Ensamblajes de fondo utilizados en cada sección perforada del pozo Orellana-

According to Wittgenstein, what the solipsist means is ‘the world is my world’. This idea yields, he argues, two crucial insights: the first is that everything possible can possibly be experienced by me; the second is that there has to be a metaphysical, first-personal subject if we are to be able to speak of the world, experience and language being ‘mine’ and thus to ascribe experiences to ourselves. However, on the way to these insights, the solipsist makes three important and interesting mistakes: the first is that of thinking that she or he can experience themselves as a subject; the second is that of thinking that it is possible to derive from tautological statements conclusions about what exists in reality; the third is that of thinking that it is possible to derive from such statements conclusions about what is possible.

‘The world is n y world’ both in that everything possible can be experienced and in that some of these experiences can be said to be mine. This manifests itself in the fact that the world of all possible states coincides perfectly with what I can possibly represent in experience and language. There is no part of the world which cannot possibly be represented by me. ‘The world is my

world’ thus entails that the world as I can possibly experience it has ‘no neighbor’.

‘But aren’t you forgetting something [...]? Almost/^e w orld behind the mere words?’

But here solipsism teaches us a lesson: It is that thought which is on the way to destroy that error. For if the world is idea it isn’t any person’s idea. (Solipsism stops short o f saying this and says that it is my idea.) But then how could I say what the world is if the realm of ideas has no neighbor? ^ a t I do comes to defining the word

world’. {NLPESD, p. 297)

Which is why Wittgenstein says that:

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This is also why he would later choose to concentrate, not on a version of solipsism focusing primarily on the subject, but on one focusing primarily on the nature of experience: sense-data solipsism. See NLPESD.

The world and life are one. (TLP 5.621)

The World and Life are one.

Physiological life is o f course not ‘Life’. And neither is psychological life. Life is the world. (A® 24.7.16)

I am my world. (The microcosm.) (TLP 5.63)

‘Life’ in TLP 5.621 and NB 24.7.16 is neither physiological life nor psychological life because it isn’t the life which is experienced by any body or mind in particular. It is not ‘the world as I [actually] found it’ but my world, the world as it can possibly be experienced from the first personal standpoint by me or anyone else It is this world which coincides with the totality of possible states. The I, understood as the totality of all possible first-personal experiences, is the microcosm {TIP 5.63). In turn, this totality of possible representational facts (of possible experiences) is a subset of the totality of possible facts, of possible states of the world. It is a subset of the macrocosm.

Part VIII: Conclusion

The objects posited by Wittgenstein in the Tractatus play a pivotal role. On the one hand, they possess a distinct form and a content which allow them to produce, by combining exclusively with each other, a reality made of space, time and material properties. On the other, they must be indefinable, necessary simples, if senseful language is to be possible. Because of this, simple objects cannot be said to possess a metaphysical status: they are prior to perception and cannot therefore be regarded as qualitied particulars. The material or phenomenal points which are the simplest entities stipulated in the metaphysical debate on the external world are not therefore suitable candidates for Tractarian simples.

The constraints imposed by Wittgenstein on simples give rise to an extremely original account of language and the mind. Propositions are ultimately analysable into simple names acting as the representatives for simple objects by virtue of the intrinsic intentionality of thought. These simple names not only render determinate sense possible, but also render illogical language impossible. A proposition which does not comply with the possibilities and impossibilities inherent in simple objects is not a genuine proposition, and does not represent anything. Hence, it is impossible genuinely to represent something which contradicts the laws of logic. The Tractatus account of language turns on the idea that, as soon as simple representational units (whether they are simple signs or ordinary words) acquire a meaning, the propositions produced by them will be senseful. This is the very heart of Wittgenstein’s Picture Theory: language is determined by the world.

Wittgenstein’s views on representation instruct his account of the mind. The mind is a composite cluster of thoughts, or mental pictures of the world. It is impossible therefore to think illogically. To think illogically would be to have a mental representation of the world which contradicted the possibilities and impossibilities inherent in simple objects, and which would, as a result, represent nothing at all. Our views on the mind must reflect this fact, and it is therefore nonsensical in sense 2 to speak of a simple thinking or representing self, whether this self is viewed as located in the world or as belonging to its limits. Thinking ensures, on its own, the connection between language and reality.

The move towards a metaphysical subject is not therefore motivated by the idea that language and experience would be impossible without a transcendental self, but by the fact that we could have no genuine sense of ‘mineness’ without such a subject. The first-personal subject is the pre-condition for genuine self-ascriptions of experience, and must therefore be posited in spite of the fact that it cannot be individuated - or, rather, precisely because of this.

It is worth ending this discussion by replying to the question which was left open in Part IV, namely that of Wittgenstein’s position on the debate as to the metaphysical nature of the external world.

Here it can be seen that solipsism, when its implications are followed out strictly, coincides with pure realism. The self o f solipsism shrinks to a point without extension,

and there remains the reality coordinated with it. (TLP 5.64)

Solipsism coincides with realism in that the world as the totality of facts does not contain a first personal subject as the one required by solipsism. This does not mean, however, that Wittgenstein endorses realism as being the doctrine which puts forward the correct metaphysical account of the nature of the world. For realism, like solipsism, attempts to impose a restriction on what can be said to exist within the world as the totality of facts, and on what is involved in perceiving this world. Such restrictions are not licit, however, since they would involve excluding simples from the world of the possible and thus altering the limits of this world. If this could be done, both linguistic representation and experience would become impossible.

Wittgenstein’s position is therefore the very antithesis of that which fuels the metaphysical debate on the nature of reality. Reality, for Wittgenstein, is the obtaining of certain possibilities, and we are not allowed to exclude any of these a priori. So it is as nonsensical (in sense 2) to say, for instance, that only phenomenal things could possibly exist as it is to say that I am the only

possible subject of experience. For all we know is that simple objects are capable of producing a reality made up of space, time and material properties, and that this reality can be experienced by us. There is no a priori reason, however, why the property of being material should be given pre-eminence over phenomenal properties. All that we can experience could be other than it is.