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Chapter 6 - Solipsism and the Self
- By Michael Potter
Edited by José L. Zalabardo, University College London
Book:

Wittgenstein's <I>Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus</I>

Published online:

07 March 2024

Print publication:

14 March 2024, pp 110-124
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Summary

In its original version, before Wittgenstein decided to extend the book’s scope, the Tractatus advanced a solipsism of a decidedly etiolated sort – so etiolated, indeed, that the self which according to this solipsism claims ownership of the world ends up stripped of any substantial content. By the time it was published, however, the solipsism passage had been revised so as to gesture towards a puzzling ‘metaphysical’ subject, whose importance seems to be primarily (though no doubt not exclusively) ethical. By the time he wrote the Blue Book Wittgenstein no longer held the unitary conception of language on which his Tractarian conception of solipsism depended, but he continued to deny coherence of a substantial self.

Chapter 11 - I and I: immunity to error through misidentification of the subject
- By Galen Strawson
Edited by Simon Prosser, University of St Andrews, Scotland, François Recanati
Book:

Immunity to Error through Misidentification

Published online:

05 May 2012

Print publication:

05 April 2012, pp 202-223
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Summary

This chapter first reviews Wittgenstein's distinction between use of 'I' "as subject" and use of 'I' "as object" in the Blue book. Then, it explains what Immanuel Kant meant by "consciousness of oneself as subject". The chapter argues that Kant's notion offers resources for understanding a heretofore unexplored aspect of the use of 'I' as subject. The chapter offers empirical-psychological support for the distinctions, and for the dependence relation suggested between the different kinds of self-consciousness grounding the uses of 'I' as subject. It draws on a clinical example borrowed from Oliver Sacks in his book The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat to illustrate the relation between the two quite different uses of 'I' as subject and the two corresponding kinds of immunity to error through misidentification (IEM) relative to the first-person pronoun analyzed in the first two parts of the chapter.

12 - Remembering intentions
- By William Child
Edited by Arif Ahmed, University of Cambridge
Book:

Wittgenstein's <I>Philosophical Investigations</I>

Published online:

06 July 2010

Print publication:

13 May 2010, pp 218-234
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Summary

Philosophical Investigations 633-93 contains a striking discussion of our capacity to remember our earlier intentions, wishes and emotions, and to remember how we meant an earlier word or remark. But there are elements in Wittgenstein discussion that might seem to suggest an anti-realist treatment of at least some of the cases he considers towards the end of part I of Philosophical Investigations. This chapter discusses two of these elements: his attitude towards counterfactuals of the form, 'Had you asked me at the time, I would have said so-and-so'; and his suggestion that the comment, 'I meant the piano-tuning', may make the connection between the author's earlier remark and its object rather than reporting a connection that already existed. The remarks in PI 682-4 recall comments about intentional connections that appear in the Blue Book and Philosophical Grammar and continue into the Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology.