10th Workshop

10th Nagoya Meta-Philosophy Workshop

Date: 16:00 to 17:30pm, Feb 18, 2020

Venue: Liberal Arts and Sciences Building A, Room 13

"The Genealogy of the ‘Ontology’ of the Tractatus"

Shunichi Takagi (University College London)

Abstract: The first two main sections of the Tractatus are often regarded as laying down its ontology, and this part has been one of the most debated sections of the book. A main cause of this, as I judge it, is that its genesis is scarcely known. However, thanks to the results of the recent philological studies of the pre-Tractatus manuscripts, we are now in the position to have some approximate idea of how it came about. Thus, I shall demonstrate the ‘ontology’ of the Tractatus was born during the period between the end of June 1915 and mid-March 1916. I shall then address the question how such a rapid development was made possible. I submit that in the foregoing period Russell’s scientific method served as a material of criticism against which Wittgenstein could variously examine the logical principles he inherited from Frege, and that during the above mentioned period Wittgenstein could fully reject Russell’s scientific method by appropriating Kant’s transcendental standpoint via Hertz’s account of mechanics.