Causality and Generality in the Treatise and the Tractatus

CAUSALITY AND GENERALITY IN THE TREATISE AND THE TRACTATUS In the Tractatus Wittgenstein cryptically rejects the existence of a causal connection (or relation or nexus) : 5.135There is no possible way of making an inference from the existence of one situation to the existence of another, entirely different situation. 5.136There is no causal nexus to justify such an inference. 5.1361 We cannot infer the events of the future from those of the present. Belief stition. Belief in the causal nexus is super1 And he later proceeds to add: 6.37 There is no compulsion making one thing happen because another has happened. The only necessity that exists is logical necessity. What he is claiming can be understood in terms of the "Logical Atomism* of the Tractatus. Atomic sentences, composed of a monadic predicate or a relational predicate and a suitable number of subject terms, represent situations or possible facts. The existence of a represented situation is the ground of truth for (or condition for the truth of or explanation of the truth of) the representing atomic sentence. We can consider 2 such atomic situations or atomic facts to be composed of a monadic property or relational property and an appropriate number of particulars. (This is a matter of some debate among interpreters of the Tractatus, but that issue does not really affect the question at issue in this paper. So, I will simply treat the view in the Tractatus along the lines of Russell's more explicit version of logical atomism in his lectures of 1918.) The world, according to Wittgenstein, is made up of such facts. This is the point of: 1.11The world is the totality of facts, not of things. 1.12The facts in logical space are the world. 1.13The world divides into facts. Consider, then, the claim that a's being F is the cause of its being G. This suggests that we construe causality in terms of a relation between the situations represented by 'Fa' and 'Ga'. With 1C representing a relation or nexus of causality, we could express that situation by: (1)C(Fa, Ga). The existence of the situation represented by (1) would then ground or explain the truth of (1). But that would mean that we recognize a relation of causality and causal relations between facts or situations. I cannot here argue, but will simply assert, that Wittgenstein's logical atomism in the Tractatus is incompatible with the recognition of relations between facts. However, one point that will be relevant to the concerns of this paper is easy to see. Logical atomism involves the claim — 1.21 Each item can be the case or not the case while everything else remains the same. This is not compatible with the recognition of the relation C and a fact grounding the truth of (1), for then Fo and Ga would not be items that were "independent" in the sense of 1.21. Hence, one who holds Wittgenstein's views about the independence of atomic facts cannot recognize causal relations between such facts. Thus, no fact is represented by (1) and C cannot relate atomic facts. The same results would hold if one suggested, in place of (1), that there was a fact corresponding to (2)(X)(Fx * Gx), where we read the arrow as the "causal" arrow — anything's being F causes it to be G. For, if there were a fact corresponding to (2), it would guarantee the link between the purported atomic facts Fa and Ga, since (3)Fa + Ga would be a logical consequence of (2), and we are back to a case like (1), with the arrow replacing 'C. (2) would also be problematic in that it would be some sort of "general" fact, which Wittgenstein also rejects. Thus, as Wittgenstein sees it there is no basis in the world for the explanation of causal statements. If the sentence (4)' (x) (Fx O Gx) ' is a statement of causal law is true, it is so simply because the list of atomic facts will contain the atomic sentence 'Ga' if it contains 'Fa'. That is, (4) is true, not because of any special fact corresponding to (5)(X...