The Role of Thoughts in Wittgenstein's "Tractatus"

The Role of Thoughts in Wittgenstein's "Tractatus"Author(s): Christopher GilbertSource: Linguistics and Philosophy, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Aug., 1998), pp. 341-352Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25001711 .

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CHRISTOPHER GILBERT

THE ROLE OF THOUGHTS IN WITTGENSTEIN'S

TRACTA TUS

In the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein is primarily con cerned with discerning the relationship between language and the world.

Consequently, he all but ignores the epistemological issues relevant to that relationship; while a notion of thought does figure into his analysis,

Wittgenstein's references to that notion are cryptic and few. I shall here

argue that Wittgenstein's conception of thought actually plays a very important role in the theory of the Tractatus. In the first section, I shall

explain Wittgenstein's notion of 'thoughts' and the importance of that notion to his theory as a whole. In the second section, I shall call attention

to some important questions to which Wittgenstein's notion of 'thoughts' gives rise.

1. 'THOUGHTS' IN THE TRACTATUS

The Tractatus presents an atomistic ontology according to which the world is composed of facts which subdivide into 'states of affairs', each of which

is a certain 'configuration' of simple objects. To these ontological types correspond linguistic entities: complex propositions (which can describe

facts) are analyzable into elementary propositions (which describe possible states of affairs), each of which is a 'concatenation' of names (which stand

for simple objects). Wittgenstein avoids giving any detailed account of 'thoughts', primarily

because he considers epistemological issues to be irrelevant to the analysis of language. He wishes not to get "entangled in unessential psychological investigations" as did philosophers of the past (4.1121).1 The true purpose of philosophy, he claims, is not to explain thought-processes, but to give "logical clarification" of thoughts which are otherwise "cloudy and indis tinct" (4.112). In other words, Wittgenstein would 'clarify' the obscurity of thoughts by ignoring them altogether, focusing instead on how language itself relates to the world it describes. As Anscombe observes, Witt

1 All parenthetical citations of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus refer to the translation by D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness (Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press, 1974).

Linguistics and Philosophy 21: 341-352, 1998.

? 1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.



342 CHRISTOPHER GILBERT

genstein and Frege both "avoided making theory of knowledge the cardi nal theory of philosophy simply by cutting it dead".2

The attempt to avoid any treatment of thought must have proved too

difficult, however, for Wittgenstein directly addresses that very topic in

Propositions 3 through 3.5. As we shall see, the notion of 'thought' proves crucial to Wittgenstein's account of the language-world relation. What, then, is a thought?

Like a proposition, a thought is a picture: "A logical picture of facts is a thought" (3). Thus, like any other picture, a thought somehow depicts or represents the state of affairs of which it is the thought. By identifying a thought with a logical picture, Wittgenstein asserts that a thought is a

picture the "pictorial form" of which is "logical form" (2.181). According to Wittgenstein's picture theory, any picture must share a common form

with its subject in order to depict it: in purely spatial pictures, for instance, that form will involve spatial relations; in color pictures, on the other

hand, it will involve colors (2.171). This form shared by a particular type of picture and the subject it pictures is what Wittgenstein calls 'pictorial form' (2.17). 'Logical form' is a broader term: it refers to that form which

any picture must have in common with reality in order to be a picture at all (2.18). By calling a thought a 'logical picture', Wittgenstein claims that a thought is a picture stripped of any particular empirical characteristics.

Thus, while all pictures are logical pictures, "thoughts are logical pictures par excellence since logical structure is the whole of their pictorial form".3

These thoughts are the means by which we "picture facts to ourselves"

(2.1). Indeed, to say that a state of affairs is 'thinkable' is to say that "we

can picture it to ourselves" (3.001). Because the pictorial form of a thought is logical form, "the form of reality" (2.18), a thought "contains the

possibility of the situation of which it is the thought. What is thinkable is

possible too" (3.02). As with Proposition 3, this somewhat misleading statement is best understood by reference to Wittgenstein's picture theory. In order for one thing to be a picture of another, there must be some sort

of correspondence between the elements in the picture and the elements in the pictured. This is so whether the picture is accurate (i.e., true) or inaccurate (i.e., false); whether or not there actually exists a combination of elements like that in the picture, it must at least be possible for the

pictured elements to combine in the way that their corresponding elements in the picture are combined (2.151). Since the form of a thought is logical

2 G. E. M. Anscombe, An Introduction to Wittgenstein's Tractatus (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971) 152. 3

Anthony Kenny, Wittgenstein (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973) 59.



THE ROLE OF THOUGHTS IN WITTGENSTEIN S TRACTATUS 343

form, the arrangement of elements in a thought must be such that the

things thought about could be so arranged. Thus, a thought is a picture of a possible state of affairs; if a state of affairs is 'thinkable', then it is

logically possible (i.e., it is a situation in 'logical space'). It follows, of

course, that thoughts cannot be of that which is logically impossible; this would involve picturing a combination of elements that does not occupy logical space, an activity which the form of thought does not permit (3.03).

Because a thought is a picture, the state of affairs it depicts is only a

possible state of affairs, one which may or may not actually obtain in the

world. Thus, as with any picture, a thought must be compared with the world in order to determine if it is indeed an accurate picture - i.e., if

what it pictures is a fact in the world (and not a mere possibility). Since no pictures are true a priori (2.225), no thoughts are true a priori; there is no thought the truth of which is "recognizable from the thought itself

(without anything to compare it with)" (3.05). Such is the extent of Wittgenstein's comments on what thoughts are.

The key point to note is that thoughts are pictures, and since all pictures are facts (2.141), thoughts are facts as well. As facts, thoughts figure into the ontology of the Tractatus as much as do any other facts in the world.

Moreover, on Wittgenstein's analysis, thoughts must be equally as com

plex as the states of affairs of which they are the thoughts. This tenet comes

out most clearly in Wittgenstein's comments on propositional attitudes. "It is clear", Wittgenstein states at 5.542, "that 'A believes that p', 'A has the thought p', and 'A says p' are of the form '"p" says p': and this does

not involve a correlation of a fact with an object, but rather the correlation

of facts by means of the correlation of their objects". What is so clear to

Wittgenstein in this passage is that "for anything to be capable of

representing the fact that p, it must be as complex as the fact that p; but a thought that p ... must be potentially a representation of the fact that

p (and of course actually a representation of it, if it is a fact that p)".4 So

thoughts, no less than propositions or other pictures, must be just as

complex as the situations they depict; thoughts, like propositions, are "articulate" (3.141).

We have seen that, for Wittgenstein, thoughts are pictures of possible states of affairs. But we have yet to ask, what role do thoughts play?

What purpose does the notion of 'thought' serve in the Tractatus? I shall

argue that thoughts actually play a crucial role in Wittgenstein's theory: thoughts mediate the relation between language and the world, and are

thus necessary for propositions' having sense.

4 Anscombe 88.




At 3.1, Wittgenstein states: "In a proposition a thought finds an expres sion that can be perceived by the senses". We should take 'proposition' here to mean 'propositional sign' or 'sentence', since it is spoken or written sentences that are 'perceptible'. So sentences express thoughts. According to Kenny, sentences are not the only perceptible expressions of thoughts; citing 4.014, he asserts that "a painting, a sculpture, a musical score would all be expressions of thoughts".5 Whether or not thoughts are expressed exclusively by sentences, the fact that they are expressed by sentences at all is significant. We shall return to this point below.

Wittgenstein goes on, at 3.11, to assert that we "use the perceptible sign of a proposition (spoken or written, etc.) as a projection of a possible situation". The 'perceptible sign' of a proposition, which may be spoken or written, is (again) a sentence. What is meant by 'projection' here? Max Black suggests that "'project' (projizieren) can be taken as synonymous with 'present' (darstellen) or 'depict' (abbilden)".6 So a propositional sign 'presents' or 'depicts' a state of affairs. Thus, the 'projection' is the propo sitional sign (a spoken or written sentence); what is 'projected' is the

possible situation of which the propositional sign is a picture.7 A

'proposition', finally, is "a propositional sign in its projective relation to the world" (3.12). In other words, a sentence depicts a possible state of

affairs, and 'proposition' refers to the pictorial relation between the sen tence and that which it depicts.

But what of the assertion, noted above, that propositions (or, rather,

propositional signs) are perceptible expressions of thoughts? Where do

thoughts figure into this 'projection'? Section 3.11 continues: "The method of projection is to think of the sense of the proposition". This statement

is, at first sight, baffling. Since we are taking 'projection' as 'depiction' or

'presentation', the 'method of projection' must be a way of depicting something. What does thinking of the sense of the proposition have to do

with depicting? The idea here is that thoughts serve as a link between the

projected (a possible situation) and the projection itself (the sentence by

5 Kenny 58. Proposition 4.014 reads:

A gramophone record, the musical idea, the written notes, and the sound-waves, all stand to one another in the same internal relation of depicting that holds between language and the world.

They are all constructed according to a common logical pattern. (Like the two youths in the fairy-tale, their two horses, and their lilies. They are all in a

certain sense one.) 6 Max Black, A Companion to Wittgenstein's 'Tractatus' (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1964) 99. 7 Robert J. Fogelin, Wittgenstein, 2nd. ed. (New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976) 28.



THE ROLE OF THOUGHTS IN WITTGENSTEIN'S TRACTATUS 345

which the situation is depicted). To see this, we must look closely at

Proposition 3.11.

Wittgenstein's statement at 3.11 reads: "Die Projektionsmethode ist das Denken des Satz-Sinnes". Given what has been said above, we should read 'Satz-Sinnes' as meaning the sense of a propositional sign, i.e., a

significant sentence. As we have seen, the sense of a significant sentence is that possible situation which the sentence depicts. But how should we read "das Denken"? In his 1922 translation, C. K. Ogden rendered "das

Denken des Satz-Sinnes" as "the thinking of the sense of the proposition".8 Pears' and McGuinness' first translation (1961) reads: "The method of

projection is to think out the sense of the proposition".9 Their 1974 translation is a revision of the 1961 edition based on Wittgenstein's own comments and suggestions in correspondence to Ogden. It translates "das

Denken des Satz-Sinnes" simply as "to think of the sense of the

proposition". What all three translations have in common is an assertion that a particular mental act is involved in the 'method of projection': in

order to depict a possible situation by means of a sentence, one must

engage in the act of 'thinking of the sense' of the sentence (Ogden), one must actively 'think out' the sense of the sentence (Pears/McGuinness, 1961), or one must 'think of' the sense of the sentence (Pears/McGuinness, 1974). In all three cases, it is clear that successful 'projection' or depiction requires a mental activity, namely, that of 'thinking'.

But why should thinking be necessary for the depiction of a state of affairs by means of a sentence? Because thoughts mediate between signifi cant sentences and possible situations. As we saw above, sentences express thoughts. In other words, the picture I create when I utter a significant sentence is the perceptible expression of a thought. This thought, in turn, is a logical picture of a possible state of affairs. So any correspondence between elements of the sentence (the projection) and elements of the

possible situation (the projected) is mediated by a thought. "The projection lines, as it were, run from the sentence to the state of affairs via the

thought in the mind".'? Wittgenstein comes close to a statement of this

idea at 3.2: "In a proposition a thought can be expressed in such a way that elements of the propositional sign correspond to the objects of the

thought". In this passage we see the pivotal role which thoughts play in the language-world relation, viz., that of the 'middle term' in propositions:

8 C. K. Ogden, trans., Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, by Ludwig Wittgenstein (New York:

Routledge, 1990) 45. 9

D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness, trans., Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, by Ludwig

Wittgenstein (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961) 21. '0 Kenny 60.




the sentence expresses the thought, but the thought pictures a situation, and so the sentence also pictures that situation. Thus, the 'projection' achieved in a proposition is achieved only through cognitive mediation.

Indeed, were such cognitive mediation not possible, sentences would be senseless. In order for the propositional sign I utter to be a picture of a situation for you (or even for me), you (and I) have to think of the

sense of that propositional sign. Wittgenstein states: "if I understand a

proposition, I know the situation that it represents" (4.021). But 'knowing the situation' that a proposition represents means having a logical picture - i.e., a thought - of it. Unless both of us hold the same logical picture in our thoughts as being that which the propositional sign expresses, that

sign will describe different situations for each of us. If I cannot hold any thought which might be that expressed by a given sentence, then that sentence has no meaning for me at all.

Let us recap what has been said thus far. We have seen that a 'thought', for Wittgenstein, is an articulate picture of a possible state of affairs. A

'propositional sign' (a sentence) is a string of words (written or spoken) which expresses a thought, and by which a possible situation may be

depicted. A 'proposition', finally, is a meaningful propositional sign; it is the correlation between a sentence and a state of affairs which makes that

sentence a symbol (as opposed to a mere set of sounds or marks). But

now we have seen that the method by which one 'projects' a state of

affairs, the way in which one uses a sentence to depict a possible situation, involves the act of thinking the sense of that sentence. This means that

the pictorial relation constitutive of 'propositions' itself requires thought: if a 'proposition' is the pictorial relation between a sentence and a situ

ation, and it is only by means of a thought that this depicting relation is

established, then it is thoughts which make propositions possible; without

thoughts, there are no pictorial relations between sentences and states of

affairs, and thus no significant sentences at all. "It is the thought which

makes the sign into a symbol, which makes the propositional sign into a

proposition" 11 From Wittgenstein's treatment of 'thought', then, there emerges a pic

ture according to which thoughts play a crucial role in the language-world relation. Because sentences express thoughts, and because it is only by

means of thoughts that sentences have sense (i.e., it is only by means of

thoughts that there are propositions), thoughts may be said to mediate between language and the world. When a sentence describes a fact, some

thing that actually obtains in the world, it does so because there is a

"' Kenny 59.




thought in the mind of speakers and hearers which links the sentence to the fact, thereby establishing the former as a picture of the latter. It would seem to follow that, with regard to language-world correspondence, the

key picturing relation in the Tractatus is not that of linguistic formulations to states of affairs, but that of thoughts to states of affairs; without this

picturing relation, language would remain utterly detached from the world. Thus, although Wittgenstein himself focuses our attention on the

pictorial relation between propositional signs and possible situations, this relation itself presupposes the pictorial relation by which a thought pic tures a situation. Because propositional signs directly express thoughts (thoughts which, in turn, directly picture situations), propositional signs

may be said to picture situations only incidentally; by expressing thoughts directly, propositional signs picture situations indirectly.

2. SOME TROUBLING QUESTIONS

On the basis of textual evidence, I have argued that thoughts play a pivotal role in the theory of the Tractatus, namely, that of mediating between

language and the world. This reading of Wittgenstein's scant treatment of

thought in the Tractatus gives rise to some troubling questions, two of which I shall address below. First, however, I would raise a not-so-trou

bling (but very interesting) question about the epistemological implications of Wittgenstein's notion of 'thoughts': Is there an implicit epistemology operative in the Tractatus? I believe that there is.

The Tractatus may be said to contain an implicit epistemology because it implies a theory of knowledge, a position on how we know what we know. This implicit epistemology can be made (briefly) explicit on the basis of what has been said thus far. What we may be said to 'know' (as

opposed to 'believe', 'suppose', 'imagine', etc.) are facts, relations be tween things obtaining in the actual world. Now facts are expressible, i.e., they can be described, by sentences. Thus, there is a sense in which we

can say that what we 'know' is the sum of those sentences the truth of

which we can have affirmed.'2 The affirmation of the truth of sentences,

the confirmation that a possible state of affairs actually obtains, is achieved

by means of a 'comparison' of the sentence to the world; if the situation

12 Obviously, the knowledge I am talking about here - the kind of knowledge that would

have concerned the early Wittgenstein, had he pursued epistemological questions - is propo

sitional knowledge, i.e., knowledge that such-and-such (as opposed to knowledge how-to so

and-so).




described by a sentence p exists in the world, then p is true, and we may be said to know that p. But how is this comparison effected?

We have seen that, in the language-world relation as Wittgenstein con ceives it, thoughts play the crucial role of rendering strings of words into

significant sentences. Now we shall see that thoughts have a privileged status in Wittgenstein's implicit epistemology, as well: thoughts are the arbitrators of the comparison by which knowledge is established, for it is

by means of thoughts that we compare sentences to the world to see if the

situations they describe actually obtain or not. Since linguistic expressions picture facts only indirectly (by expressing the thoughts with which we

picture facts to ourselves), we can determine whether a sentence

corresponds to a fact only by checking whether or not the thought ex

pressed by that sentence is a logical picture of an actually obtaining situ ation. As there is no further mediation between thoughts and facts (save perception, the basic reliability of which Wittgenstein seems not to doubt), it follows that we can compare our thoughts to the world directly; i.e., we can empirically verify (by means of perception) whether or not the logical picture which we have before our mind corresponds to an objective fact.

Thus, it would seem that the only way to discern the truth or falsehood

of a given sentence is to measure the thought which that sentence expresses against the actual world; the verity of propositional signs, and thus know

ledge, lies in the correspondence of thoughts to the world. This, then, is the epistemology implied by the Tractatus.

Now let us address some more troubling questions regarding Wittgen stein's notion of 'thoughts'. The first (and most obvious) question is, what

are the constituents of these thoughts? We know that, for Wittgenstein, states of affairs are made up of 'simple objects' - which may or may not

be physical (Wittgenstein never tells us), but which do combine to make

up the physical world. We also know that 'elementary propositions' (for the sake of consistency, let us say 'elementary propositional signs') are

made up of names (linguistic symbols which stand for simple objects). Thoughts, as we have seen, are equally as complex as the situations they

picture and the sentences by which they are expressed. But complexes are

composed of parts. Of what, then, are thoughts composed? Wittgenstein himself considered such questions about the nature of

thought to be of no philosophic interest. In a letter to Russell in 1919,

Wittgenstein wrote:

I don't know what the constituents of a thought are but I know that it must have constituents

which correspond to the words of Language ... [The] kind of relation of the constituents of

the thought and of the pictured fact is irrelevant. I would be a matter of psychology to find

out.




When pressed by Russell on whether thoughts consist of words, Witt

genstein replied, "No, but of psychical constituents that have the same sort of relation to reality as words. What those constituents are I don't know".13

To my first question, then, Wittgenstein found no pressing need to find an answer. He seems to have felt that, as long as there are thoughts

linking sentences to possible situations, we need not go into the details of how those thoughts are constituted. But the matter is not so easily dis

missed; our ignorance with regard to the nature of thought puts Wittgen stein's whole picture of the language-world relation in jeopardy.

The question looming over us here is this: if we have nothing to say about how thoughts are constituted, why should we think that thoughts are the articulate complexes that Wittgenstein takes them to be? Witt

genstein posits complex, articulate thoughts because he needs them to link his atomistically-conceived world to his logically-analyzable language. But for all we know, thoughts might not be analyzable in the way language is; thoughts might be much less exact, much more amorphous than sen tences. If thoughts could be less determinate than sentences, they could also be less determinate than facts. A thought that is less determinate

than a fact would fail to be a logical picture of that fact, for a logical

picture of a fact must be equally as complex and articulate as the fact

which it pictures. Now the problem incurred by ignoring the nature of thoughts begins to

show itself. If it is possible that the thoughts we use to think about the

world are not logical pictures of facts, then it is possible that the means by which Wittgenstein would have us mediate between language and the world are not adequate to the task. For, according the theory of the

Tractatus (as I have interpreted it), our linguistic formulations relate to the world only by expressing our thoughts about the world. But if our

thoughts about the world are not exact pictures isomorphic with facts, then neither will be the linguistic formulations which express those

thoughts. Again, on my account of Wittgenstein's implicit epistemology, it is only by means of thoughts that we can compare linguistic formulations to the world in order to determine their truth-value. If our thoughts turn

out not to be complex pictures perfectly isomorphic with facts, then there

will be no neat and easy way of checking complex signs against complex entities (states of affairs, combinations of states of affairs, etc.). But now

a shadow is cast over the whole picture theory of language: if sentences

express indefinite thoughts, and those indefinite thoughts hinder compari

13 Cited in Kenny, p. 58.




son of sentences with the world, then there is no good reason to think that our linguistic formulations are 'pictures' of facts at all, let alone accurate pictures.

This idea, that our thoughts could be so amorphous as to render suspect the accuracy of any cognitive mediation between language and the world, is far-fetched, having no more (indeed, probably less) evidence in its favor than Wittgenstein's notion of thoughts as logical pictures. I myself do not believe it, so I do not expect the reader to believe it. I offer it only as a

means to show one effect of Wittgenstein's disregard for epistemological questions, namely, the great susceptibility of his theory to challenges made on epistemological grounds.

A second question raised by Wittgenstein's notion of thought has to do with a self-referential problem regarding the Tractatus. Anyone who has read it can see that there is a problem with regard to what the work itself

implies about the claims made within it. Given the nature of his project, many critics are willing to let Wittgenstein talk his way out of this problem. As we shall see, however, the problem takes on added weight when considered in light of Wittgenstein's notion of thought.

The self-referential problem obvious in the Tractatus goes something like this. Linguistic formulations 'show' their logical form, but they cannot

express their logical form, for that form is already presupposed in any linguistic formulation; "What expresses itself in language, we cannot ex

press by means of language" (4.121). But this means that the very things discussed in the Tractatus are outside the realm of 'things-that-can-be talked-about':

In a certain sense we can talk about formal properties of objects and states of affairs, or, in

the case of facts, about structural properties ... It is impossible, however, to assert by means

of propositions that such internal properties and relations obtain; rather, this makes itself manifest in the propositions that represent the relevant states of affairs and are concerned

with the relevant objects (4.122).

Thus, it would seem we have a grave problem on our hands. After learn

ing, from Wittgenstein's elaborate framework of propositions, exactly how

language relates to the world, we are told that such things as the relation

between language and the world cannot be asserted by propositions. Wittgenstein is well aware of this apparent performative contradiction

in his work. His answer to the problem is, in effect, a denial that the

statements in the Tractatus are 'real' propositions: "My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventu

ally recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them - as steps -

to climb up beyond them" (6.54). Since 'elucidations', whatever they are,



THE ROLE OF THOUGHTS IN WITTGENSTEIN'S TRACTATUS 351

are not 'real' propositions (the kind that have sense), they do not really assert that which cannot be asserted. Thus, what appeared to be a perfor

mative contradiction in the Tractatus proves illusory. The self-referential problem reappears with a vengeance, however,

when we consider the implications of Wittgenstein's notion of thought. Just as a sentence cannot express its logical form, so no picture can depict its pictorial form; it can only 'display' it (2.172). A picture cannot depict its pictorial form because that form is presupposed by the picture, consti tutes it as a picture. Now a thought is a picture, the pictorial form of

which is logical form. If no picture can depict its pictorial form, and if

thoughts are pictures the pictorial form of which is logical form, then no

thought can ever depict logical form. But a thought, for Wittgenstein, is a logical picture of that about which the thought is a thought. Thus, if

logical form cannot be depicted, then there can be no logical picture of

logical form, i.e., logical form cannot be thought. Now the self-referential problem rears its ugly head once again. If, as the

Tractatus implies, logical form cannot be thought, how can Wittgenstein account for the existence of the Tractatus itself? Never mind the truth or

falsity, even the sense, of its propositions; if logical form cannot be thought (i.e., conceived of, imagined, etc.), how could it come to be expressed at all? The answer to this question, based on Wittgenstein's picture of the

language-world relation (as I have interpreted it), is that it simply cannot. If logical form cannot be thought, Wittgenstein can offer no consistent account of what prompted him to write many of the propositions that constitute the Tractatus.

One might come to Wittgenstein's defense by suggesting that, although thoughts cannot depict logical form, they nonetheless 'display' it, so that

we can have some sort of vague notion of what logical form is. The

propositions in the Tractatus, then, would be expressions of this vague notion. This will not do, however. On Wittgenstein's conception of

thought, a psychical entity x is a 'thought about' fact y if and only if x is

an articulate, logical picture of y. It follows that, for Wittgenstein, "Every thing that can be thought at all can be thought clearly" (4.116). So-called

'vague notions', then, cannot be cited as the inspiration for Wittgenstein's assertions about logical form. It remains the case that, if our reading of

Wittgenstein's conception of thought is correct, then Wittgenstein cannot

give a reasonable account of the existence of his own theory (or, at least,

large portions of it) that does not contradict the implications of that theory itself.




CONCLUSION

I have here offered an interpretation of Wittgenstein's notion of thought which shows it to play a very important role in the theory of the Tractatus, one that has strong epistemological implications. Questions about the

composition of thoughts, and about the self-referential dilemma in the

Tractatus, are but two problems to which my interpretation calls attention. I am sure there are others. If my interpretation is correct, and if those other questions prove as troublesome as did the two explored here, then it may turn out that Wittgenstein's reluctant, halfhearted dabbling in

epistemology weakened his theory much more than it strengthened it.

Department of Philosophy University of California, Riverside Riverside, CA 92521 U.S.A.



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The Role of Thoughts in Wittgenstein's "Tractatus"