Lukacs vs. Early Wittgenstein Grudge Match/Mash Up
eW:
1. The world is all that is the case.
1.1 The world is the totality of facts, not of things.
GL: The question then becomes: are the empirical facts - (it is immaterial whether they are purely ‘sensuous’ or whether their sensuousness is only the ultimate material substratum of their ‘factual’ essence) - to be taken as ‘given’ or can this ‘givenness’ be dissolved further into rational forms, i.e. can it be conceived as the product of ‘our’ reason?
Kant himself had already turned the problem explicitly in this direction. He repeatedly emphasises that pure reason is unable to make the least leap towards the synthesis and the definition of an object and so its principles cannot be deduced "directly from concepts but only indirectly by relating these concepts to something wholly contingent, namely possible experience."
eW: 2.012 In logic nothing is accidental: if a thing can occur in a state of affairs, the possibility of the state of affairs must be written into the thing itself.
2.0123 If I know an object I also know all its possible occurrences in states of affairs. (Every one of these possibilities must be part of the nature of the object.) A new possibility cannot be discovered later.
GL: The attempt to universalise rationalism necessarily issues in the demand for a system but, at the same time, as soon as one reflects upon the conditions in which a universal system is possible, i.e. as soon as the question of the system is consciously posed, it is seen that such a demand is incapable of fulfilment. For a system in the sense given to it by rationalism - and any other system would be self-contradictory - can bear no meaning other than that of a co-ordination, or rather a supra- and subordination of the various partial systems of forms (and within these, of the individual forms). The connections between them must always be thought of as ‘necessary’, i.e. as visible in or ‘created ‘by the forms themselves, or at least by the principle according to which forms are constructed.
eW: 2.014 Objects contain the possibility of all situations.
2.0141 The possibility of its occurring in states of affairs is the form of an object.
2.022 It is obvious that an imagined world, however difference it may be from the real one, must have something--a form--in common with it.
2.023 Objects are just what constitute this unalterable form.
GL: This notion of system makes it clear why pure and applied mathematics have constantly been held up as the methodological model and guide for modern philosophy. For the way in which their axioms are related to the partial systems and results deduced from them corresponds exactly to the postulate that systematic rationalism sets itself, the postulate, namely, that every given aspect of the system should be capable of being deduced from its basic principle, that it should be exactly predictable and calculable.
It is evident that the principle of systematisation is not reconcilable with the recognition of any ‘facticity’, of a ‘content’ which in principle cannot be deduced from the principle of form and which, therefore, has simply to be accepted as actuality.
eW: 2.021 Objects make up the substance of the world.
2.0233 If two objects have the same logical form, the only distinction between them, apart from their external properties, is that they are different.
2.02331 Either a thing has properties that nothing else has, in which case we can immediately use a description to distinguish it from the others and refer to it; or, on the other hand, there are several things that have the whole set of their properties in common, in which case it is quite impossible to indicate one of them. For it there is nothing to distinguish a thing, I cannot distinguish it, since otherwise it would be distinguished after all.
2.024 The substance is what subsists independently of what is the case.
2.025 It is form and content.
GL: The ‘irrational’ content is to be wholly integrated into the conceptual system, i.e. this is to be so constructed that it can be coherently applied to everything just as if there were no irrational content or actuality? In this event thought regresses to the level of a naïve, dogmatic rationalism: somehow it regards the mere actuality of the irrational contents of the concepts as nonexistent.
eW: 2.0231 The substance of the world can only determine a form, and not any material properties.
2.0271 Objects are what is unalterable and subsistent; their configuration is what is changing and unstable.
2.0272 The configuration of objects produces states of affairs.
2.06 The existence and non-existence of states of affairs is reality. (We call the existence of states of affairs a positive fact, and their non-existence a negative fact.)
2.1 We picture facts to ourselves.
2.11 A picture presents a situation in logical space, the existence and non-existence of states of affairs.
2.2 A picture has logico-pictorial form in common with what it depicts.
2.203 A picture agrees with reality or fails to agree; it is correct or incorrect, true or false.
2.222 The agreement or disagreement or its sense with reality constitutes its truth or falsity.
2.223 In order to tell whether a picture is true or false we must compare it with reality.
2.224 It is impossible to tell from the picture alone whether it is true or false.
2.225 There are no pictures that are true a priori.
GL: In that case the system must be abandoned as a system. For then it will be no more than a register, an account, as well ordered as possible, of facts which are no longer linked rationally and so can no longer be made systematic even though the forms of their components are themselves rational.
1.1 The world is the totality of facts, not of things.
GL: The question then becomes: are the empirical facts - (it is immaterial whether they are purely ‘sensuous’ or whether their sensuousness is only the ultimate material substratum of their ‘factual’ essence) - to be taken as ‘given’ or can this ‘givenness’ be dissolved further into rational forms, i.e. can it be conceived as the product of ‘our’ reason?
Kant himself had already turned the problem explicitly in this direction. He repeatedly emphasises that pure reason is unable to make the least leap towards the synthesis and the definition of an object and so its principles cannot be deduced "directly from concepts but only indirectly by relating these concepts to something wholly contingent, namely possible experience."
eW: 2.012 In logic nothing is accidental: if a thing can occur in a state of affairs, the possibility of the state of affairs must be written into the thing itself.
2.0123 If I know an object I also know all its possible occurrences in states of affairs. (Every one of these possibilities must be part of the nature of the object.) A new possibility cannot be discovered later.
GL: The attempt to universalise rationalism necessarily issues in the demand for a system but, at the same time, as soon as one reflects upon the conditions in which a universal system is possible, i.e. as soon as the question of the system is consciously posed, it is seen that such a demand is incapable of fulfilment. For a system in the sense given to it by rationalism - and any other system would be self-contradictory - can bear no meaning other than that of a co-ordination, or rather a supra- and subordination of the various partial systems of forms (and within these, of the individual forms). The connections between them must always be thought of as ‘necessary’, i.e. as visible in or ‘created ‘by the forms themselves, or at least by the principle according to which forms are constructed.
eW: 2.014 Objects contain the possibility of all situations.
2.0141 The possibility of its occurring in states of affairs is the form of an object.
2.022 It is obvious that an imagined world, however difference it may be from the real one, must have something--a form--in common with it.
2.023 Objects are just what constitute this unalterable form.
GL: This notion of system makes it clear why pure and applied mathematics have constantly been held up as the methodological model and guide for modern philosophy. For the way in which their axioms are related to the partial systems and results deduced from them corresponds exactly to the postulate that systematic rationalism sets itself, the postulate, namely, that every given aspect of the system should be capable of being deduced from its basic principle, that it should be exactly predictable and calculable.
It is evident that the principle of systematisation is not reconcilable with the recognition of any ‘facticity’, of a ‘content’ which in principle cannot be deduced from the principle of form and which, therefore, has simply to be accepted as actuality.
eW: 2.021 Objects make up the substance of the world.
2.0233 If two objects have the same logical form, the only distinction between them, apart from their external properties, is that they are different.
2.02331 Either a thing has properties that nothing else has, in which case we can immediately use a description to distinguish it from the others and refer to it; or, on the other hand, there are several things that have the whole set of their properties in common, in which case it is quite impossible to indicate one of them. For it there is nothing to distinguish a thing, I cannot distinguish it, since otherwise it would be distinguished after all.
2.024 The substance is what subsists independently of what is the case.
2.025 It is form and content.
GL: The ‘irrational’ content is to be wholly integrated into the conceptual system, i.e. this is to be so constructed that it can be coherently applied to everything just as if there were no irrational content or actuality? In this event thought regresses to the level of a naïve, dogmatic rationalism: somehow it regards the mere actuality of the irrational contents of the concepts as nonexistent.
eW: 2.0231 The substance of the world can only determine a form, and not any material properties.
2.0271 Objects are what is unalterable and subsistent; their configuration is what is changing and unstable.
2.0272 The configuration of objects produces states of affairs.
2.06 The existence and non-existence of states of affairs is reality. (We call the existence of states of affairs a positive fact, and their non-existence a negative fact.)
2.1 We picture facts to ourselves.
2.11 A picture presents a situation in logical space, the existence and non-existence of states of affairs.
2.2 A picture has logico-pictorial form in common with what it depicts.
2.203 A picture agrees with reality or fails to agree; it is correct or incorrect, true or false.
2.222 The agreement or disagreement or its sense with reality constitutes its truth or falsity.
2.223 In order to tell whether a picture is true or false we must compare it with reality.
2.224 It is impossible to tell from the picture alone whether it is true or false.
2.225 There are no pictures that are true a priori.
GL: In that case the system must be abandoned as a system. For then it will be no more than a register, an account, as well ordered as possible, of facts which are no longer linked rationally and so can no longer be made systematic even though the forms of their components are themselves rational.