Wittgenstein, being silent
I came across the following quote from Ludwig Wittgenstein‘s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which was cited in Wolfhart Pannenberg‘s Theology and the Philosophy of Science (32-33):
The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is, and everything happens as it does happen: in it no value exists—and if it did exist, it would have no value. If there is any value that does have value, it must lie outside the whole sphere of what happens and is the case. For all that happens and is the case is accidental. What makes it non-accidental cannot lie within the world, since if it did it would itself be accidental. It must lie outside the world. (6.41)
This, in the manifesto of logical positivism!*
*Pannenberg cites this in a section that discusses the problems presented for theology, particularly the word “God,” and how certain theologians (van Buren) reduced the content of theological speech to a “mere form of expression.” Of course, Pannenberg does not accept a logical positivist approach to theological language, which results in something like the liberalism of Schleiermacher or the neo-liberalism of Bultmann. Rather, he follows Popper’s critique of positivism (which he considers total and complete) and suggests another way of regarding the content and function of theological language.
When I initially read this quote in its full context in the Tractatus my mind was immediately drawn to the classical distinction between necessary and contingent beings. Wittgenstein is of course concerned with language here, but in his quest to understand meaning in its ultimate or unconditioned sense he is driven “outside the world.”
This statement, rather than lay the foundation of an all encompassing positivism, seems to provide strict limits for the ability of a completely immanent logic (and metaphysics) to establish any final meaning or value. The reference for any one thing, a word in a sentence or an object in a painting, has meaning only in connection with those words or objects that surround it (this was the fundamental thesis of the Tractatus, wasn’t it?). Any necessary meaning, as Wittgenstein says, must lie outside the world, outside the internal reference of a sentence or language or system of culture.*
*There is of course the interpretation of the Tractatus as a big middle finger to the Vienna Circle, who are supposed to have completely misunderstood its purpose and proceeded to build a philosophical system on its basis. I so hope this is true.
In spite of these limits, Wittgenstein is not saying that we should aim to speak of the value of things in their ultimate, unconditioned reference. As he famously concludes:
What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.
What can we truly and meaningfully say, then? Maybe the monks had it right after all.
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