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Why did Wittgenstein come to call the propositions of his Tractatus "senseless" (6. 54)? The conclusions and final philosophical position of Wittgenstein's Tractatus undermine and deny the possibility of his methods and objectives. Namely he concludes that metaphysical conjecture and the attempt to answer unanswerable questions is senseless. Since the Tractatus throughout posits solutions to the questions of reality, the meaningfulness of language and the possibility of human knowledge it has to all intents contradicted itself and rendered itself a senseless philosophical aberration. This is not to say however that it has become useless or invalid as a philosophical investigation. The aim of the Tractatus is to show "the only strictly correct method" of philosophy, which conversely destroys the orthodox remit of philosophy.
As many of his contemporaries believed, Wittgenstein saw philosophy as been cluttered by a jumble of groundless metaphysical constructs, entities proposed to exist only to provide a foundation for various theories. The logical positivists, the Vienna Circle and an assortment of schools of philosophical thought saw these as the main stumbling block to obtaining the progress of philosophy. Wittgenstein uses the Tractatus to eliminate these entities from philosophy by showing that their creation is illegitimate and senseless. This is underlying intention and reason why he comes to make this claim (6. 54). We must also understand the strategic reason why he does this, how this claim is used to develop an instructive picture of his method. Finally as we shall see although this conclusion is reached to undermine metaphysical philosophical investigation it is vital to the coherence and the credibility of the final step (denying the validity of this type of metaphysical method) that the logical processes of the Tractatus are valid.
Why within the context of the Tractatus's investigation is Wittgenstein led to this denial and how does it technically fit into what he has said? Wittgenstein compares the Tractatus to a ladder that must be climbed, only to be thrown away once it is used. The Tractatus is supposed to show us the error of traditional forms of philosophical enquiry and provide an example of how if philosophical problems are addressed in the correct, rigorous manner they are not solved but dissolved. This is the motivation and the object of such a statement. It is vital to understand what Wittgenstein is trying to achieve and to understand the larger vision of what is being shown. Once this understanding is reached such a preposterous claim as 6. 54 can make perfect sense.
Of course whether this project was a success or not or whether it is even comprehensible is open to debate, but we must understand how Wittgenstein comes to this conclusion in such a way as to prove what he claims to be unprovable. There is a symmetry and form to the Tractatus which is not coincidence. Each elucidation relates to others in such a way that the work is best viewed as an organic whole, not a progressive argument that uses certain premises to argue from a basis towards a conclusion. Wittgenstein is not a foundation alist philosopher establishing arguments and assertions on which to construct a system or theory. Wittgenstein's objectives are implicit in every elucidation (or at least collection of elucidations). Wittgenstein does not attempt to develop a concrete argument to demark the limits of philosophy, knowledge and what we may speak of.
Instead he demonstrates through the description of logical theory of representation how these boundaries are overstepped and hence where they lie. This aptly mirrors the essence one of Wittgenstein's central ideas, that the form of representation (the way logical form is shared between representation and what is represented) cannot be described or said but only shown. Wittgenstein is trying to show that we cannot talk of what we cannot know and that to do so is senseless. Realising that it is self-contradictory to attempt to prove this he instead shows it. Wittgenstein does not as such come to the view that all the propositions of the Tractatus are senseless but rather leads us there progressively; the idea that the propositions are senseless is however there throughout, an inherent part of the work. It is stated explicitly at the end to clarify what has been inbuilt all along and to tie the project together.
The circularity of the Tractatus is entirely deliberate, Wittgenstein begins by stating that "The world is everything that is the case" and his penultimate proposition is the one that is at hand claiming the senselessness of all that has been written. He starts by stating what can be said and after 70 pages or so of elucidation returns to this by stating what cannot sensibly be said- namely anything that is not the world and hence not the case, i. e. the contents of the Tractatus. Was the Tractatus to contemplate any other question of philosophy it would fail to say anything with any guarantee or certainty. To be entirely accurate it does fail to say anything with any guarantee and in doing so proves it's initial premise.
To dismiss his own work as senseless may first seem strange but when seen in this light, as an integral part of a demonstration in a work that consists of interrelated and interdependent facts, it becomes coherent. I would venture though that his last remark, matrix 7, the only matrix to stand alone, is a different case. The reason it has no elucidation is precisely because it is an evident fact (in the view of Wittgenstein) that we cannot speak of what we cannot know. To elucidate further would be to explore into the realms of metaphysics, to vainly attempt to discover something of which we cannot speak and to find the unfathomable reasons for this. To do so would be to step into the realm of what Kant describes (and dismisses) as "transcendental reality" the impossible position of viewing the world from without in an overview that is distinct from ones own point of perception. As it was to Kant (albeit for different read...
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Research essay sample on Philosophical Investigation 6 54 Wittgenstein
