Deck 25: The Pragmatists: Thought and Action

Question 1

Russell's theory of definite descriptions

A) explains the logic of phrases having the form "a
So-and-so."
B) assimilates the logic of definite descriptions to the logic of names.
C) assumes that definite descriptions have meaning only in the context of a sentence.
D) shows that definite descriptions are either true or false.

Answer 1

assumes that definite descriptions have meaning only in the context of a sentence.

Question 2

In Wittgenstein's Tractatus, every picture is taken to be

A) a fact.
B) made up of elementary sentences "glued together" by logical words.
C) a tautology.
D) a picture of a fact.

Answer 2

a fact.

Question 3

The world, according to the Tractatus, is

A) a very complex thing.
B) all the possible states of affairs.
C) what would be pictured in the totality of true propositions.
D) unknowable.

Answer 3

what would be pictured in the totality of true propositions.

Question 4

Language, in the Tractatus view,

A) is composed partly of sense and partly of nonsense.
B) says nothing, but shows itself.
C) is obscure and needs to be reformed in the direction of an ideal language.
D) is, in the last analysis, composed of names in relation.

Question 5

Tautologies, Wittgenstein tells us,

A) can be known to be true a priori.
B) are pictures of very peculiar facts.
C) show nothing.
D) are sometimes true and sometimes false, and you need a truth table to tell you when one is the case and when the other is.

Question 6

Wittgenstein's main aim in the Tractatus is to

A) explain the nature of language.
B) give an account of how natural science is a priori knowable.
C) set a limit to thought.
D) make accessible the results of the new logic.

Question 7

About the part of the Tractatus that Wittgenstein did not write, he said that

A) it is composed of nonsense.
B) it is the more important part.
C) it deals with that part of natural science that remains to be discovered.
D) he would write that part in a subsequent volume.

Question 8

Which of these sentences can not be found in the Tractatus?

A) "All propositions are of equal value."
B) "It is necessary for there to be propositions of ethics."
C) "The world is independent of my will."
D) "The world of the happy man is a different one from that of the unhappy man."

Question 9

About the meaning of life, Wittgenstein holds that

A) only science can help us here.
B) language has so far been inadequate to the task of expressing it, but there is hope that it may be developed so as to solve the riddle.
C) the riddle can be answered in the clear words of the Tractatus.
D) the solution lies in the vanishing of the problem.

Question 10

About philosophy, Wittgenstein tells us:

A) its task is to tell us the truth about ourselves.
B) it is not an activity, but a body of doctrine.
C) it aims at clarity.
D) when properly understood, it can be seen to be identical with science.

Question 11

According to the verifiability criterion of factual meaningfulness,

A) propositions about God must be verifiable, since they deal with a factual question.
B) the meaning of an ethical proposition consists in its conditions of verifiability.
C) the criterion is itself verifiable.
D) nothing unverifiable can be meaningful.

Question 12

Logical positivists

A) tend to take the "objects" of the Tractatus to be sense data.
B) agree with Wittgenstein about the importance of the mystical.
C) agree with Wittgenstein that ethical propositions express the feelings or sentiments of an individual.
D) admit they are talking nonsense when they set out the conditions of meaningful language.

Question 13

Sketch (in a general way, without all the details) how Russell's theory of definite descriptions can dispel confusion foisted upon us by misleading features of our language.

Question 14

Why couldn't the "important" part of the Tractatus be written?

Question 15

In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein held that a proposition is a picture. Explain this.

Question 16

In Wittgenstein's Tractatus, propositions are thought of as pictures. Very briefly,
a. What do propositions picture?
b. What do tautologies picture?
c. What do true propositions picture?
d. Can one elementary proposition entail another?

Question 17

What is the world, according to the early views of Wittgenstein?

Question 18

Why do tautologies and contradictions "say nothing"? What do they do?

Question 19

How is the limit to thought set?

Question 20

Is the philosophical self of the Tractatus more like Hume's fictional self or Kant's noumenal self? Explain.

Question 21

What is the task of philosophy, according to the early Wittgenstein? What is its correct method? Explain the ladder analogy.

Question 22

Explain the verifiability criterion of meaningfulness and its consequences for ethics.

Question 23

What problems does the verifiability criterion run into?

Question 24

Contrast the view of value found in the pragmatists--for instance, in John Dewey's thought--with that in Wittgenstein's Tractatus.

Question 25

Compare the solution given for the problem about the meaning of life in Wittgenstein's Tractatus with Nietzsche's solution in terms of the Overman and eternal recurrence.

Question 26

Compare Wittgenstein on the nature of value with the positivist's account of value judgments. Are there similarities? What are the differences?
Essential