in the
self-reference, among others because the rules that determine which strings of marks
and noises are linguistic expressions, as well as the rules of syntax and
compositionality, are expressible in that language. Generality means being able to
include or subsume itself204.
That is in his view how a paradox arises because infinity mirrors something particular and
vice versa. What is vexing about paradoxes is not the circularity or our inability to decide the
true values, but our insight into an infinity. The issue of infinity then poses a great challenge
which is encapsulated in the fear of falling into a vicious circle - circulus vitiosus that is
rooted in horror infiniti205.
Above all, propositions, for Wittgenstein are capable of saying something about the world
because they are pictures, or models, of these facts and of other possible facts, or states of
affairs. And pictures, as Wittgenstein thinks of them, are themselves facts that represent
reality206. Accordingly, the relation between a picture and what it represents is a relation
between two facts. The question that immediately comes to mind in this regard is: How can one
fact be a picture of another? Well, in order for a picturing fact P to be a picture of a given state
of affairs S, Wittgenstein says that the following two conditions must be satisfied: “the
individual elements in P must stand proxy for the objects which are constituents of S, and P and
S must share their form of representation -Form der Abbildung”207. It implies that for P and S
to share their form of representation is for the picture elements of P to be related to one another
in the same way that the corresponding constituents of S are related to each other in a
projective and invariable manner. An ample example Wittgenstein proffers in this regard is that
of the musical score, tones, and the grooves in the phonograph record. They are constructed
and governed by certain laws of projection and common logical pattern which define their
204
Radek Schuster: Wittgenstein's Picture Theory of Language and Self – Reference, P. 20.
205
Cf. Ibid.,
206
Cf. Joachim Schulte: Wittgenstein, Eine Einführung, P. 79. (translated by me).
207
relationship with each other208 So if the picture elements stand for objects and if possible
relations between the picture elements are correlated with those between the objects, then the
fact that the picture elements stand in such-and-such relation to each other will depict some
other fact. Thus the famous dictum of Tractatus 3.1432: We must not say, “the complex sign
’aRb’ says ‘a stands in relation R to b’”; but we must say, “That ‘a’ stands in a certain relation
to ‘b’ says that aRb”209. For Wittgenstein, the fact qua picture is the fact standing in its
correlative relation to some fact of the world. Outside of this correlative relation, which
Wittgenstein calls the pictorial relationship, there are no pictures—just ordinary facts. Says
Wittgenstein, “So a picture, conceived in this way, also includes the pictorial relationship,
which makes it into a picture.”210.
Some commentators have been struck by the apparent symmetry of the pictorial relationship.
After all, if having the same form of representation makes fact P into a picture of fact S, then
should not S equally be considered a picture of P? And would not that be odd? There is a
natural reluctance, for example, to think of the earth as a picture of the globe on your desk.
Nevertheless, this would be correct. Whereas it is absurd to say that the fact that the sun is
rising is a picture of the true sentence ‘the sun is rising’. In this regard, Anscombe describes
the Italian translator of the Tractatus, Giancarlo Colombo, as finding it “difficult to see why a
described fact should not be regarded as itself a description of the proposition that would
normally be said to describe it, rather than the other way around”211. Regarding this alleged
symmetry between picture and pictured, Anscombe adds: “As far as concerns the internal
features of proposition and fact, this is a strong point; for all the internal features are
supposed to be identical in the proposition (or describing fact) and the described fact”212.
However, as she correctly points out, the picturing fact and the state of affairs to be depicted,
despite their internal sameness, have external differences which destroy the symmetry of
picturing. The fact is capable of serving as a picture of the state of affairs, because its form of
representation mirrors the structure of the state of affairs. But shared form is not sufficient, in
that it requires that the elements of the picturing fact should go proxy for the elements of the
208
Ibid., 4.014.
209
Cf. Ibid., 3.1432.
210
Ibid., 2.1513.
211
G.E.M. Anscombe: An Introduction to Wittgenstein’s TRACTATUS, London 1959, P. 67.
212
Ibid.
depicted fact213. And this correlation is not symmetrical. She added a further instance;
“although the name ‘Newt’ designates a certain politician, it surely is not the case that that
politician designates the name Newt’. (There could be such a convention, though its utility
would be highly suspect.)”214. The point here is that the pictorial relationship is inherently
asymmetrical, because the correlation of picture elements with depicted objects is inherently
not symmetrical. This is the right conclusion about the symmetry problem, but in her
discussion leading up to it, Anscombe also addresses what she thinks of as the natural
objection to the Picture Theory:
A picture is not like a proposition; it doesn’t say anything. A picture is not an assertion
that something like it is to be found somewhere in the world, whereas in a proposition
something is said to be the case . . . Just this shows the difference between a
proposition and a picture; for while a picture may be said to show how things are, if
there is something it is a correct representation of, it certainly does not say that that is
how things are; the most that one could grant would be that we could use the picture in
saying how things are; we could hold the picture up and ourselves say: ‘This is how
things are.215
Anscombe’s interpretation of the picturing relation of Wittgenstein centers on some central

points about pictures and propositions, and it is such interpretations as this that are
responsible for tending to obscure the difficulty the Tractatus actually faces in addressing this
sort of issue. Such an interpretation is not critically sufficient to substantiate and defend the
issues raised in the objection. This is because Wittgenstein is quite explicit on this point that
the propositional sign is a fact and in virtue of being a fact it depicts a possible state of
affairs. But, suffice it to remark that depicting is not a semantic relation at all. Semantics
enters the stage when we have denotation (reference) and prediction. Elementary propositions
are analyzable into the singular and general terms (concept expressions) such that in the
Tractatus, the constituents of elementary propositions are simple signs that are proxies for
simple objects, and it is by virtue of their combination that they depict a possible state of
affairs216. But that is not the way language proceeds. In the Tractatus story, therefore, there is
no act of denotation or reference, no act of predication, etc. What is quite dominant is rather
the act of representation, representing relations with regard to the pictorial forms217.
213
Cf. Ibid.
214
Ibid., P. 68.
215
Ibid., P .64, 65.
216
217
Cf. Ibid., 2.1513.
For Starters, Anscombe portrays Wittgenstein as believing that each proposition has both a
positive and a negative sense. The proposition which is an element in a truth-function is thus
introduced as having two senses, the positive and the negative, rather than two truth-values,
true and false. Now there actually is some foundation for looking at it like this in the
Tractatus itself. Wittgenstein writes that: “The proposition, the picture, the model, in the
negative sense are like a solid body, which restricts the free movements of another; in the
positive sense, like the space limited by solid substance, in which a body may be placed”218. It
is in view of the above that Anscombe sees a proposition as that which posseses a positive as
well as a negative sense219. But, this is seems to be a clear misinterpretation of Wittgenstein.
In the quoted passage, he is speaking of two ways of thinking of propositions in general; in a
negative sense, they are seen as closing out (contrary) possibilities, and in a positive sense,
they are seen as marking off open possibilities. He does not suggest, like Anscombe, that
each proposition has two senses. This is evident in the Notebooks and the Tractatus, a
proposition does not have a positive and a negative sense; instead, there are two related
propositions, the proposition and its negation220.
What then, according to the Tractatus, does make a picture of a given state of affairs into a
proposition that affirms that state of affairs? In examining Anscombe’s interpretation, it is clear
that the pictorial relationship alone is insufficient to solve the problem. What is then required is
some account of what we do with pictures, and what we do should not afford parallel status to
the positive and negative proposition221. Wittgenstein does in fact furnish an explanation, or a
sketch of one, that answers this description which is rooted in his notion of a method of
projection. According to the Tractatus, we can express thoughts with pictures (such as
propositional signs) when we use such signs to project possible states of affairs. We use the
sensibly perceptible sign (sound or written sign, etc.) of the proposition as a projection of a
possible state of affairs222. A proposition, then, is the result of a certain kind of mental act we
undertake—an act of thinking the sense and mentally mapping it onto the physically sensible
picture. This method of projection must include, but cannot be exhausted by, the pictorial
relationship. The picture that stands within that relationship is a picture of something indeed
218
Ibid., 4.463.
219
Cf. G.E.M. Anscombe: An Introduction to Wittgenstein’s TRACTATUS, P .65.
220
221
Cf. G.E.M. Anscombe: An Introduction to Wittgenstein’s TRACTATUS, P .66.
222
Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 3.11,12. “The method of projection is the thinking
of the sense of the proposition. . . And the proposition is the propositional sign in its projective relation to the
world”
but, as has been emphasized, it is not yet a proposition since it can still be used to make either
the positive or the negative claim223.
Wittgenstein’s notion of ‘thinking the sense’ must therefore include something more.
Whatever that amounts to when a picture is the result of the subject’s projecting in thought a
state of affairs onto the picture elements (or, as we might say, into the picture space), the
picture produced is not merely a picture but also a proposition. It is not merely a satzzeichen
(propositional sign) but at the same time a sinnvollen satz (meaningful or significant
proposition)224. She further expatiates this stand, when, for example, “the picture of Shemp
atop Bert is produced by the subject’s projecting in thought the possible state of affairs that
Shemp is atop Bert, then it is a proposition to that effect. The denial of that proposition is
produced by thinking the sense of the positive proposition and then performing an additional
mental operation to it”225. And this is so because as Wittgenstein puts it, it reverses the sense
of the proposition to a kind of mental projection226. Therefore, what an isolated picture
projects (the positive sense or its opposite) is determined by the thinker’s act of projection.
This projection is also related to the significance of signs in a language which also involves
convention so that all concerning sentences in language expression with regard to all its
forms boil down to be convention227.
At any rate, it becomes clear to point out that Wittgenstein’s psychologistic notions of
‘thinking the sense’ explain how meaningless signs become elements of a proposition. But
then Wittgenstein says that the proposition has sense because it projects a possible state of
affairs. ‘Projection’ is another word for ‘picture’, and propositions are thus pictures. The
examination of the Tractatus makes it equally clear that these notions are left unexplained.
Now, as a certain later analytic philosopher was fond of saying, explanations must come to an
end somewhere. And this is quite the case because philosophical explanations of certain basic
notions are open-ended and cannot be said to be exhausted. It is usually a genuine and
ongoing enterprise228.
223
Cf. Ibid., 4.5.
224
CF. G.E.M. Anscombe: An Introduction to Wittgenstein’s TRACTATUS, P. 66.
225
Ibid.
226
227
Cf. G.E.M. Anscombe: An Introduction to Wittgenstein’s TRACTATUS, P. 66.
228
Cf. Ibid.
Furthermore, what Wittgenstein actually does say about these and allied notions raises
additional difficulties, especially about the place of thoughts in his theory of judgment. For
instance, he says more than once for example that a thought is the same thing as a
proposition—namely, an applied (thought out) propositional sign, or a propositional sign in
its projective relation to the world229. This has the unfortunate result that the only thoughts are
those that are in fact expressed in language (or at least by means of sensibly perceptible signs
of some sort). Of course, for James Griffin, Wittgenstein intends to say that “anything that
can be thought at all can be expressed in language, but it is extremely doubtful that he would
want to say that in order to be thought it must be so expressed”230. This is related to his
positions on the atomic facts which Urmson argues that although Wittgenstein opened the
Tractatus by giving a metaphysics of a world consisting of atomic facts, completely
independent of one another, but gives no examples of what he considered to be atomic facts.
He claimed that they existed, but not that he had identified them231.
Finally, it is worthy to remark that the Tractatus reduced all logical complexity to
propositional calculus and all propositions to truth-functions of atomic ones. Such atomic
propositions must be logically independent of one another, which made the nature of the
atoms they were built on evasive232. However, on the breakdown of the picture theory of
meaning, Christopher Hurtado summed it up succinctly:
Wittgenstein’s picture theory of meaning broke down with his realization that the
atomic propositions he had posited were untenable. Wittgenstein himself attacked the
core doctrine of his picture theory of meaning, isomorphism. He realized that neither
propositions nor the possible states of affairs they depict, which he had argued shared
a definite logical form, have atomic components. Once the idea of atomism is taken
out of the picture, saying that a proposition and what it depicts have something in
common only states an internal relation233.
In his later philosophy, Wittgenstein continued to sustain this internal relation in referring to
“pictoriality” in propositions but further pays less attention to the picture theory of meaning
qua tale. He no longer views the relation between thought and reality as a metaphysical one
229
230
James Griffin : Wittgenstein’s Logical Atomism, Oxford 1964, P. 119.
231
Cf. J.O. U Urmson: Wittgenstein, Ludwig Josef Johann: The Concise Encyclopedia of Western Philosophy,
Oxford 2005, 395.
232
Cf. Simon Blackburn: The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, New York 2005, P. 390.
233
Christopher Hurtado:Wittgenstein on Meaning: From the Tractatus to the Philosophical Investigations, in:
Academia, June 20, 2009, Stand: 20.08.2021,
http://www.christopherhurtado.com/wittgenstein-on-meaning-from-the-tractatus-to-the-philosphical-investigatio
ns/.
between a proposition and facts in the world, but simply as a grammatical one that manifests
itself in the plurality or variety of language games and uses234. Hence, the notion of an
‘internal relation’ survives the collapse of the Tractatus philosophy. Later Wittgenstein speaks
more loosely of the internal relation between thought and fact, intention and action, language
and reality, use and meaning, rule and its application, etc. But he consequently abandoned the
idea of the picture.
By way of evaluation, Tractautus’s notion of semantics is deducible from Wittgenstein’s

description of what reality consists of. How semantic relations of reference or denotation,
satisfaction, and truth are established or determined is actually what semantic theory strives
to explain. In Frege, what bestows a truth value on propositions or thoughts is a reference
(denotation) and predication. A proposition is true if and only if the predicate F satisfies,
applies to, or is true of, the denotation of the singular term which has reference. Reference is
mediated by sense. This is not the case for Wittgenstein in the Tractatus. For him, Senses as
modes of presentations of referents are idle such that simple signs have no sense. It is the
pictorial relation between the proposition, taken as a picture(of reality), and the depicted
which gives us the sense235. And in this regard, the Tractatus ‘sense’ contributes to
determining a truth value to propositions and thus plays an important role in establishing
semantic relations of proposition and meaning. The sense is therefore explained in terms of
pictorial form – “abbildende Beziehung” (which is an internal relation between proposition
and fact). Therefore, the basis of Wittgenstein’s semantic ontology is centered on the
‘logico-pictorial form’ such that propositions and the facts they represent certainly share in
this same form.
234
Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 4.0, “A proposition must communicate a new
235
sense with old words. The proposition communicates to us a state of affairs, therefore it must be essentially
connected with the state of affairs. And the connexion is, in fact, that it is its logical picture. The proposition
only asserts something, in so far as it is a picture”.
2.5 PLURALITY OF USE (THE VARIETY OF LANGUAGE GAMES)
The late Wittgenstein could also be said to have contributed to semantic theory based on the
idea of an internal relation between meaning and use, such that the study of meaning is not
possible without paying attention to the different uses we make of words and sentences. In this
regard, the notion of language game and variety of use exert prominent influence in the later
Wittgenstein and in his philosophical approach to semantics and meaning. This is encapsulated
in his philosophical investigation that the essence of Language games is to bring words from
their metaphysical use to their everyday use236. Many authors however would claim that
Wittgenstein brought in the idea of the game in his philosophy in his earlier work before it was
publicized in the ‘Blue Book’. Examples of such people are Baker and Hacker who argued that
“although the notion of a language-game is introduced only in the Blue Book, the idea has a
clear ancestry in Wittgenstein’s earlier thought”237. Wittgenstein was initially preoccupied with
the pure idea of the game. He later started comparing it with language. Consequently, the
coinage ‘language-game’ cropped up first in his earlier work, Die Philosophische Grammatik (
The Grammar of Philosophy), when he was discussing ostensive definitions. He gradually
moved from ‘calculus’ to ‘game’. He states:
The language-game (Sprachspiel) is still very simple and the ostensive explanation
plays a different role in it from the one it plays in more developed language-games. (the
child cannot, for instance, ask ‘what is that?) but there is no clear boundary between
primitive forms and more complicated ones. I would not know what I can still call
‘explanation’ and what I cannot. I can only describe language-games or calculuses 238.
Meanwhile, looking at the use of the concept of language game in this context as cited, shows
a concept that has not been fully developed. However, Wittgenstein’s fascination with games,
such as chess, and calculuses, is related to the idea of rules. The rules constitute the game or
calculus. There are no outer constraints or purposes apart from the purposes defined within the
game. The meaning of the elements within the game, say the chess figures, is explicable in
terms of the rules, which moves are allowed or prohibited. Later, Wittgenstein abandons the
idea of strict explicit rules; hence we play as we go along. This makes it clear to the
understanding of the fact that this concept of language game continues to undergo purification
processes till it attains its great height and fame as evident in the Brown Book and in the
236
Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophische Untersuchungen, 116.
237
Backer G.P and Hacker P. M. S: Wittgenstein, Meaning and Understanding, Oxford 1983, P. 47.
238
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophico Grammatik, in: Anthony Kenny(ed), Wittgenstein, Middlesex 1973. P.
162.
Philosophical Investigations. The idea later featured in the Blue Book in a more succinct
manner than it is in die Philosophische Grammatik. Thus, Wittgenstein projects:
I shall draw your attention to what I shall call language games. These are ways of using
signs simpler than those in which we use the signs of our highly complicated everyday
language. Language games are the Forms of language with which a child begins to
make use of words, the study of language is the study of primitive forms of language or
primitive languages239
Here, language game applies to ordinary language which is neither simple nor primitive but
highly a sophisticated one and one with which a child begins to learn to make use of words.
This rebounds further in the Philosophical Investigations where Language games are described
as primitive kinds of application of words in which one can command a clear view of the aim
and functioning of the words. In this regard, Wittgenstein speaks of them as “objects of
comparison which, through similarities and dissimilarities, are meant to throw light on the
features of our language”240. He further sees language games as one which entails the whole
process of using words and as one of the ”games by means of which children learn their native
language ... the whole, consisting of language and the actions into which it is woven” is also
called the "language-game"241. Referring to this use of ‘language game’ Wittgenstein adds:
“Here, the term “language-game” is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking
of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life.”242. This implies that language games are
taken in the sense that one may speak of the language of science, ethics, or even the language
of poetry. When we speak of the language of science, we mean the way in which terms are used
for scientific purposes, or in the scientific contexts for describing and predicting; and also in
other fields, each having a distinctive function243. The language of ethics refers to how terms
are used for ethical purposes of commanding, blaming, and advising. As we have no objective
structure for all games, because all games are not the same; each is a different event and has to
be played in its own way, with its distinct language (words) and technique244 . Also, the above
use of the concept of language games here can be significant because Wittgenstein has already
shaped an idea of what this language game is all about. But it is good to understand that
Wittgenstein did not employ the developed aspect of the language game in the Blue Book. In
239
Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Blue and Brown Books, New York 1969, P. 17.
240
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophische Untersuchungen, 130.
241
Ibid., 7.
242
Ibid., 23.
243
Cf. William Lawhead: The Voyage of Discovery: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy. 2nd Edition,
Wadsworth 2002, P. 517.
244
Cf. Ibid., P. 515.
the Philosophical Investigations, this could be seen in the analogy he draws with the learning
situation of a child:
We can think of the whole process of using words in... as one of those games by means
of which children learn their native language. I will call these games “Language game”
and will sometimes speak of a primitive language as a language game. And the process
of naming the stones and repeating words after someone might also be called language
games.... I shall also be calling the whole, consisting of language and the activities into
which it is woven, a “language game245.
In the sense that, a child learns from the community how to make use of words. The attention
of the child will be directed to the different shapes of the object associated with a particular
sound. This way of learning words, Wittgenstein calls ostensive teaching of words and not
ostensive definitions246. By ostensive teaching of words, he refers to the act of association of
ideas, that is, between the word and the thing such that the picture of the object comes before
the child's mind when the child hears the word247. The child then learns the native language and
acquires the rule through learning to play language- games which entail a kind of variety of
games and a plurality of approaches and uses248. Language games, according to him, are,
therefore models which help the philosopher with the dissolution of misconceptions and
confusions through the method of comparison. Thus:
Our clear and simple language-games are not preparatory studies for a future
regularization of language—as it were, first approximations, ignoring friction and
air-resistance. Rather, the language-games stand there as “objects of comparison which,
through similarities and dissimilarities, are meant to throw light on the features of our
language”249
This entails therefore the method or model of (studying) language games rather than of the
250
theory of language games . Language-games are “objects of comparison” or “models” but
245
246
Cf. Ibid., 6. “An important part of the training will consist in the teacher's pointing to the objects, directing
the child's attention to them, and at the same time uttering a word; for instance, the word "slab" as he points to
that shape. (I do not want to call this "ostensive definition", because the child cannot yet ask what the name is. I
will call it "ostensive teaching of words".——I say that it will form an important part of the training, because it
is so with human beings; not because it could not be imagined otherwise.) This ostensive teaching of words can
be said to establish an association between the word and the thing. But what does this mean? Well, it may mean
various things; but one very likely thinks first of all that a picture of the object comes before the child's mind
when it hears the word. But now, if this does happen—is it the purpose of the word?— Yes, it may be the
purpose.—I can imagine such a use of words (of series of sounds)”
247
Cf. Ibid.
248
Cf. Michael A. Peters: Language-games philosophy: Language-games as rationality and method, 2020, Stand:
14.04.2022, https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2020.1821190.
249
Ludwig Wittgenstein:Philosophische Untersuchungen , 130.
250
Cf. Ibid., 131, “For we can avoid unfairness or vacuity in our assertions only by presenting the model as what
it is, as an object of comparison—as a sort of yardstick; not as a preconception to which reality must conform”.
not the basic units of language. There are no such basic units for him. This led him to
comparing the use of language to the playing of games in order to state that the speaking of
language is an activity within the context of a particular language. He affirms thus that “this
diversity is not something fixed, given once for all; but new types of language, new
“language-games” as we may say, come into existence, and others become obsolete and get
forgotten”251. Language according to him is a rule-governed form of practice. And through
language, we can describe the picture of the world, which is elaborated in Tractatus, but later in
Philosophical Investigations, he tries to analyze that language has no single essence, that is,
that no particular language game is more constitutive of our ability to speak than others252.
Here, he rejected three assumptions namely that language has only one purpose – representing
facts; that through picturing the sentence acquires meaning in one way; and that in logical
calculus, language has a clear and distinct structure253. But rather he maintains that language,
like a game, has multi-functions. Hence, saying that language resembles a game does not mean
that speaking a language is just a game (although children learn language by playing games).
Lawhead in this sense concurs that “language-game is used to emphasize the plurality of our
ways of speaking”254. This implies that Wittgenstein moved against the one function of
language in the position that all languages irrespective of their differences are alike and
therefore have the same rules, functions as well as meanings. Therefore, the contention is that
there are no basic language games, basic linguistic skills, and basic techniques. There exists, in
particular, no fundamental language game, or as one might say, the language game of all
language games. There are a variety of language games with multiple uses such that it entails a
vast range of things in the complex contexts of human activities and actions255.
A word, therefore, is only meaningful in a context together with a particular use, but their
similarities of uses are hidden by their appearance in point and in sound (phonology).
Wittgenstein is of the view that for one to understand a word with regard to its meaning, one
251
Ibid., 23.
252
Cf. Ibid., 65, “Here we come up against the great question that lies behind all these considerations.—For
someone might object against me: "You take the easy way out! You talk about all sorts of language games, but
have nowhere said what the essence of a language-game, and hence of language, is: what is common to all these
activities, and what makes them into language or parts of language. So you let yourself off the very part of the
investigation that once gave you yourself most headache, the part about the general form of propositions and of
language." And this is true.—Instead of producing something common to all that we call language, I am saying
that these phenomena have no one thing in common which makes us use the same word for all,— but that they
are related to one another in many different ways. And it is because of this relationship, or these relationships,
that we call them all "language...”
253
Cf. Ibid.
254
William Lawhead: The Voyage of Discovery, P. 515.
255
has to study the context of the language-game to which it belongs. This is because the meaning
of the word is not an object for which it stands but its use in a language256. The slogan
“meaning is use” is not a theoretical identification, as if Wittgenstein were propagating a use
theory of meaning (“Gebrauchstheorie der Bedeutung”). The slogan rather is reminiscent of the
fact, that there is an internal relation between meaning and use such that grasping the meaning
of a word, or sentence, requires the study of their use. It further implies that if the meaning is
separated from use, meaning then evaporates257. Schulte substantiates that in one sense that the
term language game serves simply to emphasize the importance of taking the context and use
of the utterance into account when trying to understand or explain the meaning of a linguistic
expression258. Therefore, the study of language-game shows that not all words are names, and
to understand the meaning of a word is not as simple as it looks, but much more than that.
Wittgenstein compares the use of language to the playing of different games to show that
speaking of language is an activity259. Schroeder affirms in this regard that:
Through the metaphorical expression "language game" - both for such stylized
scenarios as well as much more complicated uses of language -Wittgenstein not only
emphasizes that language is an activity, but also indicates that we follow certain rules
when using language: Similar to the rules of a game, there are linguistic conventions
where some things are linguistically correct and some things wrong260
Nevertheless, this basic Wittgenstein’s assertion that the meaning of a word is its use in the
language stands as one of the most famous statements in the Philosophical Investigations261. Its
prominent influence in the mid–twentieth century analytic philosophy of languag can be said
not to be overemphasied especially in the ordinary language camp. He rejected the idea that the
philosophy of language is a theoretic discipline that reduces our use of words and sentences to
a limited number of rules and principles. Against this background, he states that “our language
can be seen as an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, and
of houses with additions from various periods; and this surrounded by a multitude of new
boroughs with straight regular streets and uniform houses''262 . In these passages, Wittgenstein
256
257
Cf. Ibid., 117.
258
Cf. Joachim Schulte: Wittgenstein, Eine Einführung, P. 156. (translated by. me).
259
260
S. Schroeder: Wittgenstein: Gebrauch, Sprachspiel, Regeln, in: Kompa, N. (ed.) Handbuch Sprachphilosophie
Springer, Stuttgart 2015, P. 4 (translated by me). „Durch den metaphorische Ausdruck „Sprachspiel“ — sowohl
für solche stilisierten Szenarien als auch für sehr viel kompliziertere Sprachverwendungen — betont
Wittgenstein nicht nur, daß Sprache eine Aktivität ist, sondern deutet auch an, daß wir uns beim Sprachgebrauch
an bestimmte Regeln halten: Ähnlich den Regeln eines Spieles gibt es sprachliche Konventionen, nach denen
manches als sprachlich richtig und manches als falsch gilt‟.
261
262
Ibid., 18.
suggests that language has no essence to be investigated and that language analysis, if it has to
make sense at all, cannot consist in the reduction of certain language games to more
fundamental ones because it has no one thing in common263. For him, there are a variety of
language games which entails a multiplicity of use. It is not fundamental and could not be
reduced as one because there is no basic unit of language. There exist different language games
which follows that no theory of meaning, either semantic or pragmatic, is possible or even
required.
Meanwhile, there are many different types of language-game and together they comprise a
natural language with the consequence that the rules of language function like the rules of
games but there is nothing essential to all games. There are only family resemblances. He
reiterates :
Consider for example the proceedings that we call ‘games’. I mean board-games,
card-games, ball-games, Olympic games and so on…we see a complicated network of
similarities overlapping and criss-crossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes
similarities of detail…I can think of no better expression to characterize these
similarities than ‘family resemblances’; for the various resemblances between
members of a [human] family: build, features, colour of eyes, gait, temperament, etc.
etc. overlap and criss-cross in the same way. And I shall say: ‘games’ form a family 264.
Therefore, not all games require rules and concepts do not have to be clear and distinct to be
used or understood and they do not correspond to reality or get their meaning from describing
the world. For him, one might say that the concept ‘game’ is a concept with blurred edges; “We
want to say that there cannot be any vagueness in logic. The idea now absorbs us, that the ideal,
that is, the essence of a game ‘must’ be found in reality”265. This further led him in paragraph
23 to introduce the multiplicity of language games: “But how many kinds of sentences are
there? Say assertion, question, and command?—There are countless kinds: countless different
kinds of use of what we call “symbols”, “words”, “sentences”. And this multiplicity is not
something fixed, given once for all; but new types of language, new language-games..”266.
Here, the term “language-game” is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of
language is part of an activity as well as a form of life which has much to do with multiple use
and appilication. He reviews the multiplicity of language-games in the following examples, and
in others:
263
Cf. Ibid., 65.
264
Ibid., 66,67.
265
Ibid., 101.
266
Ibid., 23.
Giving orders, and obeying them— Describing the appearance of an object, or giving its
measurements, Constructing an object from a description (a drawing)—Reporting an
event— Speculating about an event… Forming and testing a hypothesis— Presenting the
results of an experiment in tables and diagrams— Making up a story; and reading it—
Play-acting— Singing catches— Guessing riddles— Making a joke; telling it— Solving a
problem in practical arithmetic— Translating from one language into another— Asking,
thanking, cursing, greeting, praying...267
These are all semiotic practices that exhibit regularities, often with language playing an
essential role. Evidently, language-game analysis is a specific way of looking at these practices,
as operations governed by a set of discrete concepts that the analysis must seek to express. In
Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein further presents ordinary words like the game as
having few, if any, common properties that characterize all their uses. Competition for instance
is present in ball games but absent in solitaire or ring around the rosy. The organized sport
follows strict rules, but not spontaneous play. And serious games of life or war lack the aspects
of leisure and enjoyment. Instead of unique defining properties, games as earlier remarked
share a sort of family resemblance, similarities, and affinities; baseball and chess are games
because they resemble the family of activities that people call games268. Except for technical
terms in mathematics, Wittgenstein maintained that most words like games are defined by
family resemblances269. Even in mathematics, the meaning of a symbol is its use, as specified
by a set of rules or axioms. A word or other symbol is like a chess piece, which is not defined
by its shape or physical composition, but by the rules for using the piece in the game of chess.
That is why he maintains that there are countless — countless different kinds of use of what we
call ‘symbols,’ ‘words,’ ‘sentences.’ And this multiplicity or variety is not fixed, it is rather
flexible giving room to the emergence of new language games270.
267
Ibid.
268
Cf. Ibid., 66. “ Consider for example the proceedings that we call "games". I mean board-games, card-games,
ball-games, Olympic games, and so on. What is common to them all?—Don't say: "There must be something
common, or they would not be called 'games' "—but look and see whether there is anything common to
all.—For if you look at them you will not see something that is common to all, but similarities, relationships,
and a whole series of them at that. To repeat: don't think, but look!—Look for example at board-games, with
their multifarious relationships. Now pass to card-games; here you find many correspondences with the first
group, but many common features drop out, and others appear. When we pass next to ball games, much that is
common is retained, but much is lost.—Are they all 'amusing'? Compare chess with noughts and crosses. Or is
there always winning and losing, or competition between players? Think
of patience. In ball games there is winning and losing; but when a child throws his ball at the wall and catches it
again, this feature has disappeared. Look at the parts played by skill and luck; and at the difference between skill
in chess and skill in tennis. Think now of games like ring-a-ring-a-roses; here is the element of amusement, but
how many other characteristic features have disappeared! And we can go through the many, many other groups
of games in the same way; can see how similarities crop up and disappear…”
269
Cf. Ibid., 67,
270
Cf. Ibid., 23.
In this vain, the contrast between the Tractatus conception of language and the later conception
is not the contrast between ordinary and extra-ordinary uses of language but the contrast
between the idea that there is basically only one use of language – depicting facts – and many
uses. It is this one-sidedness, or poverty, that is targeted by the idea of the plurality of language
games. This indicates that language as an activity performs not just one task, but multi tasks
such that describing the facts of the world is one use of language which is just one among many
others. It therefore implies that with language, one can do many things, namely; ask questions,
give answers and directions, pray, count objects, swear, give orders, etc271. This is why
Wittgenstein puts great emphasis on this plurality of resources and uses. The descriptive uses
become more central among these because all language games stand on the same ground and
one’s use of words depends on the language game one is playing, and it may change when
playing a different game. On this, Pietro Salis further affirms:
Language is a plurality, a “toolbox” we use to participate in various practical activities,
various language games. Wittgenstein uses language games systematically to emphasize
the plurality of our linguistic activities as evidence against the former monist
conception of language in which it is entirely devoted to describing the world. This
pluralism, at least in the first part of the Investigations, has a mainly negative
motivation: to deny the representational– denotational conception of language and to
affirm a strong connection of human language with diverse practical activities272
Yet, in Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein could be seen as proposing an egalitarian or

equal view of language games, emphasizing their plurality such that language has no
downtown273. There is no privileged game dictating the rules for all the others; there are as
many games as purposes. The use of words depends on the game being played, and can also
change when playing another game. This view is both “pluralist” and “egalitarian” based on
Wittgenstein’s position that the main purpose of philosophy is therapeutical – dissolving
problems and vexations – not theory-building. Crispin Wright describes it as “Wittgenstein’s
so–called quietist attitude, his fundamental view that theorizing about such things is something
we cannot do”.274
The idea of a plurality of language games in Wittgenstein’s Investigations emanated not as a

manifesto or pronouncement, but more as evidence of the limits and problems of his former
271
Cf. Pietro Salis: Does language have a downtown? Wittgenstein, Brandom, and the game of giving and asking
for reasons, in: Disputatio Philosophical Research Bulletin 8, no. 9, Italy 2019, Stand: 12.09.2021,
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333556303.
272
Ibid., P. 498.
273
274
Crispin Wright: Rails to Infinity, Essays on Themes from Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations,
Cambridge 2001, P. 169.
descriptivist and pictorial conception of language. As presented in his Tractatus, this was the
idea that language primarily “depicts” extra–linguistic facts such that there is a fundamental
isomorphic correspondence between language and reality in virtue of their sharing a common
logical form as represented by words, or depict objects, in the existing sense because they
appear as copula275. Pietro Salis, in this sense, positively reacted that “this pictorial conception
promoted a descriptivist understanding of language: the usefulness and the main point, of
language, was to say how things are in the extra–linguistic world”276. Furthermore, these
descriptions were to work in a representational way such that our statements or propositions
directly correspond to facts277. The connection between language and reality depends on the
nominalist idea that words are names, and sentences are pictures or models of reality. The
relation to the world is then established, not by acts of reference or denotation, but by depicting
or projecting a possible state of affairs, or as Wittgenstein puts it, “thinking the sense”278. But
elementary sentences are truth-functionally combined into complex sentences. This is roughly,
the main thesis of the Tractatus which Wittgenstein later planned to abandon279. In the first
paragraphs of Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein gives examples showing how our
ordinary practices often do not conform to such a representational conception of language280. In
this regard, Pietro Salis states thus:
The workers communicating with utterances like “Slab!” cannot be understood as
“representing”, “depicting”, or “describing” slabs—they do not mean anything like
“this is a slab”—but rather they are giving a precise order: “bring me a slab!” They are
“playing a different game”. When one enters a store with a slip marked “five red
apples”, as in paragraph one, there is a crucial difficulty in understanding it according
to the denotational model—its meaning is not “these are five red apples”. Words like
275
Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico–Philosophicus, 3.323.
276
Pietro Salis: Does language have a downtown?, P.497.
277
278
Cf. Ibid., 3. 142.
279
Cf. Pietro Salis: Does language have a downtown?, P.497.
280
Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophische Untersuchungen, 1. "When they (my elders) named some object,
and accordingly moved towards something, I saw this and I grasped that the thing was called by the sound they
uttered when they meant to point it out. Their intention was shewn by their bodily movements, as it were the
natural language of all peoples: the expression of the face, the play of the eyes, the movement of other parts of
the body, and the tone of voice which expresses our state of mind in seeking, having, rejecting, or avoiding
something. Thus, as I heard words repeatedly used in their proper places in various sentences, I gradually learnt
to understand what objects they signified; and after I had trained my mouth to form these signs, I used them to
express my own desires." the shopkeeper, who opens the drawer marked "apples"; then he looks up the word
"red" in a table and finds a colour sample opposite it; then he says the series of cardinal numbers—I assume that
he knows them by heart—up to the word "five" and for each number he takes an apple of the same colour as the
sample out of the drawer.——It is in this and similar ways that one operates with words.——"But how does he
know where and how he is to look up the word 'red' and what he is to do with the word 'five'?"——Well, I
assume that he acts as I have described. Explanations come to an end somewhere.—But what is the meaning of
the word "five"?—No such thing was in question here, only how the word "five" is used”.
“five” or “red” work differently because they are used differently. The word “five”, for
example, does not refer to a putative thing281.
Wittgenstein’s strategy puts a methodological focus on the bases that language could be used in
many different ways; but this does not exclude that some language games are descriptive, that
one can depict possible states of affairs by means of uttering sentences, that words have
reference and sentences sense, and that sense helps to determine a truth-value. True-false
games are not excluded from language – what is rejected is the view that they are the “only
game in town”. The representational-denotational dimension of language is not denied. What is
rejected is the view that truth conditions are sufficient for determining the meaning of words
and sentences. Rather, there is more to meaning than just reference and truth. Through
language, engagement in many different practical human activities becomes a possibility that
entails not only similarities, but also dissimilarities- variety of language -games.282. It implies in
other words that Language is a plurality, a “toolbox” we use to participate in various practical
and linguistic activities, various language games, and uses.
However, Wittgenstein’s plurality of use is strongly connected to his egalitarian view of

language games. When Wittgenstein claims that the way we use words depends on the
language game we are playing and that different words belong to different games, he is not
proposing a kind of general rule-like background. This is because language games are on the
same footing or level just like different words and different practices. It is neither rule-like
based on the fact that language games are on the same level because privileging the descriptive
use of language is ill–fated283. Therefore, Wittgenstein’s egalitarianism about language games
is then a corollary of his appreciation of the plurality of practices, and it contrasts with the very
idea of a philosophical view that gives meaning and order to language and practice from above
—as the representationalism of the Tractatus, seeing language as “describing the facts”,
attempts to do284. The egalitarian attitude of the Investigations takes a step back from such a
questionable enterprise, not to defend a substantial philosophical thesis, but rather to promote a
negative, therapeutic attitude toward the very idea of establishing such points based on general
conceptions: Thus, Wittgenstein further states that: “…the real discovery is the one that makes
me capable of stopping doing philosophy when I want to. — The one that gives philosophy
281
Pietro Salis: Does language have a downtown?, P. 497.
282
Cf. Ibid., 130.
283
Cf. Pietro Salis: Does language have a downtown?, P. 498.
284
Ibid.
peace, so that it is no longer tormented by questions which bring itself in question. […] There
is not a philosophical method, though there are indeed methods, like different therapies.”285
From the above, the method endorsed by Wittgenstein becomes quite clear in trying to describe
our activities without being misled by explanations in terms of general conceptions and
principles. Pietro Salis affirms from this point of view, that “Wittgenstein does not defend
pluralism as a philosophical doctrine; he defends the plurality of use, actual practices, language
games, and rules that we follow, against the invasion of monistic philosophical conceptions like
the representationalism of the Tractatus”286. He seems to warn us against certain natural
tendencies and conceives philosophy as a therapeutic activity for resisting such tendencies.
Often, this therapy serves just to discover the peculiar ways in which we actually act, believe,
and speak, which suddenly become visible once we remove the lens of some general
philosophical conception or cease to be misdirected by some simple superficial appearance.
This sometimes requires the “special attention” of philosophers to be discovered because we
remain unconscious of the prodigious diversity of our language–games because the clothing of
our language makes everything alike such that certain words become related to one
another287.This passage denounces the very “clothing” of language as something superficial and
potentially misleading, something that can wrongly invite unitary or monistic readings that
mask the underlying plurality of language games288.
The plurality of language games above all is not a kind of logical and theoretical or principled
pluralism, but rather a plurality of fact gathering which manifests in the use of varieties
associated with language. This is in other words contrary to the natural tendency to theorize
language by projecting general images and unitary conceptions289. There is therefore an
important connection between Wittgenstein’s philosophical quietism and his defense of the
plurality of language games. This plurality of practices, uses, and rules, is neither the basis nor
the substance of a philosophical view; it is rather the basis of a quietist “step taken back” from
philosophical theorizing and similar tendencies. This quietism or Philosophical break-off in the
normal sense is above all not a hindrance and retardation of his philosophical enterprise. It does
not imply a stance of complacency or idleness, but a pretext for declining to further his work to
285
286
Pietro Salis : Does language have a downtown? , P. 500.
287
288
Cf, Pietro Salis : Does language have a downtown? , P. 500.
289
Cf. Ibid.
attain a possible level of philosophical clarity and tranquility as seen in the Philosophical
Investigations290. This could be deduced from section 133 of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical
Investigations:
For the clarity that we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means
that the philosophical problems should completely disappear. The real discovery is the
one that enables me to break off philosophizing when I want to. – The one that gives
philosophy peace, so that it is no longer tormented by questions which bring itself in
question […] There is not a single philosophical method, though there are indeed
methods, different therapies, as it were291.
By this, Wittgenstein's priority is to attain a level of clarity in dealing with philosophical issues,
but not in the sense of extinquishing all philosophical problems. This does not center on
proffering a kind of grand philosophical constructions, but intellectual quietude, where he
would not be tormented by philosophical problems. This guest of intellectual quietude is the
source of the Quietist label and what primarily links Wittgenstein’s metaphilosophical views to
ancient Pyrrhonism292. However, the question that arises in view of this is: Can such a state of
Philosophical Quietism be attainable since language will relentlessly trick people into new
confusions, pseudo-problems in need of being dissolved? Wittgenstein also mentioned in
section 133 the plurality of methods, but one category of methods dominated his philosophy,
namely the method of grammatical clarifications, which provides a necessary overview
(Übersicht). Wittgenstein compares such activity to therapy and a successful outcome would be
the elimination of confusion, a state of mind where problems disappear and things become
clear and unproblematic again. Much of the mystery in philosophy is the result of the
bewitchment of words – we get stuck in the web of grammar293. A philosophical problem,
according to Wittgenstein, has the form: “I don’t know my way about.”294 And such problems
arise when, metaphorically speaking, language goes on holiday295. The metaphor becomes lucid
when Wittgenstein discusses the proper home of language, that is, the environment where
words acquire meaning: When philosophers use a word – “knowledge”, “being”, “object”, “I”,
“proposition/sentence”, “name” – and try to grasp the essence of the thing, one must always ask
290
Cf. John McDowell: Wittgensteinian “quietism”, Common Knowledge 15 (3):365-372, 2009, Stnad:
23.11.2021, https://www.philpapers.org/rec/MCDWQ.
291
292
The ancient Greek philosopher Pyrrho (c. 360 BC – c. 270 BC) came to embrace a form of skepticism and he
originated a school of thought which bears his name. – With regard to certain problems, Gilbert Ryle and John
L. Austin could be regarded as proto-Quietists.
293
Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophische Untersuchungen, 109. “The problems are solved, not by coming up
with new discoveries, but by assembling what we have long been familiar with. Philosophy is a struggle against
the bewitchment of our understanding by the resources of our language.”
294
Ibid., 123.
295
Cf. Ibid., 38.
oneself: is the word ever actually used in this way in the language in which it is at home?-
What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use”296. The
everyday use of a term, therefore, casts light on its function. The meaning then is determined
by how it is used in a certain language community. Examples of usage can be important in
acquiring grammatical clarity and overview by casting light on a variety of different meanings,
which are not connected through a “common denominator” but through an overlapping web of
meanings, affinity which Wittgenstein calls family resemblance297 Wittgenstein’s Quietist
approach is most discernible in his later philosophy, but it is not absent from his earlier work,
as for example, David G. Stern has demonstrated that his Quietism is different in his earlier
philosophy where the focus is on what can be said by the proposition and what can only be
shown298.
In Summary, Wittgenstient’s contribution to Semantic theory is quite outstanding in the

Tractatus’ explication of names, words, thoughts (sentences), and propositions as pictures of
reality or state of affairs. The Tractatus offers a theory of sense, but has no theory of reference.
In order words, there is basically no referential relation to the world, but rather a proxy relation
between simple signs and simple objects, and an internal relation between a proposition, or
propositional sign, and a possible state of affairs. Wittgenstein calls this internal relation
between propositional sign and fact “sense”. In this regard, Baker and Hacker affirm that the
centrality of the notion of an internal relation survived the demise of the Tractatus approach to
language and is evident in the harmony between language and reality, the world299. To put it
otherwise, Wittgenstein never abandoned the idea of an internal relation between language and
world, propositions and facts300. Such internal relation, for instance, is further manifested in the
relation between meaning and use, intention and action, rule and rule-following as a practice.
Also, in the Philosophical Investigations, he shows that ordinary words like game have few, if
any, common properties that characterize all their uses. He further discusses in this work, many
296
Ibid., 116.
297
Family resemblance is a key concept in Wittgenstein"s later philosophy and important for theQuietist
methodology. –“We see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing: sometimes overall
similarities, sometimes similarities of detail” (§ 66). / “I can think of nobetter expression to characterise these
similarities than “family resemblances''; for the various resemblances between members of a family: build,
features, colour of eyes, gait, temperament,etc., etc. overlap and criss-cross in the same way” (§ 67). / “But if
someone wished to say: “There Is something common to all these constructions – namely the disjunction of all
their commonproperties” – I should reply; Now you are only playing with words. One might as well
say:“Something runs through the whole thread – namely the continuous overlapping of these fibers” (§67).
298
David G. Stern: Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: An Introduction, Cambridge 2004. P. 40-55. –
Stern uses the term Pyrrhonism for what is here called Quietism
299
Cf. G.P.Baker and Hacker: Wittgenstein, P. 96.
300
other issues concerning Language, logic, psychology, mind, semantics and etc. For him, the
basis of most philosophical problems centers on the conceptual confusion that surrounds
language use301. There are games with words in which words are used to refer to, or denote,
objects, and there are games in which words are used to evoke associations in our minds. But
that these games are “not the only game in town” is evident in his notion that the meaning of a
word is its use in the language. For him, there exist many different kinds of use of what we
call symbols, words, and sentences. And this multiplicity is not something fixed, given once
and for all. It all however points to the existence of a variety of language games which are
examples of ordinary word use302. Hence, “Language is a labyrinth of paths. You approach
from one side and know your way about; you approach the same place from another side and
no longer know your way about”303.
He posited this background in the Philosophical Investigations as an attempt to create more

room for further investigation on the pictorial view of language and meaning of the Tractatus.
But his explanation of meaning as use concept (with regard to its multiplicity and plurality)
without doubt, leads to what could be deduced as a contribution to semantic theory. An ample
example is his notion of Grammar which is usually taken to consist of the rules of correct
syntactic and semantic usage which further captures the essence of language and its relation to
the world304. Also, the concept of language game is neither a condemnation of the picture
theory nor its contradiction, but rather it's auxiliary. This is because it proceeds to offer a new
way or method of looking at the language which resulted in viewing philosophy as therapy (in
dissolving philosophical problems) which for him is encapsulated in the diverse games we play
in language with words as instruments or tools305. Therefore, the language game in this sense is
not a theory but is related to method; the object of comparison, or model as Wittgenstein puts
it. Such a descriptive method contributes to semantic theory because it presupposes an internal
relation that brings about harmony between language and reality (the world) in that there is a
kind of implicit semantic realism. This is quite remarkable in the Investigations which does not
301
Cf. Robert Allen Goff: The Wittgenstein Game, in: The Christian Scholar, Vol. 45, No. 3, 1962, Stand:
11.10.2021, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41177294.
302
Cf. David A. White:The Labyrinth of Language: Joyce and Wittgenstein, in: James Joyce Quarterly
Vol. 12, No. 3, 1975, Stand: 12.10.2021, .https://www.jstor.org/stable/25487188.
303
304
Cf. Edward N. Zalta: Ludwig Wittgenstein in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2021, Stand:
12.05.2022, https://www.plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2021/entries/wittgenstein/.
305
entail any move from semantic realism to anti-realism, but rather an implicit semantic move in
the description of the relationship that exists between language and reality such that the
meaning of a word neither consists in what is referred to, nor in what is designated by it, but in
the use which the word has as an element of language306.
306
Cf. G.P.Baker and Hacker: Wittgenstein, P. 17, 102.

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2.

0 CHAPTER TWO: WITTGENSTEIN’S CONTRIBUTION TO SEMANTIC

2.1 MEANING AND SEMANTIC VALUE IN FREGE

In particular, the sense of a sentence is given by its canonical truth-condition, which

2.2 THE CONCEPT OF NAME IN THE TRACTATUS

The notion of name is basically presented and discussed by Wittgenstein in paragraphs

Nonetheless, as it is clearly expressed in section 3.24: A proposition about a complex stands in

2.4 THOUGHT AND PROPOSITION AS PICTURES

Therefore one can deduce that an elementary proposition is a completely analyzed

Wittgenstein, further, analyses generally an elementary proposition as having two kinds of

Furthermore, a Wittgensteinian saying-showing distinction at the same time prescribes

Anscombe’s interpretation of the picturing relation of Wittgenstein centers on some central

By way of evaluation, Tractautus’s notion of semantics is deducible from Wittgenstein’s

Yet, in Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein could be seen as proposing an egalitarian or

The idea of a plurality of language games in Wittgenstein’s Investigations emanated not as a

However, Wittgenstein’s plurality of use is strongly connected to his egalitarian view of

In Summary, Wittgenstient’s contribution to Semantic theory is quite outstanding in the

He posited this background in the Philosophical Investigations as an attempt to create more

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