[Moore G E] Wittgenstein's Lectures in 1930-33 (3)(BookZZ.org)

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Wittgenstein's Lectures in 1930-33

G. E. Moore

Mind , New Series, Vol. 64, No. 253. (Jan., 1955), pp. 1-27.

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VOL. LXIV. NO. 253.1

[January

1955

M I N D

A Q U A R T E R L Y R E V I E W

OF

PSY HOLOGY A N D PHILOSOPHY

I.--WITTGENSTEIN'S LECTURES

IN 1930-33

(B)

IN

th e case of Logic, there were two most im portan t matt'ers

with regard to which he said that the views he had held when

he wrote the ractatus were definitely wrong.

1)The &st of these concerned what Russell called atom ic

propositions and he himself in the ractatus had called Ele-

me ntaisatze". H e said in

11)

that it was with regard to

elementary propositions an d their connexion with t'ru th-

functions or molecular propositions th a t he had had to change

his opinions most

;

and th a t t 'his subject was connected with t h e

use of th e words t'hing an d nam e

.

I n 111)he began by

pointing out that neither Russell nor he himself had produced

an y examples of atom ic propositions ; and said that there

was somet'hing wrong indicated by this fac t, though it was difficult

to say exactly what. H e said t 'hat both he and Russell had t 'he

idea th a t non-atomic propositions could be analysed int'o

atomic ones, but that we did not yet know what the analysis

was that ,

e g

such a proposition As

It

is raining migh t, if

we knew it's analysis, turn out to be molecular, consisting, e g

of a conjunct'ion of atom ic propositions. H e said th a t in

the

ractatus

he had objected to Russell's assumption t h a t t'here

certainly were atomic propositions which asserted two-termed

relations-t'hat he had refused to prophesy as to what would be

th e result of an analysis, if one were made, and th a t i t might

turn out t'hat no atomic proposition assert'ed less tha,n e g a

1


3/28

2 G.

E. MOORE

:

four-te rmed relation, so th a t we could no t even ta lk of a two-

termed relation. His present view was th a t it was senseless to

talk of a final analysis, an d he said th a t he would now tre at

as atomic all propositions in th e expression of which neither

U o r

and

,

,

nor n o t occurred, nor any expression of

generality, provided we had not expressly given an exact defini-

tion, such as we might give of It's ro tten weather

,

if we said

we were going to use th e expression rotten to mean both

cold and damp .

In saying this he seemed to me to be overlooking both the

fact t h at a m an often says th a t he is going to use a n expression

in a certain definite way and then does not in fact so use it,

and also the fact that many common words,

e g

father,

mother, sister, brother, etc., are often so used that such a

sentence as This is my fa th e r undoubtedly expresses a

molecular proposition, although a person who so uses i t has

never expressly sta ted th a t he will so use it. These two facts,

however, of course, do no t prove tha t he was wrong in think -

in g th a t it is senseless to tal k of a final or ul tim ate

analysis.

(2) The second im por tant logical mistake which he though t he

had made a t th e time w hen he wrote th e Tractatus was introduced

by him in 111)in connexion with th e subject of following

(by which he m eant , as usual, deductive following or entail-

ment -a word which

I

thin k he actually used i n this discussion)

from a general proposition to a particular instance an d from

a particular instance to a gen eral proposition. Using th e

no tation of Prirzcipia Mathematica, he asked us to consider th e

two propositions 3

.

fx entails fa and fa entails ( 3 % ) fx .

He said that there was a temptation, to which he had yielded

in t he Tractatus, to say th at (x)

.

fx is identical with the logical

product fa . fb

.

fc . . . , a n d ( a x ) .fx identical with the

logical sum

fa f

fc . . . ; but tha t th i s

WEIS

in both

cases a mistake. I n order to make clear exactly where th e

mistake lay, he f i s t said th a t in th e case of such a universal

proposition as Everybody in this room has a h a t (which

I

will call

A ),

he had known a nd actually said in th e Tractatus,

th at , even if Sm ith, Jones and Robinson are the only people in

th e room, th e logical product Smith has a hat, Jones has a ha t

an d Robinson has a h a t cannot possibly be identical with

A,

because in order to get a proposition which entails A you

obviously have t o ad d '\'and Smith, Jones and Robinson are the

only people in th e room . B ut he went on to say th a t if we

are talking of individuals in Russell's sense (an d he actua lly


4/28


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4

G

E. MOORE

:

proposition

,

whereas where it is a logical product th is proposi-

tion is deduced from other primary propositions.

The point which he here made in saying that where we talk

of t h e cardina l num bers we are not talk ing of a logical produc t

was a point which he had made earlier, in I),though he did not

there point out that in the Tractatus he had made the mistake

of supposing th a t an infinit'e series was a logical product-$hat i t

- could be enumerated, though 'we were unable to enumerate it.

I n this passage in ( I) he began by saying th at by th e proposition

there are an ixlfLnite number of shades of grey between black

an d white we mean something entirely different from what

we mean by e g

I

see three colours in this room , because,

whereas the latter proposition can be versed by counting, the

former can not. He said th at There are an i n h i t e number

does not give a n answer to th e question How m any are there

?

whereas There are three does give a n answer to thi s question.

H e went on to discuss infinite divisibility in th e case of space,

and said (as

I

have already mentioned p. 296), tha t the

<

linguistic expression of This line can be bisected was

The words ' This line has been bisected ' have sense , but

th a t th e inguistic expression of This line can be infinitely

divided is certainly no t The words

'

This line has been

iniinitely divided ' have sense . He said that if we express

has been bisected , has been trisected , has been quadri-

sected , etc., by f l + l ) ,

f l+

1+ 1),

f l

+ + + ) , etc.,

we see th a t a n internal relation holds between successive mem bers

of thi s series an d th a t t he series has no end ; and he concluded

by saying t h a t th e linguist'ic expression of an infinite possi-

bility is a n illfinite possibility in language. H e also pointed out

t h a t Z1 + + + approaches a limit, whereas a logical

product does not approach any limit. And he said finally th a t

th e cases to which the Principia notations (x) .$x and 3 ) +x

app ly, i.e. cases in w hich th e former can be regarded as a logical

product an d th e la tte r as a logical sum of propositions of th e

form +a, b, c, etc., are comparatively rare ; that oftener we

have propositions, such as I met a man , which do no t pre-

suppose any totality ; that the cases to which the Principia

notations apply are only those in which we could give proper

names to th e en tities in question

;

and th a t giving proper names

is only possible in very special cases.

Besides these two cardinal cases, in which he said that the

views which he h ad he ld\ at th e time when he w rote th e Tractatus

were certainly wrong, I thin k t h a t t h e chief logical points which

he made were as follows.


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5ITTGENSTEIN'S

LECTURES

I N 1930-33

3)

One point which he made was th a t Russell was quite wrong

in supposing th at , if expressions of th e form p > q are used

with the meaning which is given to > n Prirzcipia Mathe-

matica, then i t follows th a t from a false proposition we can infer

every other proposition, and th a t from a t ru e one we can infer any

other true one. H e said th a t Russell's holding this false opinion

was partly due to his supposing th at p a q can be translated

by If p, then q . H e said th a t we never use

f

p then q

to mean merely what is mean t by p q and t h a t Russell

had adm itted this, but still maintained th a t in th e case of what

he called formal implications ,

i.e. propositions of the form

(x) .+ x > $x, such a proposition can be properly tra nsla ted by

If

.

.

.,

then

.

. .".

Wittgenstein said that this also was a

mistake, giving as a reason th a t if, e.g. we sub stitu te s a m an

for an d s m ortal or $, then t he mere fact th at there were

no men would verify (x) .+ x > $x, bu t t ha t we never so use If

.

.

., then . . ." that the mere fact that there were no men

would verify

If

anything is a man, then th at thing is mortal

.

(4) H e also, on m ore tha n one occasion, said something about

Sheffer's stroke no tation , and, on one occasion, about

Tarski's 3-valued Logic.

About the former he said that it resembled what are called

mathem atical discoveries n respect of th e fac t t h a t Sheffer

had no rule for discovering an answer to th e question I s there

only one logical constan t whereas the re is a rule for dis-

covering, e.g. th e answer to a m ultiplication sum. H e said th a t,

where the re is no rule, it is misleading to use th e word discovery ,

.

though this is constantly done. H e said t h a t Russell or Frege

might quite well have used th e expression p/ q as sho rt for

6

- p . -q , and yet s ti ll maintained tha t they had two

primitive ideas, and and not , and not one only. Plainly,

therefore, he thought that Sheffer, though he admitted that

Sheffer had actually deiined p/q as meaning

wp .

- q

,

had done something else. But what else H e said th a t

Sheffer's discovery consisted in finding a new aspect of

certain expressions. B ut I am sorry to say tha t I did not and

do not understand what he mean t by this.

On Tarski's 3-valued Logic he said th a t it was all right as

a calculus -that Tarsk i had really discovered

a

new

calculus. Bu t he said th a t ru e an d false could not have

in i t th e meaning which the y actually hav e ; and he particularly

emphasized th a t Tarski 'had m ade th e mistake of supposing th a t

his th ird value, which he called doub tful

,

was identical with

what we ordinarily mean by dou btful

".


7/28

6 G.

E.

MOOR E :

(C)

Of problems which ar e specifically problems in th e philo-

sophy of Mathematics, I think th a t those which he most discussed

are th e three following. B ut in this case

I

should like to remind

the reader of what

I

said in my first article (p.

5)

tha t

I

cannot

possibly mention nearly everything which he said, and that it

is possible that some things which

I

omit were really more

important than what I

mention ; and also to give the warning

that in this case it is particularly likely that

I

may have mis-

understood or may misrepresent him, since my own knowledge

of Mathematics is ve ry small. B ut I think t ha t what I say will

a t least give some idea of th e k i of questions which he was

eager t o discuss.

1)

In I)

he said that there were two very different kinds of

proposition used in Mathematics, nei ther of th em a t all like

what are usually called propositions . These were 1) pro-

positions proved by a chain of equations, in which you proceed

from axioms to other equations, by means of axioms, and

(2)

propositions proved by mathematical induction . And he

added in 111)th a t proofs of t h e second k ind, which he there

called recu rsive proofs , are not proofs in the same s ns as

are proofs of t h e &st kind. H e added th a t people constantly

commit th e fallacy of supposing th a t tru e , problem

looking for , proof always mean th e same, whereas in

fac t these words mean entirely different things in different

cases.

As a n example of a proposition of th e second kind he took th e

Associative Law for the addition of numbers, namely,

a (b c) = a b) c

;

and he discussed the proof .of

this proposition a t considerable length on two separa te occasions,

&st in

I)

and then later in

111).

On both occasions he discussed

a proof of i t given by Skolem, though in

I)

he did n ot expressly

say th a t the proof discussed was Skolem's. H e said in I) tha t

the proof seemed to assume at one point the very proposition

which i t professed to prove, a nd he pointed ou t in

111)

that in

one of the steps of his proof Skolem did actually assume the

Associative Law. H e said t h a t since Skolem professed to

be giving a proof, one would have expected him to prove it

from other formulae, but that in fact the proof begins in an

entire ly different way, nam ely with a definition-the deiinition

a b 1)= a b) 1

;

and he maintained both in I)

and in 111)th a t i t was quite unnecessary for Skolem to assume

th e Associative Law in 'on e step of his proof, saying in

I)

tha t

th e proof really rests entirely on th e definition , and in 111)

that you don't in fact use the Associative Law in the proof at


8/28

7

ITTGENSTEIN S LECTURES IN

1930-33

all. He wrote the proof in his own way ' in order to show this,

saying th a t if you write th e definition in th e form

41

=

$1

,

the n all th a t is proved is th e two formulae (a)+(c 1)

=

$c +

and (b)$(c

+

1)

=

$c.+ 1, and t h at to prove these two formulae

is the same thing as w hat is called proving th e Associative Law

for all numbers

.

He went on to say that the fact th a t th is

proof proves all we want .shows th a t we are no t dealing with

a n extension a t all

;

that instead of talking of a@ite part of the

series 1, 2, 3

. .

. , on th e one han d, a nd of th e whole series

on th e other hand , we should ta lk of a bit of t he series an d of

the Law which generates it

;

that proving the Associative Law

for a11 num bers can't mean th e same sort of thing as proving

it, e.g. for three numbers, since, in order to do this latter, you

would have to give a sep arate proof for each of th e three

;

and

th a t w hat we have in th e proof is a general form of proof for any

num ber. Finally he said th a t th e generality which is misleadingly

expressed by saying that we have proved the Associative Law

for all cardinals

,

really comes in in th e definition, which might

have been written in th e form of a series, viz.

+

(1

+ 1)

=

(1

+

1 )

+

1 1 + ( 2 + 1 ) = ( 1 + 2 ) + 1 2 + ( 1 + 1 )

=

(2

+

1)

+

1 and so on

;

and that this series is not a logical

product of w hich the examples given are a pa rt, b ut a rule, an d

th a t th e examples are only there to explain th e rule

.

(2) Another problem in th e philosophy of Mathematics, which

he discussed on no less than three separate occasions, was what

we are to say of the apparent question Are there anywhere in

.

the development of .rr three consecu tive 7's (Sometimes he

.

took th e question Are there Jive consecutive 7's nstead of

Are there three

)

He first dealt with this apparen t question

in

I),

n connexion with Brouw er's view th a t the L aw of Excluded

Middle does not apply t o some mathematical propositions

;

i.e.

that some mathematical propositions are neither true nor false

;

.

.

th a t the re is a n alternative to being either true or false, viz. being

undecidable

.

And on this occasion he said that the words

There are three consecutive 7's in the development of .rr are

nonsense, and th a t hence no t only the Law of Excluded Middle

does no t ap ply in this case, but t h a t no laws of Logic apply in

i t ; though he adm itted th a t if someone developed for te n

years and actually found three consecutive 7's in the developm ent,

this would prove that there were three consecutive 7's in a ten

years' development, and seemed to be admitting, .therefore, that

it is possible th a t the re'm igh t be. The next time he discussed

th e question, early in (111), he said th a t if anyone actua lly found

three consecutive 7's this would prove that there are, but that


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8

a

E MOORE

if no one found them that wouldn't prove that there are not ;

th at , therefore, it is som ething for th e tru th of which we hav e

provided a tes t, bu t for th e falsehood of which we have provided

none

;

an d th a t therefore i t must be a q uite different sort of th ing

from cases in which a tes t for both t r u th an d falsehood is provided.

He went on to discuss the apparent question in a slightly new

way. H e said we seem to be able to define n a s t he m m be r

which, if the re a re three consecutive 7's in th e developm ent of

n, differs from n in t h at , in t h e place in which three consecutive

7's occur in n, th ere occur in i t thre e consecutive 1's instead, b ut

which, if the re are no t, does no t differ from

n

a t a ll

;

and tha t

we seem to be able to say th at n', so d e h e d , either is identical

with

~

or is not. B u t he said here th at , since we hav e no way

of Gnding out whe ther

n

is identical w ith

n

or not, the question

whether it is or not h as no meaning

;

and, so far as I can

see, this entails the same view which he had expressed in (I),

viz.

th at the words There are not three consecutive 7's anywhere

in th e developm ent of n have no meaning, since, if these words

had a meaning, i t would seem to follow th a t n = n also has

one, and th a t therefore th e question Is n identical with n

also has one. I n th e second passage in 111 in which he discussed

this apparent question he expressly said that though the words

(1) There are five consecutive 7's in th e first thousand digits

of

n

have sense, yet th e words 2) There a re five consecutive

7's som wh r in th e development have none, adding th at we

can't say t h a t (2) makes sense because (2) follows from 1 .

Bu t in th e very n ext lecture he seemed to h ave changed his view

,

on this point, since he there said We ought no t to say

'

There

are five 7's i n th e development

'

has no sense

,

hav ing previously

said It has whatever sense its grammar allows , and having

emphasized th at it has a very curious grammar since it is

.

compatible with there not being five consecutive 7's in any

development you can give . If it has sense, although a very

curious one, i t does presumably express a proposition to which

th e Law of Excluded Middle an d th e other rules of Form al Logic

do apply ; bu t W ittgenstein said nothing upon this point. W ha t

he did say was th a t All big mathem atical problems are of th e

natur e of 'A re the re five consecutive 7's i n th e developm ent of

n ' an d th at they are therefore quite different from multi-

plication sums, an d no t com parable in respect of difficulty

.

H e said m any other things about this question, but I cannot

give them a ll, and s o d of them

I

certainly did not and do not

understand. Bu t one puzzling thing which he seemed to say

in (111) was tha t, if we express th e proposition t h a t there is, in


10/28

th e development of a number of dig its which is imm ediately

followed by five consecutive 7's, by

(3n)

fn ,

then there are

tw o conceivable ways of proving (3n).fa namely, (1)byfinding

such a number, and 2) by proving that

-

(an)

fn

is self-

contradictory ; but tha t the (3 )

.

fn proved in th e latter way

could not be th e same as th at proved in the former. I n this

connexion he said th at .there is no op po site to th e first

method of proof. H e said also th a t 3 means something

different where i t is possible to look for a num ber which

proves it, from what it means where this is not possible ; and,

generally, t h a t The proof of a n existence theorem gives th e

meaning of existence in th a t theorem , whereas the meaning

of There's -a m an in th e nex t room does no t depend on th e

method of proof.

3) This last problem is connected, and was connected b y him,

with a general point which he discussed more than once in

connexion with the question How can we look for a method of

trisecting an angle by rule and compasses, if there is no such

thing H e said th at a man who had spent his life in trying

to trisect an angle by rule and compasses would be inclined to

say If you understand both w hat is meant by

'

trisection and

what is meant by

'

bisection b y rule a nd compasses

,

you must

understand w hat is mean t by trisection by rule an d compasses

'

but that this was a mistake ; that we can't imagine trisecting

a n angle by rule and compasses, whereas we can imagine dividing

an angle into eight equal parts by rule and compasses ; t h a t

ooking for a trisection by rule an d compasses is no t like

looking for a unicorn, since There are unicorns ha s sense,

although in fact there are no unicorns, whereas There are

animals which show on their foreheads a construction by rule

an d compasses of th e trisection of a n angle s just nonsense like

There are animals with t h e e horns, bu t also with only one

horn i t does not give a description of any possible anim al.

And Wittgenstein's answer to t he original question was tha t by

proving that it is impossible to trisect an angle by rule and

compasses we change a man 's idea of trisection of a n angle

bu t t h a t we should say th at what has been proved impossible is

th e very thing which he had been tryin g to do, because we are

willingly led in thi s case to identify tw o different things

.

H e

compared this case to th e case of calling what he was doing

philosophy , saying th a t i t was not t h e same kind of thing as

Plato or Berkeley had'done, but that we may feel that what he

was doing takes th e place of what Plato an d Berkeley did,

thou gh it is really a different thing . H e illustrated th e same


11/28

10 G. E MOORE :

point in th e case of th e construction of a regular pentagon,

by saying th a t if it were proved to a m an who had been trying

to h d uch a construc tion tha t there isn't any such thing, he

would say That's wh at

I

was try ing to do because his idea

has shifted on a rail on which he is ready to shift it

.

And he

insisted here again th a t (a ) to have a n idea of a regular pentagon

an d (b) to know what is meant by constructing by r d e and

compasses, e.g. a square, do not in combination enable you to

know what is meant by constructing, by rule and compasses, a

regular pentagon. H e said th a t to explain what is mea nt by

cons truction we can give two series of constructions

, viz.

(a ) equilateral triangle, regular hexagon, etc., a nd (b) square,

regular octagon, etc., bu t th a t neither of these would give meaning

' to th e construction of a regular pentagon, since they don 't give

an y rule which applies to the number 5 H e said .that in a sense

th e result wanted is clear, but th e means of getting a t it is not

;

but in another sense, the result wanted is itself not clear, since

constructed pentagon is not th e same as measured penta-

g o n and th at whether th e same figure will be both depends

on our physics : why we call a construction a construction of

a regular pentago n is because of th e physical properties of our

compasses, etc.

I n (I ) he had said th a t in t h e case of Logic an d M athematics

(and Sense-data

")

you can't know the same thing in two

independent ways

;

an d th at it was in th e case of hypotheses

and nowhere else, that there are different evidences for the same

thing. But in (111) he said th a t even in the case of hypotheses,

e.g. the proposition that there is a cylindrical object on the

mantel-piece, he himself preferred to say that if the evidence

was different, th e proposition was also different, bu t th at you

can say which you please . H e did not say whether, in th e

case of Logic an d Mathematics also, he now held th a t you can

say which you please

".

(D)

H e spent, as I have said in my first article (p. €, a great

deal of tim e on th is discussion, an d

I

a m very much puzzled as

to th e meaning of much th at he said, and also as to th e connexion

between different things which he said. It seems to me that

his discussion was rathe r incoherent, an d my account of i t mus t

be incoherent also, because

I

cannot see the connexion between

different points which he seemed anxious to make. H e said very

early in th e discussion.,that the' whole subject is extraordinarily

difficult because t h e whole field is full of misleading no ta-

tions ; and th at i ts difficulty was shown by th e fact tha t th e


12/28

question at issue is the question between Realists, Idealists and

Solipsists. And he also said, more th an once, th a t ma ny of the

difficulties are due to the fact th at there is a g reat temp tation t o

confuse what are merely experiential propositions, which m ight,

therefore, not have been true, with propositions which are

necessarily true or are, as he once said, -tautological or gram -

matical statements

.

H e gave, as an instance of a proposition

of th e la tte r sor t, can't feel your toothache , saying th at

f you feel it , i t isn't mine is a m at ter of gram mar , and

also t h a t can't feel your toothache means th e same as

'

feel your toothache ' has no sense an d he contrasted

this with hear my voice coming from somewhere near my

eyes

,

which he said we th ink to be necessary, bu t which in fac t

is not necessary though i t always happens

.

I n this connexion

he gave th e warning Don't be prejudiced by any thing which

is a fact, bu t which might be otherwise . And he seemed to be

quite dehite on a point which seems to me certainly true, viz

th a t might see without physical eyes, an d even without having

a body at all th a t the connexion between seeing an d physical

eyes is merely a fact learnt by experience, no t a necessity a t all ;

though he also said th a t th e visual field has certain interna l

properties, such th a t you can describe th e motion of certain

things in it as motions towards or away from your eye ; but

th at here your eye does no t mean your physical eye, nor ye t

any thing whatever which is i n th e visual field. H e called your

eye , in th is sense, th e eye of th e visual field , and said tha t

th e distinction between motion towards i t a nd away from it was

on th e same level as th e distinction between

'

curved

'

and

'

straight

' .

However, he began th e discussion by raising a question, which

he said was connected with Behaviourism, namely, the question

When we say ' H e has tooth-ache ' is it correct to say th a t his

tooth-ache is only his behaviour, whereas when ta lk abou t my

tooth-ache a m no t talking about my behaviour but very

soon he introduced a question expressed in different words,

which is perhaps not merely

a

different formulation of th e same

question, viz Is another person's toothache ' tooth-ache ' in

the same sense as mine I n tryin g to find a n answer to this

question or these questions, he said first that it was clear and

adm itted th a t wh at verifies or is a criterion for have tooth -

ache is quite different from what verifies or is a criterion for

H e has tooth-ache' , and soon added th at , since thi s is so,

t he meanings of have toothache an d he has tooth-ache

must be different. I n this connexion he said later, first, th a t the


13/28

2 G

E.

MOORE

:

meaning of verification is different, when we speak of veri-

fying have from wh at i t is when we speak of verifying

H e h as , and then, later still, th a t there is no such thing as a

verification for

I

have

,

since th e question How do you

know th a t you have tooth-ache is nonsensical. H e criticized

two answers which might be given to th is last question by people

,who think it is not nonsensical, by saying (1) that the answer

Because I feel i t won't do, because I feel it means th e

same as I have it , and (2) th at th e answer I know it by

inspection also won't do, because it implies th a t

I

can ook

to see whether have it or not, whereas ooking to see whether

I have i t or not has no meaning. The fact th at it is nonsense

to ta lk of verifying th e fact th a t

I

have it , puts, he said,

I

have

i t on a different level i n grammar from he has it

.

And

he also expressed his view that the two expressions are on a

different grammatical level by saying that they are not both

values of a single propositional function has tooth-ache

and in favour of this view he gave two d e h i t e reasons for saying

th a t they a re not, namely, (1) th at I don't know whether

I have tooth-ache is always absurd or nonsense, whereas I

don't know whether he has tooth -ach e is not nonsense, an d

(2) that

It

seems to me th a t

I

hav e tooth-ache is nonsense,

whereas It seems to me th at he has s not.

He said, that when he said this, people supposed him to be

saying th a t other people never really hav e what he has, bu t th at ,

if he did say so, he would be talking nonsense ; an d he seemed

quite d e h it e ly to reject th e behaviourist view th at he has

tooth-ache means only th a t he s behaving in a particular

manner ; for he said th a t tooth-ache doesn't in fact only

mean a pa rticular kind of behaviour, an d implied th a t when we

pity a man for having toothache, we are not pitying him for

putting his hand to his cheek

;

and, later on, he said that we

conclude

that another person has toothache from his behaviour,

an d th a t i t is legitimate to conclude this on t h e analogy of th e

resemblance of his behaviour t o th e way i n which we behave

when we have toothache. It seemed, therefore, that just as to

his first question he meant to give definitely th e answer No ,

so to his second question h e m ean t to give definitely th e answer

Yes th e word toothache is used in th e same sense when

we say th at he has i t (or you have it

)

as when we say that

I

have it, though he never expressly said so an d though h e

seemed to throw some doubt on whether he meant this

by

saying I admit that other people do have tooth-ache-this

having

the me ning whi h we h ve given it .


14/28

WITTCENSTEIN S LECTURES IN

1930-33

13

It seemed, therefore, th at he did not think th a t t h e difference

between I have tooth-ache an d H e has tooth-ache was

due to th e fac t th at th e word tooth-ache was used in a differ-

ent sense in the two sentences.

What then was i t due to

Much th at he said seemed to suggest th a t his view was th a t th e

difference was due to th e fact th a t in He has toothache we

were necessarily talking of a physical body, whereas in

I

have

tooth-ache we were not. As to th e h s t of these two pro-

positions he did not seem quite definite ; for though at first he

said th a t my voice means h e voice which comes from my

mo uth , he seemed afterwards to suggest th a t in H e has

toothache (or You ha ve ) we were no t necessarily referring

to a body, but might be referring only to a voice, identified as

his or

~ O U I ' S

without reference to a body. B ut as to

th e second proposition, the one about I have tooth-ache , t he

point on which he.seemed most anxious to insist was that what

we call ha vin g tooth-a che is what he called a pr im ary

experience (he once used th e phrase direct experience as

equivalent to this one) ; and he said th at what characterizes

'primary experience

'

is tha t in its case ' I ' does no t denote a

possessor

.

In order to make clear what he meant by this he

compared I have tooth-ache with I see a red patch

;

and

said of what he called visua l sen sations generally, an d in

par ticula r of what he called he visual field , th at the idea

of a person doesn 't ente r into th e description of i t, just as a

[physical] eye doesn't ente r into th e description of what 1s seen ;

an d he said th a t similarly t h e idea of a person doesn't enter

into th e description of having tooth-ache . How was he here

using th e word person He certainly mean t to deny th a t

th e idea of a physical body enters necessarily into th e description ;

and in one passage he seemed to imply th a t he used person o

mean th e same as physical body , since he said A descrip-

tion of a sensation does not con tain a description of a sense-

organ, nor, therefore, of a person . H e was, therefore, stil l

maintaining apparently th at one distinction between have

toothache and He has toothache was due to th e fact th at

the latter necessarily refers to a physical body (or, perhaps, to

voice instead ) whereas th e former does not. B u t I think this

was not th e only distinction which he had in mind, a nd t ha t he

was no t always using perso n to mean th e same as physical

body (or, perhaps, a voice instead). For he said th a t J u s t as

no [physical] eye is involved in seeing, so no Ego is involved in

think ing or in having toothache

;

an d he quoted, with apparent

approval, Lichtenberg's saying nstead of

'

I think

'

we ought


15/28

14 G E MOOR :

to say ' t thinks ' (" i t being used, as he ,said, as Es s

used in Es blitzet

") ;

and by saying this he meant, think,

something similar to what he said of th e eye of th e visual

field when he said th at i t is no t anything which is n th e visual

field. Like so many other philosophers, in talking of visual

sensations he seemed not to distinguish between what see

-and my seeing of i t

;

and he did not expressly discuss'.what

appears to be a possibility, namely, th a t though no person enters

into what see, yet some person other th an a physical body

or a voice, may enter into my seeing of it .

I n this connexion, th at in have toothache does not

'' denote a possessor

,

he pointed ou t th at , when talk of

my

.body

,

th e fact th at th e body in question is mine or belongs

to me , cannot be verified by reference to that body itself, thus

seeming to imply tha t when say This body belongs to me

,

me s used in th e second of th e senses which he distinguished

for

,

viz. th at in which, according to him,

it

does no t denoke

a possessor

".

But he d id not seem to be quite sure of this, since

he said in one place f there is a n ownership such th at possess

a body, thi s isn't verified by reference to a body

,

i that This

is my body can't possibly mean This body belongs t o this

body

".

H e said th at , where is replaceable by th is body

and he are on th e same [grammatical] level

.

H e

was quite d e h i t e th at th e word or any other word which

denotes a subject is used in tw o u tter ly different ways ,

one in which it is on a level with other people , and one in

which i t is not . This difference, he said , was a difference in

-'

th e gramm ar of our ordinary language

".

As an instance of

one of these two uses, he gave

I've got a match-box an d

I've got a bad tooth

,

which he said were on level with

Skinner has a match-box an d Skinner has a bad too th

"..H e said th at in these two cases have . . ." and Skinner

has .

. ."

really were values of th e same propositional function,

and tha t an d Skinner were both possessors ". But

-

in th e case of have tooth-ache or see a red patch he

held th a t th e use of is utte rly different.

I n speaking of these two senses of he said, as what he

called

''

a final thing

,

En one sense ' ' and ' conscious ' are

equivalent, but not i n another

,

an d he compared th is difference

to th e difference between what can be said of th e pictures on a

film in a magic lantern a n d of th e picture on th e screen

;

saying

th at th e pictures in th e lantern are all on the same level but

th at the picture which is a t an y given time on the screen is not

on th e same level with any of them, an d th a t if we were to


16/28

use conscious o say of one of th e pictures in th e lan tern th a t

it was at that time being thrown on the screen, it would be

meaningless to say of th e picture on th e screen th a t i t was

c

conscious .

The pictures on th e iilm, he said, have neigh-

bours , whereas th a t on the screen has none. And he also

compared th e gra m m atic al difference between th e two

different uses of

I

with the difference between the meaning

of h as blurred edges as applied to th e visual field, an d th e

meaning of th e same expression as applied to a ny drawing you

might make of th e visual field your drawing might be imagined

to have sharp edges instead of blurred ones, bu t th is is unimagin-

able in the case of the visual field. The visual field, he said, has

no outline or boundary, and he equated this with It has no

sense to say tha t i t has one

.

I n connexion with his statement t h at , in one of it s uses,

is equiva lent to conscious , he said something about Freud's

use of the terms conscious and

unconscious .

He said

that Freud had really discovered phenomena and connexions

no t previously known, bu t t h a t he talked as if he had found out

th a t there were in th e hum an mind unconscious hatreds,

volitions, etc., and that this was very misleading, because we

th ink of th e difference between a

conscious an d a n un-

conscious hatred as like th a t between a se en an d a n

unseen chair. H e said th at , in fact, th e gramm ar of felt

an d unfelt hatred is quite different from th a t of seen an d

unseen chair, just as the grammar of artificial flower is

qu ite different from th a t of blue lower. He suggested th a t

unconscious toothache , if unconscious were used as

Freud used it, might be necessarily bound up with a physical

body, whereas conscious toothache is no t so bound up.

As regards Solipsism and Idealism he said th a t he himself h ad

been often tem pted to say All th a t is real is th e experience of

th e present moment or All th a t is certain is th e experience

of th e present moment ; an d th at any one who is a t all tempted

to hold Idealism or Solipsism knows th e tem ptation to say The

only reality is th e present experience or The only reality is

y present experience . Of these two lat te r statem ents he

said that both were equally absurd, but that, though both were

fallacious, th e idea expressed by them is of enormous import-

ance . Bo th abou t Solipsism an d about Idealism he had

insisted earlier th a t neither of the m pretends th a t what i t says

is lea rnt by experience-that th e argum ents for bo th are of th e

form you can't or you must , and t h a t both these expres-

sions cu t [the statement in question] ou t of our language .


17/28

16

G

E

MOORE :

Elsewhere he said that both Solipsists and Idealists would say

they couldn't imagine it otherwise l,and th at, i n reply to this,

he would say,

If

so, your stateme nt has no sens e since

nothing can characterize reality, except as opposed to some-

thing else which is not the case . Elsewhere he had said that

th e Solipsist's statem ent Only m y experience is real is absu rd

as a statement of fact , ,but that the Solipsist sees that a

person who says No : m y experience is real too has no t really

refuted him, just as Dr. Johnson did not refute Berkeley by

kicking a stone. Much later he said th a t Solipsism is righ t i

it

merely says th at

I

have tooth-ache an d H e has tooth-ache

are on quite a different level

,

bu t th a t if th e Solipsist says

that he has something which another hasn't, he is absurd and

is making th e very mistake of putting th e two statem ents on

the same level . I n this connexion he said th at he thought

th a t both th e Realist an d th e Idealist were talking nonsense

in th e particular sense in which nonsense is produced by tryin g

t o express by t h e use of language what ough t t o be embodied in

the grammar

;

and he illustrated this sense by saying that

I

can't feel his toothache means ' I feel his toothache

'

has

no sense an d therefore does no t express a fact as I can't

play chess m ay do.

(E) He concluded (111) by a long discussion which he intro-

duced by saying

I

have always wanted t o say som ething abou t

th e gram mar of ethical expressions, or,

e g

of t h e word

'

God

' .

B ut in fact he said very little about t h e gramm ar of such words

as God

,

a n d very little also abou t t h a t of ethical expressions.

W ha t he did deal with a t length was not E thics but Aesthetics,

saying, however, Practica lly every thing which

I

say about

'

beautiful

'

applies in a slightly different way to

'

good

'

.

His

discussion of Aesthetics, how ever, was mingled in a curious way

with criticism of assumptions w hich he said were constan tly

made by Frazer in th e Golden Bough , an d also with criticism

of Freud.

About God his main point seemed to be th at this word is

used in many grammatically different senses. H e said, for

instance, that many controversies about God could be settled

by saying I'm no t using th e word in such a sense th at you can

say

.

. ,

and tha t different religions tr ea t things as making

sense which others treat as nonsense, and don't merely deny

some proposition wliich ano ther religion a f i m s

;

and he

illustrated this by saying th a t if people use god to m ean

something like a hu m an being, th en God has four arms an d


18/28

WITTGENSTEIN S

LECTURES

IN

1930-33 17

God has two arms will both have sense, bu t th at others so

use God th a t God has arm s is nonsense-would say

God can't have arms . Similarly, he said of th e expression

he soul

,

that sometimes people so use that expression that

he soul is a gaseous hum an being has sense, but sometimes

so th a t it has not. To explain what he me ant by gramm atic-

ally different senses, he said we wanted terms which: are not

comparable

,

as e g solid an d gaseous are comparable,

but which differ as, e g chair differs from permission to sit

on a chair

, or railway from railwa y accident

.

H e introduced his whole discussion of Aesthetics by dealing

with one problem abo ut th e meaning of w ords, with which he

said he had not yet dealt. H e illustrated this problem by th e

.

example of th e word game , with regard to which he said both

1) th at , even if there is something common to all games, i t

doesn't follow that this is what we mean by calling a particular

game a gam e , and

2)

that the reason why we call so many

different activities games need not be th a t there is any thing

common to them all, bu t only th a t there is a gradual transition

from one use to another, although there may be nothing in

comm on between th e two ends of t h e series. And he seemed to

hold definitely that there is nothing in common in our different

uses of th e word beaut iful , saying th at we use it in a

hundred different games -that,

e g

the bea uty of a face is

something different from th e beauty of a chair or a flower or th e

binding of a book . And of th e word good he said similarly

that each different way in which one person, A, can convince

another,

B,

th a t so-and-so is good fixes th e meaning in which

good s used in th a t discussion- fixes th e gram mar of tha t

discussion ; but tha t there will be gradu al transitions , from

one of these meanings to ano ther, which take th e place of

something in common . I n th e case of beauty he said th a t

.a difference of m eaning is shown by the fact th a t you can say

more in discussing whether th e arrangem ent of flowers in a

bed is

beau tiful han in discussing whether th e smell of lilac

is so.

H e w ent on to say t h at specific 'colours in a certain spatial

arrangement are not merely symptom s th at what has the m

also possesses a quality which we call being beautiful , as they

would be, if we mean t by beautiful

,

e g causing stomach-

ache

,

in which case we could learn by experience whether such

a n arrangement did always cause stomach-ache or not. I n

order to discover how we use th e word beau tiful we need, he

said, to consider (1) what an actual aesthetic controversy or

2


19/28

18 G. E . M O O R E :

enquiry is like, and 2 ) whether such enquiries are in fact

psychological enquiries thou gh they look so very different .

And on 1)he said th a t th e actual word beautiful is hardly

ever used in aesthetic controversies

:

that we are more apt to

use right , as, e g in Th at doesn't look quite right yet , or

when we say of a proposed accompaniment to a song That

won't do : it isn't right . And on

2 )

he said that if ,we say,

e g of a bass

It

is too heavy it moves too much , we are no t

saying If it moved less, it would be more agreeable to me :

th at , on th e contrary, th a t it should be quieter is a n end in

itself , not a means to some other end ; and that when we

discuss whether a bass will do , we are no more discussing a

psychological question than we are discussing psychological

questions in Physics

; th at wh at we are tryin g to do is to bring

th e bass nearer to a n ideal

,

though we haven 't a n ideal before

us which we are try ing to copy ; th a t in order to show what we

want, we might point to another tune, which we might say is

perfectly right . He said that in aesthetic investigations

the one thing we are not interested in is causal connexions,

whereas this is the only thing we are interested in in Psychology .

To ask W h y is this beautiful

?

is not to ask for a causal

explanation

:

that ,

e g

to give a causal explanation in answer

to th e question W hy is th e smell of a rose pleasant ? would

no t remove our aesthetic puzzlement

.

Against th e particular view th a t beau tiful means agree-

able he pointed ou t th a t we may refuse to go to a performance

of a . par ticula r work on such a ground as I can't stand its

greatness , in which case it is disagreeable rather th an agreeable ;

th a t we may think th a t a piece of music which we in fact

prefer is just noth ing in comparison to ano ther to which we

prefer it and th at th e fact th at we go to see Ein g Lear by

no means proves that that experience is agreeable: he said

th at , even if i t is agreeable, th at fact is about th e least im-

portant thing you can say about it . H e said th at such a

statement as Th at bass moves too m uc h is not a statement

abou t hum an beings a t all, bu t is more like a piece of Mathe-

matics

;

and that, if

I

say of a face which draw It smiles

too m uch , this says th a t it could be brought closer to some

ideal

,

not that it is not yet agreeable enough, and that to

bring it closer to th e de al in question would be more like

solving a mathematical problem . Similarly, he said, when

a painter tries to improve his picture, he is not making a psy-

chological experiment on himself, .and th a t to say of a door It

is top-heavy is to say what is wrong with it, rt t what impression


20/28


21/28

2 G. E. MOORE

mistake to suppose that why, e g th e account of th e Beltane

Festival impresses us so much s because i t has developed

from a festival in which a real man was

burnt . He accused

Frazer of thinking th a t this was th e reason. H e said th a t our

puzzlement as to why i t impresses us is not diminished by giving

the

c uses from which the festival arose, but is diminished by

finding other similar festivals : to find these may make it seem

na tur al , whereas to g iv e' th e causes from which i t arose

cannot do this. I n this respect he said th a t th e question W hy

does thi s impress us s like th e aesthetic questions W hy is

this beautiful or W hy will this bass not do

H e said th a t Darwin, in his expression of th e Em otions ,

made a mistake similar to Frazer's,

e g

in thinking th a t because

our ancestors, when angry, wanted to b it e is a sufficient

explanation of why we show our teeth when angry . H e said

you might say that what is satisfactory in Darwin is not such

hypotheses , but his pu ttin g the facts in a system

helping us t o make a synopsis of them.

As for Freud, he gave th e greater par t of two lectures to Freud's

investiga tion of the nature of a oke (W itz), which he said

was a n aesthetic investigation . He said that Freud's book

on thi s sub ject was a very good book for looking for philosophical

mistakes, an d th a t th e same was tr ue of his writings in general,

because there are so many cases in which one can ask how far

what he says is a hypothesis an d how far merely a good way

of representing a fact-a question as t o which he said Fre ud

himself is constantly unclear. H e said, for instance, t h a t Freud

encouraged a confusion between getting to know the

c use

of

your laughter and getting to know the

re son

why you laugh,

because what he says sounds as if i t were science, when in fact

i t is only a wonderful representation

.

This last point he

also expressed by saying It is all excellent similes, e g the

comparison of a dream to a rebus . (He had said earlier that

all Aesthetics is of th e na ture of giving a good simile

.)

He

said th a t th is confusion between

muse

and

re son

had led to th e

disciples of Freud making a n abominable mess th a t Freu d

did no t in fact give an y method of analysing d reams which was

analogous to t h e rules which will tell you what ar e th e causes of

stomach-ache

;

that he had genius and therefore might some-

times by psycho-analysis find the re son of a certain dream , but

that what is most striking about

him

is th e enormous field of

psychical facts which he arranges .

As for what Freu d says about jokes, he said f i s t th a t Freud

makes th e two mistakes

(1)

of supposing th a t there is something


22/28

common to all jokes, and

2)

of supposing that this supposed

common characte r is th e meaning of joke . H e said i t is not

true, a s Freud supposed, th a t

all

jokes enable you to do covertly

wha t it would not be seemly to do openly, bu t th a t jok e

,

like proposition , has a rainbow of meanings

.

But

I

think

the point on which he was most anxious to insist was perhaps

th a t psycho-analysis does not enable you t o discover t h e

cause

bu t only th e

reason

of,

e g

laughter. I n support of thi s statem ent

he asserted th a t a psycho-analysis is successful only if th e patient

agrees to th e explanation offered by th e analyst. H e said there

is nothin g analogous to thi s in Physics

;

and tha t what a patient

agrees to can 't be a hypothesis as to th e cause of his laugh ter,

but only that so-and-so was the

reason

why he laughed. H e

explained th a t th e patient who agrees did not thin k of thi s

reason a t the m oment when he laughed, and th at to say tha t he

thought of it subconsciously tells you nothing as t o wh at

was happening a t th e m oment when he laughed .

I?) I n ( I) , rather t o m y surprise, he spent a good deal of tim e

in discussing what would usually be called a question about

colours, namely, th e question how th e four satu rated colours,

pure yellow, pure red, pure blue and pu re green, which he called

primary , are distinguished from those saturated colours

which are no t primary . H e drew a circle on th e blackboard

to represent th e arrangem ent of th e saturated colouxs, with a

vertical diameter joining yellow a t th e to p to blue a t

th e bottom, an d a horizontal diameter joining green on th e

left to red on th e right. And he seemed to be maintaining

with regard to these four colours that they are distinguished

from the other saturated colours in the two following ways,

viz 1) th at th e sense in which any purple is between pure

red and pure blue, an d in which any orange is between pure

yellow an d pure red is very different from th e sense of between

in which pure red is between any orange an d any purple ; a

difference which he also expressed by saying that whereas an

orange can be properly called a mixture of yellow and red,

red cannot possibly be called a mixture of orange an d purple ;

and

(2)

th a t whereas pure red can be properly said to be mid-

way between pure yellow and pure blue, the re is no colour

which is midway between pure red an d pure blue, or mid-

way between pure yellow an d pure red, etc. H e said th a t, for

these reasons, th e arrangement of th e saturated colours in a

square, with th e four primaries a t th e four corners, is a better

picture of their relations than th e arrangement of th em -in a circle.


23/28

22

G.

E M O O R E :

I say only th a t he seemed to be making these assertions, because

he emphasized from th e beginning th a t primary is not a n

adjective to colour

"

in th'e sense in which black

"

may be

a n adjective to gown

",

but that the distinction between

primary and not primary

"

is a " logical distinction-an

expression which he explained later on by saying that, just as

sounds are not distinguished from colours by the fach that

som ething is true of th e one Which is no t tr ue of th e other, so

red, blue, green and yellow are no t distinguished from th e other

saturated colours by th e fact th a t a nything is tru e of them which

is not tru e of th e others. H e emphasized to begin with tha t the

sentences blue is not primary " an d violet is primary ar e

bo th of them nonsense

",

and

I

think there is no do ubt he held

th a t, since this is so, their contradictories blue is prim ary

an d violet is not primary are also nonsense, though there is

a sense in which th e two last are true, an d th e two former false.

I n other words,

I

think he certainly held th a t blue is primary "

is a " necessary proposition --that we can 't imagine its no t

being true-and th a t therefore, as he said (p. 16), i t ha s no

sense

.

It would seem to follow that if, as he seemed to be, he

was really talking about the coburs, red, blue, green and yellow,

all th a t he said abo ut the m was nonsense . According to

what he said elsewhere, he could only have been talking sense,

if he was talking, no t about t h e colours, bu t abou t certain words

used to express them

;

and accordingly he did actually go on

to say th at red is primary

"

was only a proposition about the

use of th e English word r e d

",

which, as

I

said (p. 311), he

,

cannot seriously have held.

The question a m here raising is

the question which

I

discussed at length in my second article,

and have nothing to add except to give one quotation which

I

ought to have given there. H e actually said, in one place in

(11), W hat corresponds to a necessity in th e world must be

what in language seems an arbitrary rule . do not think

he had succeeded in getting quite clear as to what relation he

wished to a ssert to hold between wh at he called ru les of

grammar ", on the one hand, and necessary propositions ", on

th e other.

(G) With questions about Time he dealt, at considerable

length, in two places in (111).

The earlier discussion was in connexion with his view t h a t t h e

troubles in our thou ght which he was concerned to remove,

arise from our thinking th a t sentences which we do not use with

an y practical oljject, sound as if th ey ought to hav e sense ",


24/28

when in fact they have none.

And in this connexion his main

point seemed to be th a t, since we ta lk of Time flowing as

well as of a river flowing , we are tempted to think th at Time

flows in a certain direc tion

,

as a river does, and that

therefore it has sense to suppose that Time might flow in the

opposite direction, just as it certainly has sense to suppose th a t

a river might.

H e said, in , one place, th a t some philosophers

have actually made th e muddle of thinking th a t T ime has a

direc tion which migh t conceivably be reversed. La ter on

he made a distinction, as to th e meaning of which a m no t clear,

between what he called memory-time an d wha t he called

information-time , saying that in the former there is only

earlier and later, not past and future, and that it has sense to

say th a t remember th a t which in nformation-time is

futu re. This distinction seemed to be connected with one he

had made earlier, when he said that, if we imagine

a

river with

logs floating down it a t equal spatia l distances from one another,

th e interval between the time a t which, e g th e 120th log passed

us and that at which, e g the 130th passed, might seem to be

equal to that between the time at which the 130th passed us

and that at which the 140th passed us, although,

measured

by

a

clock, these intervals were no t equal. H e went on to

ask

:

Supposing all events had come to a n end, what is th e criterion

for saying th a t Time would have come to a n end too, or th a t i t

still went on an d to ask

f

there were no events earlier

th an a hundred years ago, would there have been no time before

th a t H e said th at what we need to do is to notice how we

use th e expression Time

;

and th at people ask H as Time

been created although th e question H as before ' been

created has absolutely no meaning.

B ut he said a good ma ny things in this discussion which hav e

failed to understand, an d may easily hav e omitted points which

he w ould have considered of th e first importance.

I n his second discussion he was tryin g to show w hat was wrong

with th e following statem ent which Russell made in his Outline

of Philosophy

:

Remembering, which occurs now, can not

possibly prove that what is remembered occurred at some other

time, because the world might have sprung into being five

minutes ago, full of ac ts of remembering which were entirely

misleading. B ut cannot help thinking th at , in what he said

abou t this stateme nt, he m ade two q uite definite mistakes as to

wh at Russell was implying by it. I n order to explain why

think so must, however, f i s t explain what take i t th at

Russell was implying.


25/28

24

G

E. MOORE

:

t will be noted that Russell speaks as if " acts of remem-

bering could be entirely misleading

;

and he seems not to

have noticed th a t we so use th e term remember th at if a n

act, which resembles an ac t of remembering, tu rn s ou t to be

entirely misleading, we say th a t i t was no t a n ac t of remembering.

For instance

I

remember that

I

had breakfast this morning

is so used tha t, if it turns out th a t I did not have breaH ast this

morning, i t follows logically th a t I do not remember that I did :

from I remember that I had i t t follows logically th a t I did

have it, so th a t acts of remembering, which are entirely mis-

leading is a contradiction in terms ; if an act is entirely

misleading, i t is no t a n a ct of remembering.

It

is plain, therefore,

th a t Russell was using th e expression acts of remembering

in a different sense from a ny i n which it can be correctly used

;

an d his view could be m ore correctly expressed as th e view th a t

,

it is logically possible that we never remember anything. I say

logically possible , because when he says t h e world might

have sprung into being five minutes ago ",

I

think he certainly

means by migh t ", merely t h a t i t is logically possible th a t i t did.

Now W ittgenstein pointed ou t, quite justly, th a t when Russell

says " The world might have sprung into being five minutes

ago his choice of five minutes ago as th e tim e when th e

world might have

"

sprung into being is arbitrary

:

Russell's

view requires th a t i t is equally tru e th at it might have sprung

into being two minutes ago or one minute ago, or, says Witt-

genstein, th a t it might have begun to exist now: he actually

said t h a t Russell ought to have said The world migh t have been

created now ". And

I

think it is true that Russell does imply

. .

this. B ut W ittgenstein said th at in th e statement quoted,

Russell was " com mitting th e precise fallacy of Idealism .

And surely this is a complete mistake

Prom what I have

quoted (p. 15) it appears clear th a t what W ittgenstein regarded

'

as th e fallacy of Idealism was some such statement as It

is logicadly impossible th a t an yth ing should be real excep t th e

present experience . And Russell's statement certainly does

not imply this. It looks to me a s if, for th e mom ent, W ittgen-

stein was confusing the two entirely different propositions,

1) It is logically possible th a t noth ing exists except t he present

experience which Russell may be said to imply, an d

(2)

"

It

is

logically impossible th a t anythin.g should exist except t he present

experience ", which he certainly does not imply.

Bu t i t seems to me tk a t he also made another complete mistake

as to what Russell's view implied ; and this was a criticism into

which he went a t some length. H e began by asking us to


26/28

WITTGENSTEIN S LECTURES I N

1930-33

25

consider th e question W ha t is th e veriiication for th e pro-

position ' The world began to exist.five minu tes ago ' ? saying

that, if you admit no criterion for its truth, that sentence is

useless

,

or, as he afterwards said, meaningless

.

And his

criticism of Russell here consisted in saying th a t Russell is

refusing to admit as evidence for 'the world began more than

five minutes ago ' what we all admit as such evidence, and is

therefore making that statement meaningless . He compared

Russell's statem ent to th e statem ent There is a rabb it between

A and

B,

whenever nobody is looking which he said seems

to have sense, but is in fact meaningless, because it cannot be

refuted by experience . But surely Russell would admit and

can perfectly consistently adm it, th a t som e of those events,

which he calls incorrectly ac ts of remem bering do constitute

very strong evidence that the world existed more than five

minutes ago. H e is no t concerned to deny tha t they constitute

strong

evidence, bu t only t h a t th ey constitute

absolutely conclusive

evidence-that the y prove h a t i t did. I n other words, he

is only asserting that it is

logically possible

that the world did

no t. W ittgenstein seems to me to have overlooked th e dis-

tinction between denying that we have a n y evidence which

Russell does not do, and denying that we have

absolutely con

clusive evidence, which

I

think Russell certainly meant to do.

But later on Wittgenstein seemed to me to be suggesting

another qu ite different argum ent, which, if he did mean what

he seemed to m ean, an d if wh at he seemed to mean is true,

would really be a valid refutation of Russell's statem ent . H e

introduced again th e phrase memory-time

,

saying that a

certain order of events might be so called, an d then going on to

say th at all these events approach a point such th a t it will

have no sense to say ' B

occurred after the present in memory-

time ' th a t now should be a point in a n order and

th a t when we say The clock is striking now , now means

I

the present of our memory-time , and cannot mean,

e.g.

a t

6.7

because it has sense to say It is

6.7

now .

I think

all this suggests t h a t his view was th a t now , in th e sense in

which we commonly use it, an d in which Russell was undoubtedly

using it, has a m eaning such th a t pa rt of wh at we are saying

when we say th at a n event is happening now

,

is th at i t was

preceded by o ther events which we remember ; an d, if this is true,

it would certainly follow that Russell was wrong in implying

t h a t i t is logically possible t h a t nothing should ha ve happened

before now.


27/28

26 G. E. MOORE

:

( H )

I

was a good deal surprised by some of th e thing s he said

abo ut th e difference between "philosophy in th e sense in

which what he was doing migh t be called "philosophy (he

called this modern philosophy

),

and what has traditionally

been called "philosophy

.

He said that what he waa doing

was a I new subject

,

and not merely a stage in a continuous

development ; th a t the re was now, in philosophy, a kink

in th e "developmen t of hunian thought , comparable to that

which occurred when Galileo and his contemporaries invented

dynamics ; th a t a new method had been discovered, as had

happened when chem istry was developed out of a lchem y ;

and th at i t was now possible for the b s t t ime th at there should

be skilfu l" philosophers, though of course there had in th e

pas t been great philosophers.

He went on to say that, though philosophy had now been

reduced to a matter of skill , yet this skill, like other skills,

is very difficult to acquire. One difficulty was th a t i t required

a sort of thinking to which we are no t accustomed an d to

which we have no t been trained-a so rt of think ing ve ry different

from what is required in th e sciences. And he said th at t h e

required skill could not be acquired merely by hearing lectures :

discussion was essential. As regards his own work, he said it

did not matter whether his results were true or not : what

mattered was th a t a method had been found ".

I n answer to th e question why this new subject should be

called philosophy he said in (111)that though what he was

.

doing was certainly different from what,

e g

Plato or Berkeley

had done, yet people might feel that it "takes the place of

wh at th ey had done-might be inclined to say "T his is wh at

I

really wanted an d to identify it with what the y had done,

thou gh i t is really different, just as (as I said above, p. 9) a

person who had been trying to trisect an angle by rule and

compasses might, w hen shown th e proof th a t th is is impossible,

be inclined to say th a t th is impossible thing was th e very thing

he had been trying to do, though w hat he had been tryin g to do

was really different. B ut in (11) he had also said th a t th e new

subject did really resemble what had been traditionally called

philosophy n th e three respects th a t

(1)

i t was very general,

(2) it was fundamental both to ordinary life and to th e sciences,

and 3) i t was independent of any special results of science th a t

therefore th e application to i t of th e word "philosophy was

not purely arbitrary.

H e did not expressly tr y to tell us exactly what the new

method which had been found was. But he gave some hin ts


28/28

, WITTGENSTEIN S LECTURES IN

1930-33 27

as to its nature. H e said, in (11), th a t th e new subject

consisted in something like pu ttin g in order our notions as to

what can be said about the world , and compared this to the

tidying up of a room where you have to m ove th e same object

several times before you can get th e room really tidy. H e said

also th a t we were in a muddle abou t things

,

which we had

to t ry to clear up ; t h a t we had t o follow a certain instinct which

leads us to ask ce rtain questions, though we don't even understand

what these questions mean

;

that our asking them results from

L

a vague mental uneasiness , like that which leads children to

ask Why 2 ; and that this uneasiness can only be cured

either by showing that a particular question is not permitted,

or by answering it

.

He also said that he was not trying to

teach us any new facts

:

th a t he would only tell us trivi al )

things- things which we all know already

;

but tha t the

difficult thing was to get a sy n o p ~ is of these trivialities, and

t h a t our intellectual discomfort can only be removed by a

synopsis of m ny trivialities-that if we leave ou t an y, we still

have th e feeling th a t something is wrong . I n this connexion

he said it was misleading to say that what we wanted was an

c

analysis , since

in

science to analyse wa ter means to

discover some new fact about it, e.g. that it is composed of

oxygen an d hydrogen, whereas in philosophy we know a t th e

sta rt all the facts we need t o know . I imagine tha t i t was in

th is respect of needing a synopsis of trivialities th a t he tho ught

that philosophy was similar to Ethics and Aesthetics (p. 19).

I ought, perhaps, &ally to repeat what said in my first

article (pp. 5-6 , namely, th at he held th at though th e ne w

subject must say a great deal abo ut language, i t was only

necessary for it to deal with those points about language which

have led, or are likely to lead, to definite philosophical puzzles

or errors. I think he certainly though t t h at some philosophers

now-a-days have been misled into dealing with linguistic points

which have no such bearing, and the discussion of which

therefore, in his view, forms no part of t h e proper business of a

philosopher.

Documents

[Moore G E] Wittgenstein's Lectures in 1930-33 (3)(BookZZ.org)