The Struggle Against Solipsism
”Finite players play
within boundaries; infinite players play with boundaries.”—James P. Carse, “Finite and Infinite Games,” p.
10.
The critique of solipsism was one of Wittgenstein’s goals in writing the Tractatus by showing the limits of language just as Kant demonstrated the limits of Reason in The Critique of Pure Reason. For Wittgenstein language is only meaningful when connected to the world of empirical facts, just as for Kant we can only know the world of experience through the categorical lens of space and time. Both philosophers critiqued solipsism as a symptom of overly reductionist philosophies.
“The solipsist’s predicament is that, when he denies the existence of
everything except himself and the world of his own experiences, he is unable to
point to what it is that, according to him, does not exist, because it lies
outside his world…he is like a man who carefully constructs a clock, and then
attaches the dial to the hour hand so that they both go round together. There
is no contrast with anything outside his world…( Ludwig Wittgenstein by
David Pears, (Penguin),(1970), p.74).”
Wittgenstein in showing the limits of factual discourse faced the same problem except he cannot say whether a named object exists or not exist because their names are only names-- the objects are the meaning of a name. So he faces the same boundary as the solipsist: he is unable to name objects that do not exist.
“…only certain things exist, but that they exist is something that cannot be said. It can only be shown, and the solipsist’s mistake is to express it in a factual proposition…. [The Subject, or observer] is only a metaphysical subject, which is a kind of focal vanishing point behind the mirror and what the mirror reflects. So the only thing that he [Wittgenstein] can legitimately say is that what is reflected in the mirror is reflected in the mirror…but this is…only a tautology. It means only that whatever objects exist exist. So when solipsism is worked out, it becomes clear that there is no difference between it and realism (Ibid., p. 74)."
1. The world is all that is the case.—Wittgenstein (Tractatus)(pdf.)
(∀x)Wx
“For all x, x is the world.” I think this notation captures Wittgenstein’s meaning, but this proposition could be stated in another way just as it could be stated in ordinary language. For example proposition “1” could be symbolized as (x)(Wx ⊃ Cx). However, the actual case could also be the “world,” so that the expression could be propositionally stated as the following:
(x∀)[(Wx ⊃ Cx)] ⊃ (x∀)[(Cx ⊃ Wx)]
But is the predicate nominal “W
= is the world,” just another object, or is it a constructed
unity of relations? In other words, the capital letter “W” (the
predicate, or property constant used in Predicate Logic) is being used to
denote both relational and non-relational properties. “All that is the case”
include relations. Wittgenstein said, "Situations can be described but not
given names." (3.144). Therefore, since a relation cannot be named,
it cannot be an object. There are other propositions in the Tractatus
that builds states of affairs from the concepts of Objects, states of affairs,
and facts (2.01-2.0141), see Wittgenstein On
Objects. However, he must have other propositions about states
of affairs and facts because the one proposition “The world is all that is the
case,” is inadequate in itself.
“...the conjunction (conjunctio) of a manifold in intuition [the many kinds of sense experiences] never can be given us by the senses; it cannot therefore be contained in the pure form of sensuous intuition, for it is a spontaneous act of the faculty of representation [of the self].”—Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, p. 94)(pdf.).
How would the logical expression be written to imply that “the world” is a
constructed unity of relations? The logician would say that the expression “for
all x,” or (x∀) means whatever it can be expanded or quantified to—a very long
conjunction of “ands”, (Wa and Wb) and (Wc and Wd) and (We and Wf), and so on.
This task would only be possible if 1.) There were a finite number
of entities in the real universe. 2.) We had a name for every
entity in the real universe. However, the real world has a non-finite
number of entities so such as long conjunctions of “ands” would be impossible
to complete.
Take for example the proposition “Every Even Number is Divisible by 2.” Writing out the conjunction would be an endless chain of “ands” (symbolized with * asterisk), as in the proposition, [(N1 * N2 * N3….) * (E0 * E2 * E4….)]. The universal quantifier (∀x) “for all x” is necessarily exclusive so that we can only symbolize the even number proposition as the following:
(∀x)[(Nx *
Ex) ⊃ Dx]
"Every even number
is divisible by two.”
Sometimes symbolic logic is so minimalist, and so simple that it is difficult to comprehend. A problem of logical symbolization translates into metaphysics as the problem of solipsism. The symbols of logic can only operate in a finite world of entities; those entities that we can name, and yet this is an operationally impossible task due to computational explosion. What is the name of that which we cannot name? "Noumenon” from ancient Greek νοούμενoν means "something that is thought," or "the object of an act of thought." The shorthand of language and logic excludes much of what we call the world due to reductionist tendencies of symbolic systems. Kant names this existential residuum the thing-in-itself, or Noumenon. Kant is using the term noumenon to mean that the thing-in-itself cannot be known in principle, and not as an object yet undiscovered. Solipsism insists that only one’s own experiences are real, and the appearances, or phenomena represent the whole of the reality, i.e., of what is the case.
"5.64 Here it can be seen that solipsism, when its implications are
followed out strictly, coincides with pure realism. The self of solipsism
shrinks to a point without extension, and there remains the reality coordinated
with it.
5.641 Thus there really is a sense in which philosophy can talk about the self in a non-psychological way. What brings the self into philosophy is the fact that 'the world is my world'. The philosophical self is not the human being, not the human body, or the human soul, with which psychology deals, but rather the metaphysical subject, the limit of the world--not a part of it (Tractatus)."
