a. Fenómenos de desligadura: del síntoma a la compulsión

Secondly, even if we grant Wittgenstein that philos­

ophy produces propositions devoid of sense, we will ask him to explain how it happens that such pro­

positions exist. It is assured that a proposition

happens,

it is in the world. As Wittgenstein says: "A propositional sign is a fact"

(3 . 1 4) .

How should we characterize, as a fact, the (philosophical) proposition that is devoid of sense? On this point, Wittgenstein is far from showing the scruples that philosophers show when they treat (and they are always bound to do so) the delicate question of the existence of the sophistic saying. This question alone leads Plato, in the

Sophist,

to creative developments that are terribly complex. We would like the antiphilosopher to treat the existence of nonsensi­

cal (philosophical) propositions with the same liveliness, the same inventiveness, as that which pushes the philos­

opher to do justice to the existence of purely rhetorical (sophistic) propositions. What does Wittgenstein refer us to? To the "confusions" of ordinary language, to homonymies, to the interferences among different functions, to the example (elaborated by philosophers since the dawn of history) of the word "is," which

"figures as the copula, as a sign for identity, and as an expression for existence"

(3 . 323).

And he concludes in all tranquility: "In this way the most fundamental confu­

sions are easily produced (the whole of philosophy is full

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of them)"

(3 . 324) .

So the problem of propositions d evOl ·d f ⁰ sense ^IS · "easy . "1

Let us make a little entry into this "easiness." When I say that a proposition is devoid of sense, I form a prop­

osition. This proposition describes a state of affairs, namely the (philosophical) proposition devoid of sense, here treated as pure fact. This requires "devoid of sense"

to be:

1

. An immediately understandable property, which can be attributed to this state of affairs (the philo­

sophical proposition) , which means that there is a sense to the fact of not having any sense, that "nonsense"

belongs, like everything that can be thought in the form of a proposition, to the register of sense;

2 .

A substantial possibility for the combination of objects of which the proposition "this proposition is devoid of sense" is the linguistic picture. Which amounts to saying that a nonsense must be rooted in the eternal being of objects, as the singular combination of indis­

cernible objects.

Plato addresses this type of question-tied as far as he is concerned to the ontological status of the soph­

ist's mimetic saying-with an exemplary seriousness.

He is thus led to revise his doctrine of being in such a way so as to make room for a "support of being" of non­

being. One can hardly say that Wittgenstein, in arguing against philosophical propositions, makes a comparable effort. The "easy" linguistic confusions he invokes­

aside from the fact that from a distance they are responsible for the mediocrities of "ordinary language

philosophy"-are not even consistent with his own ontology.

The only other path-if one does not want to engage in the rigorous examination both of the sense of nonsense and of that which supports it in the eternal being of objects-would be to affirm that philosophi­

cal propositions are forms of strict "nonsense," words without consequences , material sequences that are linguistically incomprehensible. Thus, to affirm that philosophy is not "nonsensical," but void, in the precise sense that it does not form propositions at all. But in that case the antiphilosopher would be deprived of all critical subject matter, of the capacity to present his act as a break, as well as a relay, with regard to the philosophical act. Aside from the fact that it would be rather difficult to comprehend how it happens that whole centuries have

understood

the philosophical propositions.

In the end, the triple instance of non-thought (naming, the impossible, nonsense) meets the obstacle of the triple existence of the poem, the matherne, and philosophy itself.

Nevertheless, we are far from having exhausted Wittgenstein's resources. For the opposition between

"sense of the world" and "intraworldly sense," which underlies the chiasmus between philosophy and antiphilosophy on the question of sense and truth, refers ontologically speaking to the difference between what is "necessary" and what is accidental. Now, if a state of affairs ''happens'' in the world in an absolutely

W I T T G E N S T E I N ' S A N T I P H I L O S O P H Y

contingent fashion, there nonetheless exists a figure of necessity

if the form "world" as such .

And this necessity confers another status upon truth than its purely empirical status.

This problem, which is the problem of logic and of its ontological basis, requires that after the elementary proposition we examine the complex proposition.

Occupying two thirds of the

Tractatus,

this movement from the simple to the complex is inscribed in the antiphilosophical strategy in the following way: insofar as there are "eternal truths," non-accidental and non­

empirical, which can take the form of propositions (and finally there are some, namely, the propositions of logic),

they have no counterpart whatsoever in the real.

Consequently, the real does indeed concern the act, and not the proposition. The point is to prepare oneself for the mystical element by the

voidinB

of eternity inscribed in the logical propositions. This preparation culminates in the two statements that follow:

6 . 1 :

"The propositions of logic are tautologies."

6 . 1 1 :

"Therefore the propositions of logic say nothing."

8

What is a complex proposition?

Since the elementary propositions describe combi­

nations of objects (states of affairs), one could easily imagine that complex propositions describe combina­

tions of states. To the simple unity of objects there would correspond the simple unity of names; to a combination of objects (a state), there would corre­

spond ^an elementary proposition; and to a combination of states, a complex proposition, articulating several elementary propositions among them.

The essential ontological difficulty of this arrange­

ment, in which elementary propositions are to complex propositions what names are to elementary proposi­

tions, lies in the fact that while objects can be combined (if they have "external relations"), states cannot . We have already seen that a state of affairs is absolutely inde­

pendent. The Statement

2 . 062

indicates in all clarity that, even as concerns the fact of , 'happening," that is, of existing (of being of the world), states have no relation whatsoever among themselves: "From the existence or non-existence of one state of affairs it is impossible to infer the existence or non-existence of another." States

of affairs are independent in the order of (substantial) being, and without any correlation in the order of (worldly) existence.

Thus, a complex proposition is in no way destined to present a picture of an intrinsic combination, whether ontological or evental, among states of affairs.

Supposing that complex propositions

can

secure a necessity (something non-accidental) , in no case would it be a question of a "real" necessity, which would desig­

nate effective, substantial or worldly combinations between multiples of objects.

What then can be the sense of complex propositions?

At first, a complex proposition is absolutely nothing else than a juxtaposition of elementary propositions, with each one of them describing a state of affairs. As long as one remains at this level, any such juxtaposition has sense, which is nothing else than the "sum" of elementary descriptions. Hence, the complex proposi­

tion has no interest whatsoever if one relates it to the eternal being of objects and of their combinations. It is a simple enumeration of states.

The complex proposition becomes interesting when one examines the

existence

of states in reality (in the world) . That is to say, when one takes into account the capacity of propositions to be true or false.

Take for example ^an elementary proposition p, which describes a certain state of affairs. And take the elemen­

tary proposition q, which describes another state. The juxtaposition of p and q could be said to be "true," with

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both

the state of affairs described by

p and

the state of affairs described by q having "happened," or being observable in the world. Thus, we could distinguish a

"type" of complex proposition (here, the conjunction

"p

and q") by the way in which it attributes a truth­

value to the complex proposition in function of the truth-value of the elementary propositions. This is the crucial statement: "Elementary propositions are the truth-arguments of propositions"

(5 . 0 1 ) .

It is essential to note that in this whole affair, the

"and" (in

p

and q) refers to nothing real, and thus has no sense in and of itself. What we have are the states described by

p

and q inasmuch as they "are" eternally, and inasmuch as they " exist" in the world (or not) . The logical signs (and, or, implies, etc.) are only the helpful means to register that a certain juxtaposition of elementary propositions possesses,

with reBard to the existence or inexistence if the states that these propositions describe,

a certain truth-value. Or again, as Wittgenstein says: "There are no 'logical objects' or 'logical constants' (in Frege's and Russell's sense)"

(5 .4) .

This means that there is no ontology of logical connectors: they do no more than "punctuate" the value of the juxtaposition, when grasped from the viewpoint of the world, and thus from the viewpoint of the true (or the false): "Signs for logical operations are punctuation-marks"

(5 .46 1 1 ) .

Another example: the atomic proposition

p

describes a certain state of affairs. What can we say of the proposition

"not-p"? It refers to the same state of affairs, the one described by

p.

Or, as Wittgenstein says

(4.062 1 ) ,

with

regard to the propositions p and not-p, "there corre­

sponds to them one and the same reality." Except that p affirms the existence in the world of this referent, whereas not-p affirms its inexistence. From the point of view of the world, it is evidently not possible that the state described by p "is the case" and at the same time is not the case. So the complex proposition "p and not-p" is false.

In general, a complex proposition is a group of elementary propositions such that, when one knows (by empirical observation) the truth or falsity of the elementary propositions (the existence or inexistence of the states they describe) , one will draw a

result

as to the value of the complex proposition, in terms of knowing whether the "group" of elementary proposi­

In document Subjectividad contemporánea y efectos en la estructuración psíquica: los fenomenos de desligadura (página 171-187)