The world is the totality of facts means that the world is the total situatedness of the objects (fact-constituents). Props have sense when they depict a possible situation between objects. They are true if that situation is existent, is a part of the a world. Different possible worlds then are different possible complete situations of objects, NOT different possible sets of objects. This means that objects are the substance of the world - the common 'form' and 'content' of all possible worlds, or all possibilities in the widest sense. A possible world as it were hovers over the "fixed" objects; sense is grounded in names being able to so combine given the essence of the objects, ie, their ability to be so situated. The world is the actual situation of the totality of objects (if that even makes sense); it makes no sense to ask whether an object a exists; existence seems then to be a claim only about complexes. It is not quite right therefore to say that objects 'exist' in all possible worlds; 'existence' modifies facts, not things. THIS is why the world is the totality of facts, not things; because, as it were, the objects of the world are too fine grained to determine an actual world. It is not quite right to say that objects exists in all possible worlds, or that objects are the same in all possible worlds; objects are the ground from which we can make claims about possibility, sameness, and existence. What are actual, and existent are the situations themselves. To say, as Morris does, albeit with some caveat required by all discussion of logical form, that Wittgenstein must say of his objects are necessary itself I believe exhibits a misunderstanding: "that object a exists", or "that the (unordered) totality a,b,c... exists" in every possible world and therefore exists necessarily is not intelligible. Necessity will modify facts that hold in every possible world. This means we must try to conceive of objects are the grounds of the possiblity of existence, necessity, and possibility, without trying to understand them in those terms. In fact, being the ground of these concepts is just about all we can say about them, even admitting them into the class of senselessness.
To say that a substanceless world, a prop's having sense would depend on something's being true means: whether a proposition represents a possible combination would depend on a contingent fact about the world; this fact must be something like P: "it is possible for a to stand in relation to b". What is being entertained here for reductio is that P might be false, or might have been false. This would mean that whether or not a can stand R to b is not part of the essence of a (or b). In such a s, scenario, there are no common referents across possible worlds: If I utter aRb? You would meaningfully reply, first we would need to determine whether or not aRb is possible, whether as a matter of fact a can combine with b R-wise. This would be, in essense to leave the possibility of any combination (since a, b, and R could be any objects/relations) as a fact about the actual world; to ask whether aRb is possible then would be to ask whether it is an actual fact about our actual world if aRb is possible (that is, possibility would be grounded in actuality). Let's suppose the following:
the contingency of possibility: if there is a difference between (1) aRb is possible and (1')"aRb is possible" is true (or false), it lies in the fact that (1) is possible in all possible worlds (it is necessarily possible); while (1') is saying aRb is contingently possible: there is some possible world where aRb is not possible.
The scenario in which we utter (1) is the following: aRb is a possible arrangement in all possible worlds, which is to say, it is part of the essence or form of a that it possibly combines r-wise with b. That is to say, this (non-contingent) 'fact' about a is what is unalterable, which holds irrespective of what is the case (what total set of possibilities is the case, or exists) it is what is 'common' to all "imagined" or possible worlds. That is to say, aRb is possible is necessarily true (or necessarily false); which is just to say whether "aRb" holds does not depend on whether "aRb is possible" is true. It only depends on whether aRb. If there is substance, whether aRb is true does not depend on whether something else (a fact of course) is true.
But now let us suppose that it makes sense to say that (1') which amounts to the claim that there is a possible world in which "aRb" does not make sense, ie, that aRb is impossible, AS WELL AS there is a possible world in which aRb does make sense. This amounts to: that "aRb makes sense" is contingent, so whether aRb makes sense depends on whether "aRb is makes sense" is true.
SO: Either "aRb makes sense" is true (or false) in all possible worlds, and so is a tautology (or contradiction) (one grounded in the essense, substance, or form of a and b) in which case whether aRb makes sense does not depend on a contingent truth; nor does it depend on the tautology - nothing depends on a tautology. If this r-wise combinability is a allworlds possible, then there is an unlterable form, a substance that holds irrespective of what is the case, common across possibilities.
OR: aRb makes sense is true in some possible worlds, false in some. whether aRb is makes sense depends on whether aRb makes sense is actually true. (sense depends on truth is to say possibility depends on actuality). So: in some possible world (maybe the actual world), a cannot stand r-wise to b. This is just to say, there is no common form or features of a (or b) that hold across possible worlds. Which is to say, there is no substance.
THerefore, if objects did not have substance, whether a proposition made sense would depend on another propositions being true.
BUT: an objects combinability (in the aspects of color, space, and time) JUST IS its form (there is nothing more to the essence of an object that it possibilities. Essense means: Essential possibilities; form means: necessary combinability. We cannot really ask more about objects than this: we cannot meaningfully ask whether they are possible, we cannot ask whether they are necessary, and we certainly cannot ask if they jointly, or singly, exist. SIMPLE OBJECTS are not the grammatical subject of claims of existence, possibility, or necessity. There is no possibility to construct the pseudo-proposition, Ea. Existence has the form ExPx: something is characterized by property P. Furthermore, possibility and necessity are exhibited by the objects, rather than the objects possibly falling under them as concepts. In a way, necessity and possibility (and in its own way, existence) are being explained in terms of objects; of course, objects are being explained in terms of necessity, but once they are understood, it becomes quite clear that necessity, in the sense of necessarily existing is not at all what's meant by substance. It is fruitless to try to imagine substance. It is not the object of imagination but the possibility hidden in every imagining.
[if we think closely about this, we will see that the shortcoming is one seated deep in our syntax; objects do not have the kind of solidity that say Bertrand Russell has, and so the name "Bertrand Russell" has a different logical syntax than a genuine Name. At any rate, our tendency will be to imagine objects along with things like rocks and waterfalls and persons, but this is a category mistake: we cannot take too lightly the idea that objects are prior to the applicability of the concepts of existence, possibility and necessity. It may be helpful to think of them as the locus within which possibility, actuality, and necessity are still as yet undifferentiated. It may not. But it must be seen that possibility and necessity are exhibited by well formed propositions: they characterize, albeit senselessly, the linguistic correlates of facts NOT THINGS. Existence, too, will most aptly be a modification of a fact, not a thing (nothing that the calculus ranges over can meaningfully be said to exist or not exist; what we mean by existence will be: some complex does not hold in the world. Some possible arrangement isn't. It makes no sense to say the atomic elements of the arrangement aren't THIS IS AT LEAST SOME OF THE FULL IMPORT OF THE FIRST TWO PROPOSITIONS OF THE TRACTATUS: the world is the totality of facts, not things. This is an unfathomably deep point.
But what I wish to do it to draw this line of thought into relation with another one, that of Heidegger. The clue is the a similar phenomenon, or more specifically, pitfall of thought: the tendency to objectify something that cannot really be objectified. Of course, Heidegger is much more stringent about there being an ontological difference; Wittgenstein clearly is not, since his Object, at least if we consider what his terminology suggests, straddle both sides of the line. It may be that "Simples" would have been a better term.
WE HAVE TO CONSIDER THAT W'S OBJECTS ARE, by 1.1 PRE-ONTOLOGICAL.
Possibility just is the atomic possibility for combination; and the atomic possibility for combination exhausts the nature/form/essence of the object. IN SOME SENSE, OBJECTS ARE PURE POSSIBILITY, or, it turns out (empirically? transcendentally more likely) OBJECTS ARE SPATIAL/TEMPORAL POSSIBILITY. Nothing is essential to an object other than its ability to combine into facts.
Proposition 2.012 is really saying: if there is no substance, then 'sense' is contingent. it might be interesting to bring in Kripke here and his employment of names as rigid designators across possible worlds, and then ask, is it possible that there are no rigid designators? For Kripke, Socrates rigidly designates across all possible worlds in which Socrates exists; for W, object names rigidly designate across all possible worlds period.]
It is, for instance, a FACT about our world that I can fit my bicycle into the trunk of my car; this 'fit' is surely contingent on many other facts about my bicycle, my trunk, etc. Objects are essentially NOT like that wrt each other: their combinability is part of what they are, not a further fact about what they are and what other things happen to be like, as in the bike/car example. If indeed uncombined or even accidentally combined objects were the basic constituents of the world, and their possibilities for configuration were as it were posterior to facts about the world, as the possibilities for bike/car configuration in every case are, THEN whether a prop made sense, ie, whether it represented a possible configuration, would depend on contingent facts about objects external combinability. There would be no real sense of a constant or commonality between the actual a and a possible a: there would be nothing about them to ground their identity across possible worlds; for W, it is precisely their combinatory potential which is the form of the object and which is what is designated rigidly when different possibilities are proposed - as they are when ever we assert a proposition: it's possibility is asserted right along with it and then and only then can its actuality be determined. (this is much like Kant's critique of existence as a perfection, or predicate. A proposition must be "perfect" before the question of existence can be raised. It is also seen again that existence, far from being a (contingent) property of objects, is rather a contingent property of states of affairs that they may: exist or not exist, which is just to say all states of affairs are necessarily (essentially, formally) possible; logical form mirrors this possiblity in language: the possibility of the state of affairs just is the sense of proposition. There are two things: state of affairs; proposition; but there is only one "thing" described in two ways as possibility, on one hand, and sense, on the other. Logical form is the common form of states of affairs and props; nor is it an external relation, a third thing: if it makes no sense to say that states of affairs and propositions are necessarily possessed of a common form it is more nonsense, if you will, to say that this is a contingent relation. But we are liable to err if we try to say too much about these things. CLEARLY Ws econimcal method here and everywhere is to say no more than necessary to get his point across; we must consider this wrt objects: he says about them what he must say to support his tract. But it is perhaps not too much to go so far as to say: he has said about them all that can be said. Very nearly anyway, with a few possible elucidations, as show here. They certainly constitute a kind of limit; not just is the sense that they delimit the world, but the resist our normal, propositionally-oriented (obj/pred) form of thinking. Again it is here where Heidegger reaches his limit.
To say that a substanceless world, a prop's having sense would depend on something's being true means: whether a proposition represents a possible combination would depend on a contingent fact about the world; this fact must be something like P: "it is possible for a to stand in relation to b". What is being entertained here for reductio is that P might be false, or might have been false. This would mean that whether or not a can stand R to b is not part of the essence of a (or b). In such a s, scenario, there are no common referents across possible worlds: If I utter aRb? You would meaningfully reply, first we would need to determine whether or not aRb is possible, whether as a matter of fact a can combine with b R-wise. This would be, in essense to leave the possibility of any combination (since a, b, and R could be any objects/relations) as a fact about the actual world; to ask whether aRb is possible then would be to ask whether it is an actual fact about our actual world if aRb is possible (that is, possibility would be grounded in actuality). Let's suppose the following:
the contingency of possibility: if there is a difference between (1) aRb is possible and (1')"aRb is possible" is true (or false), it lies in the fact that (1) is possible in all possible worlds (it is necessarily possible); while (1') is saying aRb is contingently possible: there is some possible world where aRb is not possible.
The scenario in which we utter (1) is the following: aRb is a possible arrangement in all possible worlds, which is to say, it is part of the essence or form of a that it possibly combines r-wise with b. That is to say, this (non-contingent) 'fact' about a is what is unalterable, which holds irrespective of what is the case (what total set of possibilities is the case, or exists) it is what is 'common' to all "imagined" or possible worlds. That is to say, aRb is possible is necessarily true (or necessarily false); which is just to say whether "aRb" holds does not depend on whether "aRb is possible" is true. It only depends on whether aRb. If there is substance, whether aRb is true does not depend on whether something else (a fact of course) is true.
But now let us suppose that it makes sense to say that (1') which amounts to the claim that there is a possible world in which "aRb" does not make sense, ie, that aRb is impossible, AS WELL AS there is a possible world in which aRb does make sense. This amounts to: that "aRb makes sense" is contingent, so whether aRb makes sense depends on whether "aRb is makes sense" is true.
SO: Either "aRb makes sense" is true (or false) in all possible worlds, and so is a tautology (or contradiction) (one grounded in the essense, substance, or form of a and b) in which case whether aRb makes sense does not depend on a contingent truth; nor does it depend on the tautology - nothing depends on a tautology. If this r-wise combinability is a allworlds possible, then there is an unlterable form, a substance that holds irrespective of what is the case, common across possibilities.
OR: aRb makes sense is true in some possible worlds, false in some. whether aRb is makes sense depends on whether aRb makes sense is actually true. (sense depends on truth is to say possibility depends on actuality). So: in some possible world (maybe the actual world), a cannot stand r-wise to b. This is just to say, there is no common form or features of a (or b) that hold across possible worlds. Which is to say, there is no substance.
THerefore, if objects did not have substance, whether a proposition made sense would depend on another propositions being true.
BUT: an objects combinability (in the aspects of color, space, and time) JUST IS its form (there is nothing more to the essence of an object that it possibilities. Essense means: Essential possibilities; form means: necessary combinability. We cannot really ask more about objects than this: we cannot meaningfully ask whether they are possible, we cannot ask whether they are necessary, and we certainly cannot ask if they jointly, or singly, exist. SIMPLE OBJECTS are not the grammatical subject of claims of existence, possibility, or necessity. There is no possibility to construct the pseudo-proposition, Ea. Existence has the form ExPx: something is characterized by property P. Furthermore, possibility and necessity are exhibited by the objects, rather than the objects possibly falling under them as concepts. In a way, necessity and possibility (and in its own way, existence) are being explained in terms of objects; of course, objects are being explained in terms of necessity, but once they are understood, it becomes quite clear that necessity, in the sense of necessarily existing is not at all what's meant by substance. It is fruitless to try to imagine substance. It is not the object of imagination but the possibility hidden in every imagining.
[if we think closely about this, we will see that the shortcoming is one seated deep in our syntax; objects do not have the kind of solidity that say Bertrand Russell has, and so the name "Bertrand Russell" has a different logical syntax than a genuine Name. At any rate, our tendency will be to imagine objects along with things like rocks and waterfalls and persons, but this is a category mistake: we cannot take too lightly the idea that objects are prior to the applicability of the concepts of existence, possibility and necessity. It may be helpful to think of them as the locus within which possibility, actuality, and necessity are still as yet undifferentiated. It may not. But it must be seen that possibility and necessity are exhibited by well formed propositions: they characterize, albeit senselessly, the linguistic correlates of facts NOT THINGS. Existence, too, will most aptly be a modification of a fact, not a thing (nothing that the calculus ranges over can meaningfully be said to exist or not exist; what we mean by existence will be: some complex does not hold in the world. Some possible arrangement isn't. It makes no sense to say the atomic elements of the arrangement aren't THIS IS AT LEAST SOME OF THE FULL IMPORT OF THE FIRST TWO PROPOSITIONS OF THE TRACTATUS: the world is the totality of facts, not things. This is an unfathomably deep point.
But what I wish to do it to draw this line of thought into relation with another one, that of Heidegger. The clue is the a similar phenomenon, or more specifically, pitfall of thought: the tendency to objectify something that cannot really be objectified. Of course, Heidegger is much more stringent about there being an ontological difference; Wittgenstein clearly is not, since his Object, at least if we consider what his terminology suggests, straddle both sides of the line. It may be that "Simples" would have been a better term.
WE HAVE TO CONSIDER THAT W'S OBJECTS ARE, by 1.1 PRE-ONTOLOGICAL.
Possibility just is the atomic possibility for combination; and the atomic possibility for combination exhausts the nature/form/essence of the object. IN SOME SENSE, OBJECTS ARE PURE POSSIBILITY, or, it turns out (empirically? transcendentally more likely) OBJECTS ARE SPATIAL/TEMPORAL POSSIBILITY. Nothing is essential to an object other than its ability to combine into facts.
Proposition 2.012 is really saying: if there is no substance, then 'sense' is contingent. it might be interesting to bring in Kripke here and his employment of names as rigid designators across possible worlds, and then ask, is it possible that there are no rigid designators? For Kripke, Socrates rigidly designates across all possible worlds in which Socrates exists; for W, object names rigidly designate across all possible worlds period.]
It is, for instance, a FACT about our world that I can fit my bicycle into the trunk of my car; this 'fit' is surely contingent on many other facts about my bicycle, my trunk, etc. Objects are essentially NOT like that wrt each other: their combinability is part of what they are, not a further fact about what they are and what other things happen to be like, as in the bike/car example. If indeed uncombined or even accidentally combined objects were the basic constituents of the world, and their possibilities for configuration were as it were posterior to facts about the world, as the possibilities for bike/car configuration in every case are, THEN whether a prop made sense, ie, whether it represented a possible configuration, would depend on contingent facts about objects external combinability. There would be no real sense of a constant or commonality between the actual a and a possible a: there would be nothing about them to ground their identity across possible worlds; for W, it is precisely their combinatory potential which is the form of the object and which is what is designated rigidly when different possibilities are proposed - as they are when ever we assert a proposition: it's possibility is asserted right along with it and then and only then can its actuality be determined. (this is much like Kant's critique of existence as a perfection, or predicate. A proposition must be "perfect" before the question of existence can be raised. It is also seen again that existence, far from being a (contingent) property of objects, is rather a contingent property of states of affairs that they may: exist or not exist, which is just to say all states of affairs are necessarily (essentially, formally) possible; logical form mirrors this possiblity in language: the possibility of the state of affairs just is the sense of proposition. There are two things: state of affairs; proposition; but there is only one "thing" described in two ways as possibility, on one hand, and sense, on the other. Logical form is the common form of states of affairs and props; nor is it an external relation, a third thing: if it makes no sense to say that states of affairs and propositions are necessarily possessed of a common form it is more nonsense, if you will, to say that this is a contingent relation. But we are liable to err if we try to say too much about these things. CLEARLY Ws econimcal method here and everywhere is to say no more than necessary to get his point across; we must consider this wrt objects: he says about them what he must say to support his tract. But it is perhaps not too much to go so far as to say: he has said about them all that can be said. Very nearly anyway, with a few possible elucidations, as show here. They certainly constitute a kind of limit; not just is the sense that they delimit the world, but the resist our normal, propositionally-oriented (obj/pred) form of thinking. Again it is here where Heidegger reaches his limit.
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