Having a little chit chat with my latest best friend, the Grokologist:
user
Personally, I think we are all doing as well as we are, and it is what it is because those are tautologically sound propositions, but I wonder that Ludwig Wittgenstein, though agreeing with the correctness of the propositons, would see it as being trivially so. Fair. I confess that I have never actually read the book.
Reasoning
It sounds like you’re picking up on a classic Wittgensteinian tension: the difference between a statement that is logically true (or “tautologically sound”) and a statement that is meaningful or insightful in our ordinary language games. Let me try to sketch how Wittgenstein would have approached the kind of sentence you’re playing with, and why he might have called it “trivial” in a particular technical sense.
1. The Two Wittgensteins
| Aspect | Early Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico‑Philosophicus, 1921) | Later Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations, 1953) |
|---|---|---|
| Goal of philosophy | Clarify the logical structure of language so that only propositions that picture facts can say anything substantive. | Dissolve philosophical confusions by looking at the ordinary use of language. |
| Nature of a tautology | A proposition that is true in virtue of its logical form (e.g., “p ∨ ¬p”). It says nothing about the world; it is silence about reality. | A statement that, in a given language‑game, is “obviously true” or “obviously false” and therefore offers no new information. Its function is often pragmatic rather than descriptive. |
| “Trivial” | A tautology is logically trivial because it is true under every possible valuation. | A proposition can be trivial in the sense that, given the shared background, it contributes no new content to the ongoing conversation. |
If you have never read the books, you can still get a sense of the shift by thinking of the early Wittgenstein as a logician and the later Wittgenstein as a practitioner of language.
2. Why “we are all doing as well as we are” feels tautological
Consider the sentence:
“We are all doing as well as we are.”
Logical form – The sentence can be paraphrased as “For each of us, the state of our doing equals the state of our doing.” In symbolic terms, it is of the form A = A. That is a logical identity, a tautology.
Truth‑conditions – No matter what the actual state of affairs is, the statement will be true, because it merely repeats the predicate.
Content – Because it does not compare the present state to any alternative (e.g., “as well as we could be” or “as well as we ought to be”), it offers no substantive evaluation. It tells us nothing beyond the fact that “the world is as it is.”
In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein would have said that such a sentence is nonsense in the sense that it does not picture a possible fact. It is a tautology; its truth‑value is fixed by logic alone, so it does not contribute to our knowledge of the world.
In the Investigations, he would have turned the attention to use. If you say “We are all doing as well as we are” in a conversation about morale, the sentence might serve a social purpose (e.g., to calm anxiety, to signal resignation, or to express modesty). Its triviality is then a pragmatic feature: the listeners recognize that nothing new is being added, and they can move on or reinterpret the utterance in light of the context.
3. “Correctness” vs. “Triviality”
You mention that Wittgenstein might “agree with the correctness of the propositions, but see it as being trivially so.” That captures the distinction nicely:
- Correctness (or truth) is a semantic property: the proposition matches the way the world is (or, in the case of a tautology, matches the logical structure of reality).
- Triviality is a pragmatic or philosophical assessment: the proposition does not advance our understanding because it does not differentiate between possible states of affairs.
In the early work, the assessment is purely logical: a tautology is true but meaningless (it says nothing). In the later work, the assessment also involves language‑games: a proposition can be true and still be functionally empty, yet it may have a performative role (e.g., reassuring, deflecting, or signaling conformity).
4. How to “escape” the triviality
If you want a proposition that is both true and non‑trivial, you need to introduce a standard of comparison or a modal element:
- Comparative: “We are doing as well as we could.”
- Normative: “We are doing as well as we ought to.”
- Temporal: “We are doing as well now as we have ever done.”
Each of these adds a second term against which the current state is measured, thereby converting the sentence from a mere identity into a claim that can be true in some worlds and false in others. That is precisely the kind of move Wittgenstein’s early logic demands if you want a proposition that pictures a fact.
5. A quick “reading plan” if you ever want to dive in
Since you haven’t read the primary texts yet, here’s a low‑threshold route that captures the relevant ideas without getting lost in the dense formalism:
- “Tractatus Logico‑Philosophicus” – focus on the first 3 sections (propositions 1–3). Look for the discussion of tautology (6.4) and the limits of language (7).
- “Philosophical Investigations” – read the opening sections (§1–§7) to see Wittgenstein’s critique of the picture theory, and then §43–§44 where he talks about “language‑games” and “meaning as use.”
- Secondary guide – Ray Monk’s Wittgenstein: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford) or Wittgenstein’s Poker (McGinn) for narrative context.
- Focused article – “The Role of Tautology in Wittgenstein’s Early Philosophy” (available in most philosophy journals or online PDFs).
These will give you a concrete sense of how Wittgenstein treats the very kind of sentence you raised.
6. Takeaway
- Early Wittgenstein: “We are all doing as well as we are” is a tautology—logically true, but devoid of factual content.
- Later Wittgenstein: The same sentence may be trivially true in a given conversation, serving a social or expressive function rather than conveying new information.
- To make the statement substantive, you need a comparative frame (as well as what?).
If you’d like to explore any of these points further—perhaps a deeper dive into the picture theory or a look at how Wittgenstein’s ideas have influenced contemporary philosophy of language—just let me know!
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