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[pt] Abordaremos a noção de objeto no Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) de Wittgenstein, inicialmente a partir do assim chamado argumento da substância. O discurso sobre as condições necessárias para o sentido proposicional não pode, no Tractatus, ser tratado em termos de verdade ou falsidade sem que isto acarrete um regresso ad infinitum. Uma tal situação é evitada através da postulação de uma substância constituída por objetos simples, garantindo assim o pressuposto da total determinação do sentido. Passagens dos Notebooks (1914-1916) sugerem que a ideia do simples está contida na ideia de análise lógica e é alcançada sem a necessidade de exemplos para objetos. Outras observações do primeiro Wittgenstein, contudo, oferecem exemplos para os objetos pautados em itens de natureza fenomênica, como um ponto no campo visual. Uma analogia importante para a abordagem fenomênica do objeto, encontrada nos aforismos 2.013-2.0131 do Tractatus, apresenta um problema para sua simplicidade absoluta. Este problema envolve a noção de forma, conceito que atribui ao objeto uma dependência ontológica dada por sua capacidade essencial de ocorrência em fatos atômicos. A forma dos objetos resulta da apropriação do Princípio do Contexto utilizado por Frege em seus Grundlagen der Arithmetik (1884) e difere das noções de forma de afiguração e forma lógica. A dependência atribuída ao objeto através de sua forma contradiz a subsistência independente estabelecida por sua simplicidade. O objeto tractariano resulta de demandas necessárias para a determinação do sentido proposicional, alcançadas por meio de uma análise clarificatória que prioriza os modos de análise transformativo e regressivo. Simplicidade e Princípio do Contexto são, sob esta perspectiva, regras de uma sintaxe para um uso lógico ou significativo da linguagem, as quais são refletidas na ontologia tractariana pela ideia de que a investigação lógico-filosófica da linguagem revela aspectos essenciais da estrutura íntima do mundo. / [en] We ll approach the notion of object in Wittgenstein s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921), initially from the so-called substance argument. The discourse about necessary conditions for the propositional sense cannot be treated in terms of truth or falsity in the Tractatus without resulting in a infinite regress. Such a situation is avoided by postulating a substance made up of simple objects, thus ensuring the assumed total determination of sense. Passages from the Notebooks (1914-1916) suggest that the idea of simples is given in the ideia of logical analysis and is reached without the necessity of examples for objects. Another early Wittgenstein s remarks provide examples for objects based on itens of phenomenical nature, such as a point in the visual field. An important analogy for the phenomenical approach for the object, which is found in the aphorisms 2.013-2.0131 of Tractatus, presents a problem for the absolute simplicity. This problem concerns the notion of form, a concept that attributes an ontological dependence to the object given by its essencial capacity of occurrence in atomic facts. The form of the objects results from an appropriation of the Context Principle used by Frege in his Grundlagen der Arithmetik (1884) and differs from the notions of pictorial form and logical form. The dependence assigned to the object through its form contradicts the independent subsistence established by its simplicity. The Tractarian object results from necessary demands for determination of propositional sense, reached by means of an clarificatory analysis which prioritizes the transformative and regressive modes of analysis. Simplicity and Context Principle are, under this perspective, rules of a syntax for a logical or significative use of language, which are reflected in the Tractarian ontology through the ideia that the logico-philosophical investigation of language reveals essencial aspects of the intimate structure of the world.

Univ., Diss.--Zürich, 2006.

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Dissonant Voices has a twofold aspiration. First, it is a philosophical treatment of everyday pedagogical interactions between children and their elders, between teachers and pupils. More specifically it is an exploration of the possibilities to go on with dissonant voices that interrupt established practices – our attunement – in behaviour, practice and thinking. Voices that are incomprehensible or expressions that are unacceptable, morally or otherwise. The text works on a tension between two inclinations: an inclination to wave off, discourage, or change an expression that is unacceptable or unintelligible; and an inclination to be tolerant and accept the dissonant expression as doing something worthwhile, but different. The second aspiration is a philosophical engagement with children’s literature. Reading children’s literature becomes a form of philosophising, a way to explore the complexity of a range of philosophical issues. This turn to literature marks a dissatisfaction with what philosophy can accomplish through argumentation and what philosophy can do with a particular and limited set of concepts for a subject, such as ethics. It is a way to go beyond philosophising as the founding of theories that justify particular responses. The philosophy of dissonance and children’s literature becomes a way to destabilise justifications of our established practices and ways of interacting. The philosophical investigations of dissonance are meant to make manifest the possibilities and risks of engaging in interactions beyond established agreement or attunements. Thinking of the dissonant voice as an expression beyond established practices calls for improvisation. Such improvisations become a perfectionist education where both the child and the elder, the teacher and the student, search for as yet unattained forms of interaction and take responsibility for every word and action of the interaction. The investigation goes through a number of picture books and novels for children such as Harry Potter, Garmann’s Summer, and books by Shaun Tan, Astrid Lindgren and Dr. Seuss as well narratives by J.R.R. Tolkien, Henrik Ibsen, Jane Austen and Henry David Thoreau. These works of fiction are read in conversation with philosophical works of, and inspired by, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Stanley Cavell, their moral perfectionism and ordinary language philosophy.

The present philosophical literature on philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein tends to either stagnate by focusing upon issues particular to Wittgenstein's philosophy or expand the boundaries of Wittgenstein's thought to shed light onto other areas of study. One area that has largely been ignored is the realm of environmental philosophy. I prepare the way for a solution to this by first arguing that Wittgenstein's later philosophy of language shows 'proto-ecolinguistic' concerns, sharing much in common with the ecolinguistic thought of both Peter Mühlhäusler and Luisa Maffi. This reading, as well as the work of Mühlhäusler and Maffi, is a starting point for an opposition to a common trend in much of contemporary linguistics of adhering to a linguistic paradigm of universalizing linguistic atomism that gives an impoverished account of language. This impoverished account is argued to have potential environmental and ecological consequences which the universalizing atomistic paradigm is ill-equipped to address.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture and Planning, February 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 217-218). / This thesis explores the deep spatio-linguistic relationship between the Austrian born philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein's practices of philosophy and of architecture. Wittgenstein's philosophy of language is notable for its sharply distinguished early and late work: with the early work most strongly associated with his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922) and the later frequently designated by his posthumously published Philosophical Investigations (1953). Following the completion of the early work Wittgenstein abandoned philosophy for a period of ten years, spending the years from 1926 to 1929 engaged in the design and construction of a house in Vienna for his sister Margarethe Stonborough. The thesis considers the ways in which the intervening practice of architecture infiltrated, altered, influenced and manifested itself in the later philosophy by focusing on the spatial. temporal. conceptual and cognitive gaps in the philosophy. The importance and the prevalence of the practice of architecture for Wittgenstein's later philosophy are exhibited in a variety of ways that together broaden, reconceive and resituate the functioning of language and philosophy. The thesis considers these developments in the philosophy as they are revealed in the visual and spatial language, thinking and construction of the philosophical texts. This analysis reveals a shift from the removed, idealized and flattened picture theory of the Tractatus to the production of the spatially complex and ambiguous images of entanglement in the Investigations. The Stonborough house, itself, is analyzed through its production of cognitive and spatial practices and problematics. Wittgenstein's practice of architecture is shown to utilize. develop, challenge and reveal related spatial concepts found in the philosophy. These include the ideas of limits, boundaries, inner/outer dichotomies, the relationship between showing and saying, the idea of correspondence and the practices of representation, assembly. resemblance, construction, building and rearrangement. / by Nana D. Last. / Ph.D.

I here defend logical atomism. This defense rests on reinterpreting logical atomism as a search for logical forms. This reinterpretation has two parts comprising six chapters. In the first part, I do some historically-driven recovery. In the introduction, I review the literature on Russell's logical atomism. In Chapter 1, I argue that the dominant interpretation of logical atomism is wrong on historical grounds: it accounts for neither the history of logical atomism nor for crucial elements of the logical atomist texts. In Chapter 2, I then use Russell's writings to recover what I argue is the core of logical atomism. I explicate the critical notions and essential ingredients of logical atomism using "Principia Mathematica" as the archetype of logical atomism. I argue that logical atomsts are term busters. The essential ingredient of a logical atomist's term busting practice is a higher-order logic with the power of impredicative comprehension. In Chapter 3, I discuss the widespread view that Wittgenstein held a version of logical atomism. Focusing on his pre-"Tractatus" writings and changes in his earlier views, I argue that Wittgenstein embraced a philosophy of logic incompatible with emulating impredicative comprehension in April 1914. As such, Wittgenstein was a logical atomist, if ever, in October 1913, possibly through April 1914. In the second part, having clarified what logical atomism is, I present a modern logical atomism. In Chapter 4, I develop a philosophy of logic for logical atomism based on the notion of a pure logic. I critically discuss normativity in logic, the epistemology of pure logic, and logical pluralism. In Chapter 5, I propose a formal logic for logical atomism. I argue for the logic of logical atomism being an infinitely-descending and infinitely-ascending simple type theory with impredicative comprehension compatible with a domain empty of particulars. In Chapter 6, I critically discuss what the ontology of logical atomism should be, that is, what the ontology of the logical atomist's logic must be. This includes an ontology of logical concepts and of logical forms as completely-general, necessarily-existing logical facts with no constituents. I conclude by indicating avenues for new work on logical atomism.

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Wittgenstein once remarked that the same kind of reasoning that occurs in ordinary conversations about works of art can be found “in Ethics, but also in Philosophy.” That observation has been almost entirely overlooked by his commentators. What is aesthetic reasoning? What does it look like in conversations about art? And where might we find examples of such reasoning “in Ethics”? To set the stage for my answers, I begin with an overview of the early Wittgenstein’s view of ethics and aesthetics, emphasizing two ideas that were retained in his later view of aesthetic reasoning: the moral importance of non-moral descriptions, and the power of a “picture” to regulate action and thought. I illustrate those ideas by considering the moral influence of Tolstoy’s parable of the Good Samaritan on Wittgenstein. Next, I examine the passage in which Wittgenstein introduced aesthetic reasoning, and I articulate some general features of that concept. I also contend that we learn more about aesthetic reasoning by understanding Wittgenstein’s invention of the language-game concept as his reasoning aesthetically “in Philosophy.” Furthermore, I argue that the later Wittgenstein’s notions of aspect perception and grammatical pictures further inform aesthetic reasoning, revealing that it involves the introduction of grammar that can draw a person’s attention to unnoticed aspects of an object and equip him with further descriptions of that object. To illustrate that characterization of aesthetic reasoning, and to offer an example of such reasoning “in Ethics,” I return to Tolstoy’s parable and show that my interacting with it in a particular way involves aesthetic reasoning. Finally, I argue that aesthetic reasoning continues to occur in ethics in that it is woven into discussions of stories in bioethics classes. A student can have her grammatical picture of the case that a story presents reshaped as she sees and accepts aspects of that story that she had not noticed, and this, in turn, might influence her ways of seeing and responding morally to other cases. I close by considering whether aesthetic reasoning occurs in ethics in other ways, and I articulate some implications of my work for further Wittgenstein studies.