Grice on Wittgenstein, Tractatus 4.0031

by courtesy of Maarten Maartensz, online.

Witters wrote:

4.0031.

"All philosophy is a 'critique of language' (though not in Mauthner's sense)."

And the big joke:

"It was Russell who performed the service of showing that the apparent logical form of a proposition need not be its real one."

MM: "No, not "all philosophy is a 'critique of language'". The aim of philosophy is to find out what the world is and what one should do in it, and though it is useful to also find out what language and logic are, and how they can help and mislead one, there is more to philosophy than W. believed (who as a matter of fact seemed to have known little philosophy). It is interesting to read the article on Mauthner in the Encyclopedy of Philosophy, where it seems as if Mauthner between 1900 and 1920 expressed the same ideas as did Wittgenstein after 1930. So in fact it seems to me that W. owed rather more to Mauthner than he let on, and that those interested in Wittgenstein's thought should delve some more in Mauthner. And I suppose Russell is mentioned because of his theory of descriptions, but in fact the whole apparatus of quantification, not invented by Russell but by Frege and, independently, Mitchell and Peirce, would be a better example."

It is still a good joke.