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CHAPTERI N I N E Critique of Logical Atomism The great mistake of the Tractatus is its assumption that names can only designate simple objects, that this is the one and only proper linguistic function ofsingular terms. Wittgenstein accordingly next turns his instrumentalist attack on the logical atomism of the early philosophy and the picture theory doctrine that all meaning reduces to truth-functions of elementary propositions construed as concatenations of simple names in one-one correspondence with simple objects. Wittgenstein in the Philosophical Investigations subjects this idea to the most careful scrutiny. He concludes that the concepts of simplicity, reducibility, and analyzability are just as diverse , multitextured, and relative in application to the particular pragmatic contexts of particular language games as are the individual words or sentences or any of the other language tools, the irreducible differences among which he has already described. The concept ofsimple names and simple objects is rejected on the grounds that simplicity is not something universal, absolute, and independent of the pragmatic natural language game contexts to which they belong and which they are supposed to help explain. There are no absolutely simple names or absolutely simple objects to provide the reductive account ofmeaning entailed by logical atomism and the picture theory of meaning. Wittgenstein begins the critique of logical atomism by calling attention to some of the arguments that might be given against what in everyday discourse are commonly called 'names'. If we are committed, as are Frege, Russell, and the early Wittgenstein , to the extensionalist view that names can only name existent objects, then we must admit that names cannot name complex objects, since then there can be no meaningful sentences I 224 225 I Critique of Logical Atomism in which the complexes that names name are described as no longer existing. Wittgenstein recounts a version of his own earlier reasoning about the necessity for simple objects as the only proper referents of names: 39. But why does it occur to one to want to make precisely this word into a name, when it evidently is not a name?That isjust the reason. For one is tempted to make an objection against what is ordinarily called a name. It can be put like this: a name ought really to signify a simple. And for this one might perhaps give the following reasons: The word "Excalibur ", say, is a proper name in the ordinary sense. The sword Excalibur consists of parts combined in a particular way. If they are combined differently Excalibur does not exist . But it is clear that the sentence "Excalibur has a sharp blade" makes sense whether Excalibur is still whole or is broken up. But if "Excalibur" is the name of an object, this object no longer exists when Excalibur is broken in pieces; and as no object would then correspond to the name it would have no meaning. But then the sentence "Excalibur has a sharp blade" would contain a word that had no meaning, and hence the sentence would be nonsense. But it does make sense; so there must always be something corresponding to the words of which it consists. So the word "Excalibur" must disappear when the sense is analysed and its place be taken by words which name simples. It will be reasonable to call these words the real names. The argument is that a name has meaning only if its object exists. But any composite referent can cease to exist even though it continues to make sense to speak of it, for example, as having ceased to exist. From this it seems to follow that names can only properly name simple necessarily existent objects. This is why Wittgenstein in the Tractatus concludes that simple names designate the same set of simple objects in every logically possible world. Wittgenstein in the Philosophical Investigations now refutes this argument by pointing out that names can continue to function in certain language games even when the composite objects they name no longer exist. The example goes back to a modification of language game (2), in which Wittgenstein has builder A mark his tools with identifying signs, which assistant B brings when builder A calls for them by name. Wittgenstein regards this language game as a paradigm case ofthe way in which names literally attach to objects: 15. The word "to signify" is perhaps used in the most straightforward way when the object signified is marked with the sign. Suppose that the tools A uses in building bear [3...

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