What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I found the world.
What others in the world have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience of the world.
I have to judge the world, to measure things.
The philosophical I is not the human being, not the human body or the human soul with the psychological properties, but the metaphysical subject, the boundary (not part) o f the world. The human body, however, my body in particular, is part o f
the world amongst others, among animals, plants, stones, etc. [Cf. TLP 5.641]
Whoever realises this will not want to procure a pre-eminent place for his own body or for the human body.
He will regard humans and animals quite naïvely as objects which are similar and which belong together.
On the one hand, this passage could be taken to support Hacker’s interpretation in that it suggests, that, although solipsism and realism ultimately coincide (since no self is located within the world), nevertheless a certain (i.e. transcendental) notion of the “I” remains significant for Wittgenstein. Hence, this entry could be taken as an endorsement of Hacker’s view that, for Wittgenstein, transcendental solipsism is correct in its positing of a simple self at the limits of the world, and that the reason why it is correct is that only such a self could provide the transcendental precondition for representation. Note indeed that Wittgenstein’s claims that “I want to report
how I found the world” and that “I have to judge the world, to measure things” (my italics) could be regarded as referring to the issue of representation. However, note that the last paragraph of
NB 2.9.16 connects what has come before to the issue oiethics, not to that of representation. The view that we, as facts in the world, have the same value as other facts in the world, namely, no value at all in and of ourselves, is indeed a key to Wittgenstein’s conception of ethics. This entry could thus be taken to mean that we, as empirical minds in the world, are under the impression that the world can only be represented by means of a self, but that, in fact, this impression is mistaken. Representation doesn’t require such a self: indeed our awareness of self doesn’t originate from the fact that representation would be impossible without it but from our “experience” of the ethical.
Consider now the entry dated 2.8.16, to which Hacker explicitly refers again:
For it Is probable that he [Wittgenstein] had himself conceived o f meaning something by a sign as an act of will performed not by the empirical self... but by the metaphysical self, the willing subject {NB p.80). ^
In 2.8.16 {NB p.80), Wittgenstein indeed tells us that:
As the subject is n o t p a r t o f the w o rld b u t a p resupposition o f its existen c e, so good and evil are predicates o f the subject, not properties in the world. [My italics.]
On the surface, this appears to support Hacker’s interpretation. For one possible way to read this passage is as follows: the transcendental subject is the “presupposition of the existence” of the world in that the world is the world as it can possibly be given in mental representation (i.e. in experience), and the metaphysical self is the precondition of representation. Notice, again, however, that this isn’t the only way in which this remark could be taken. For indeed, this entry could be understood as meaning that the transcendental self qua bearer o f ethics is a “presupposition of the existence” of the world. This would make sense if Wittgenstein believed that ethics was, in some way, a precondition of the world. That he was indeed thinking along these lines in the
Notebooks is shown by the entry dated 24.7.16:
Ethics does not treat the world. Ethics must be a condition o f the world, like logic. [My italics]
Note moreover that, in NB 2.8.16, Wittgenstein fails again to explicitly connect his view that the self is a precondition of the world to the issue of representation. Indeed, he immediately follows his claim that “the subject is not part of the world but a presupposition of its existence” with a remark on ethics-, “so good and evil are predicates of the subject, not properties in the world”. Because of this, this passage can again not be regarded as providing conclusive evidence for Hacker’s interpretation.
Further doubts are shed on Hacker’s view that the willing subject is both the bearer of ethics and the precondition of Tractarian representation, by the three remaining entries of the Notebooks
(namely those dated 21.7.16,9.11.16, and 19.11.16). Let us consider these in turn.
What is the situation o f the human will? I will call will first and foremost the bearer of good and evil...
But can we conceive o f a being that isn’t capable of will at all but only o f Idea (of seeing for example)? In som e sense this seem s impossible. But if it were possible
then there could also be a world without ethics. {NB 21.7.16)
Two important (though not conclusive) clues are offered in this entry. The first is that, for Wittgenstein, the will is first a n d foremost the bearer of good and evil” (my italics). In other words, for him, the will is “first and foremost” the ethical will. This isn’t conclusive, however, in that it could be his view that, although the will is “first and foremost the bearer of good and evil”.
An alternative way of arguing for the idea that these remarks of the Notebooks need not be seen to entail that Wittgenstein posits a transcendental self is put forward by Child. See Child (1996) p. 148.
it nevertheless also plays another role: that of making representation possible by connecting simple names to their bearers. Hence, it could be that, although the will is “first and foremost the bearer of good and evil”, it is also the precondition of representation. The second clue comes in the next section of A® 21.7.16 :
But can we conceive o f a being that isn’t capable o f will at all but only o f Idea (of seeing for example)? In som e sense this seem s impossible. But if it were possible
then there could also be a world without ethics. {NB 21.7.16)
Wittgenstein argues here that it may be possible for a being to be incapable of will whilst, nevertheless, being capable of Idea. As an example of Idea, Wittgenstein gives us visual perception, which is, as we saw above, a kind of experience in the sense of mental representation. That such a being might be capable of representation (here mental representation) in spite of his having no will, implies that the will is not regarded by Wittgenstein as a precondition for representation. The problem with this is, however, that Wittgenstein then goes on to say “In some sense this seems impossible.”, and fails to tell us exactly why such a thing would be impossible. Again, the ambiguity of the text makes it impossible to reach a definitive conclusion on this issue.
One entry of the Notebooks, namely that dated 9.11.16, does, however, provide a strong reason to doubt Hacker’s view that the willing subject is the pre-condition of representation.
Is belief a kind o f experience? Is thought a kind o f experience?
All experience is world and does no t n e ed the subject.
The act o f the will is not an experience. [My italics.]
As we saw at the beginning of Part VI, it is most likely that Wittgenstein would answer the two questions of this entry affirmatively, and would thus be arguing that belief and thought are types
of representational experiencing. Indeed, Hacker agrees with the view that both perceptions and
other types of thoughts are representational experiences in this sense:
There is no empirical soul-substance thinking thoughts, there are only thoughts. The
self o f psychology is a manifold, a series o f experiences, a bundle o f perceptions in perpetual flux. (...) All that empirical psychology needs to say about the psyche ca»
be sa id. [ M y italics]
Given this interpretation of “belief’ and “thought”, NB9.U.16 appears to suggest that representation (in particular mental representation, i.e. experience in this sense) does not require ary type of subject - not even the willing subject located at the limits of the world. In other words, Wittgenstein
very much appears to be saying here that, although there may be reasons to posit a willing subject at the limits of the world, such a subject cannot be regarded as the precondition of
representation. Hence, the “act of the will” carried out by such a subject would be, not the act of
connecting names to objects, but something else, possibly the act of taking a certain ethical attitude towards the world.
There is indeed no convincing reason to suppose that the subject mentioned in this entry is not the metaphysical subject, but the empirical, thinking subject, which was rejected by Wittgenstein in TLP 5.54-5.5423. For, indeed, the last entry in which Wittgenstein explicitly discusses the empirical, i.e. thinking, subject, is NB 5.8.16.
The thinking subject is surely mere illusion. But the willing subject exists. [...] What is good and evil is essentially the I, not the world.
That this willing subject is not empirical but metaphysical is clearly shown by NB 2.8.16:
Good and evil enter only through the sutyed. And the subject is not part o f the world, but a boundary of the world.
Then, in the entry dated 4.11.16 (three entries before NB 9.11.16, which we are currently discussing) Wittgenstein says:
The subject is the willing subject.
All of this strongly points to the fact that the subject mentioned in NB 9.11.16 isn’t just the empirical subject, but the metaphysical subject located at the limits of the world. If this is indeed the case, then Wittgenstein’s claim in NB 9.11.16 that:
All experience is world and does not need the subject.
should be taken to mean that experience (i.e. mental representation) does not require any type of subject, whether empirical or metaphysical. This is indeed corroborated by the fact that the entry which immediately follows Æ8 9.11.16 explicitly mentions the willing subject:
What kind o f reason is there for the assumption o f a willing subject? Is m i m y w orld adequate for individuation? (NB 19.11.16)