Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus · Chapter
5.542 explained
Wittgenstein argues that propositional attitudes such as belief, thought, and speech are not relations between a subject and a fact, but rather involve a coordination of facts through their objects, reducing 'A believes p' to the form ''p'
What happens
Wittgenstein argues that propositional attitudes such as belief, thought, and speech are not relations between a subject and a fact, but rather involve a coordination of facts through their objects, reducing 'A believes p' to the form ''p' says p'.
Themes in this chapter
Logical Atomism
The coordination of facts through objects reflects the atomistic decomposition of propositions.
Limits of Language and Thought
The analysis shows that belief and thought are not about a subject-object relation but are internal to the logical form of language.
Characters to notice
- Mr. Wittgenstein
Author of the Tractatus, presenting the analysis of propositional attitudes.
Key passages
“But it is clear that “ A believes that p ,” “ A thinks p ,” “ A says p ,” are of the form “ ‘ p ’ says p ”: and here we have no coordination of a fact and an object, but a coordination of facts by means of a coordination of their objects.”
Statements like 'A believes p' or 'A says p' actually have the logical structure ''p' says p', meaning they involve a relation between facts (the proposition and the state of affairs) rather than between a person and an object.
Wittgenstein dissolves the traditional subject-predicate analysis of belief and thought into a purely logical coordination of facts.