Modelos de Gestión de Recursos Humanos

Given Wittgenstein’s numbering system, to know ‘all its possible occurrences in states of affairs’

(JLP 2.0123) is to ‘know all its internal properties’ (TIP 2.01231). Since knowing an object consists in knowing all of its internal properties, and since knowing an object involves knowing both its form and its content, the internal properties of an object will encompass both the form and the content of the object. Hence, the internal properties of an object aren’t simply its form (i.e. ‘the possibility of its occurring in states of affairs’ - TLP 2.0141).

The content of a simple object, like the content of redness, is not, however, something which can be picked out by means of a definition or a description. I cannot convey to a colour-blind person, by means of a definition, what distinguishes redness kom greenness. Furthermore, it is impossible to describe a simple object if by ‘describing it’ we mean decomposing it into simpler components. For the ‘elements’ that ‘constitute’ a simple object (i.e. its form and its content) are not themselves genuine objects and cannot be named or mentioned in propositions. In any case, attempting to

describe a simple object by saying that it is this particular form together with that particular content would be as unhelpful as attempting to describe redness by saying that redness has the form of colour properties and the content of redness-, either I already know what redness is, in which case I do not need to be given a definition of redness, or I don’t, in which case being given this definition is of no use to me.

It is impossible, however, to assert by means o f propositions that such internal properties [...] obtain. (TLP 4.122)

In the case of perceptual properties, such as redness, knowing the content of a property involves being perceptually acquainted with particular instantiations of this property: only those having seen red things, and having noted the distinction between, for instance, red things and green ones can be said to know redness mdigreenness. This is indeed how redness zndgreenness are individuated. This cannot apply to Tractarian simples, however, since, as was shown above, simple objects cannot be perceived. If the individuation of simple objects is to be possible, it is therefore going to involve something other than perception. In the following entry, Wittgenstein begins to explain how this can be achieved:

It is impossible, however, to assert by means o f propositions that such internal properties [...] obtain: rather, this makes itself manifest in the propositions that represent the relevant states of affairs and are concerned with the relevant objects. (TIP 4.122)

Individuating a simple object involves noting that it is the object which helps to produce these

particular states of affairs, represented by these particular elementary propositions, and that,

when these states of affairs combine with those other states of affairs, they produce these possible situations of the world. In other words, we can individuate a simple object by noting the possible states of the world that it can help to produce.

Having established this, we can consider the following entry:

A description o f an object describes it by giving its external properties (TLP 4.023)

It is clear that ‘description’ cannot mean here an analysis into even simpler objects, since no such analysis can be made of Tractarian objects. So, what exactly does ‘description’ mean in this context? In order to understand this, we need to clarify what Wittgenstein means by the ‘external properties’ of an object. We know that the external properties of objects cannot be perceptual properties, since, if objects possessed perceptual properties, they would fail to meet the logical independence constraint. We can also deduce that, since the internal properties of an object are

those properties that it cannot possibly lack, its external properties must be those properties that the object can, possibly, lack. The internal properties of an object are the fact (in a non-Tractarian sense) that the object can help to produce certain facts, facts which may happen not to obtain in reality. In other words, the internal properties of an object are the object’s capacity to produce certain facts, a capacity which may or may not be realised in reality, since these facts may happen not to obtain. In turn, the external properties of an object consist in the instantiation of some of its internal properties. In other words, when some of the facts that the object is capable of producing happen to obtain, the object is said to have acquired certain external properties. It is easy to see why the object’s external properties are, unlike its internal ones, properties that the object could lack. Consider again the internal properties of an object. If an object is capable of producing certain facts (i.e. if it possesses such-and-such internal properties), then it cannot not

be capable of producing them: the object will, in all possible worlds, be capable of producing these facts, which is to say that the object will never lack its internal properties. In contrast, it isn’t necessary to the object that the facts which it is capable of producing should obtain: the external properties of objects are therefore those properties the object can happen to lack. As a result, TLP 4.023 must be taken as saying that an object can be ‘described’ by noting what obtaining facts it has helped to produce.

It isn’t therefore the case, as Canfield argues, that the Tractatus denies in TLP 2.02331 the principle of the identity of indiscernibles:^

Either a thing has properties that nothing else has, in which case we can immediately use a description to distinguish it from the others and refer to it; or, on the other hand, there are several things that have the whole set o f their properties in common, in which case it is quite impossible to indicate one of them.

For if there is nothing to distinguish a thing, I cannot distinguish it, since

otherwise it would be distinguished after all. (TLP 2.02331)

Wittgenstein is not suggesting here that Tractarian objects cannot be distinguished from each other because they cannot be described. On the contrary, TLP 4.122 and TLP 4.023 show that simples can be individuated and described. It is just that descriptions of simples will be radically different from descriptions of facts, complex objects and possible states of the world: they will not be descriptions decomposing these objects into ‘elements’ and specifying how these ‘elements’ are arranged. No such description of Tractarian objects could be given, since it would require being able to name ‘form’ and ‘content’, which are not themselves objects and cannot therefore

be named.

In a nutshell: individuating and describing an object can be achieved either by making its internal properties manifest (i.e. by noting that the object is capable of producing such and such facts), or by making its external properties manifest (i.e. by noting which obtaining facts the object has helped to produce). In contrast, in order to genuinely know an object, we need to know all of its internal properties, but we do not need to know any of its external ones:

If I am to know an object, though I need not know its external properties, I must know all its internal properties. (7ÏP 2.01231)

In Other words, in order to know an object, I need not know all of the facts the object is capable of helping to produce, but I need not know which of these facts actually obtain.

This helps to clarify an entry of the Tractatus which has until now remained poorly explained in the literature:

If all objects are given, then at the same time all possible states o f affairs are also given. (H P 2.0124)

If an object is given to me, if I know an object, I know all of its internal properties, all of the possible states of affairs that it helps to produce. Hence, if all objects were given to me, I would know all of the internal properties of all objects, in other words all of the possible states of affairs that each and every one of these objects helps to produce. I would thus know all states of affairs and, thereby, also all possible situations of the world. Which is why:

Objects contain the possibility o f all situations. (TLP 2.014)

However, since objects produce states of affairs by combining with each other, knowing all of the states of affairs that an object can and cannot help to produce entails knowing all of the states of affairs that other objects can and cannot help to produce. Knowing an object therefore entails knowing all of the internal properties of other objects, which is the same as knowing these other objects:

If objects are given, then at the same time we are given a ll objects. (TLP 5.524)

If I genuinely know an object, I automatically know all other objects.

even he could be said to know (or to have been ‘given’) any particular instances of Tractarian objects (see again A(B 16.6.15). Wittgenstein didn’t feel that it was possible to know any instances of objects without having carried out a full analysis of language. Thus, his point in these remarks is not that we actually know objects, and that we thereby actually know all objects, all states of affairs, etc. The idea is rather that, if a full analysis of language was one day carried out, so that we could come to know simple objects, then knowing one object would entail knowing all other objects and all states of affairs. We will be returning to the issue of what is involved in ‘knowing’ a simple object in Parts VI and VII.

Conclusion

This Part leaves us with several key conclusions. Firstly, Tractarian objects are neither phenomenal nor material. Indeed, objects and states of affairs cannot be perceived: perceptual properties (those material properties which render perception possible) arise only at the level of possible situations of the world. Secondly, it is unclear that Wittgenstein had a clear view of the ontology of objects, when he wrote the Tractatus. We have, nevertheless, constructed a non-exegetical model for the ontology of objects, which takes objects to be simple properties and bare particulars. This model will be used in the rest of the thesis to illustrate points which would otherwise remain unnecessarily abstract, but these points will not be dependent on the choice of the model.