Wittgenstein and the ‘Kantian Solution of the Problem of Philosophy’ (10 February 1931)

This thesis is organised around the aim of accounting for a hitherto unanalysed passage Wittgenstein wrote on 10 February 1931. The passage curiously concerns Kant and, though written in 1931, the central theme of the Tractatus, viz. the limit of language. How so? My claim is that Wittgenstein had to revisit this Leitmotiv because around that time the conception of thought in the Tractatus such that the world is the totality of facts had met serious objections. Kant was mentioned in this context because the Tractatus emerged through Wittgenstein’s engagement with transcendental idealism. In detail: I. The notion of fact as opposed to that of object was initially developed to correct the accounts of propositions in Frege and Russell (ch.1). During the wartime period, Wittgenstein further elaborated it to reject the erroneous conception of possibility involved in Russell’s scientific method and, by so doing, he came to draw on Kant’s transcendental philosophy (ch.2). The resulting account of thoughts as logical pictures, though, rejected transcendental idealism altogether (ch.3). Indeed, the evolution of the Tractatus from 1916 onwards attests that Wittgenstein exploited consequences of his account of thoughts so as to show that transcendental idealism, together with its aspirations, misfires (ch.4). II. After his return to philosophy, Wittgenstein continued to uphold his view in the Tractatus in its essentials. In the autumn of 1929, however, Ramsey delivered his fatal objection, insinuating that the underlying conception of thought was totally false (ch.5). Ramsey’s criticism soon led Wittgenstein to re-examine his logical standpoint against causal theories of meaning, and it is in this context that Wittgenstein’s remark of 10 February 1931 was written (ch.6). All these events are encapsulated in the entry of 10 February 1931, and it accordingly marks a decisive turning point in the transition from the Tractatus to the Investigations