Demythologising Saying and Showing in the Tractatus

ABSTRACT

The traditional reading of saying and showing in the Tractatus Logico‐Philosophicus has two main features. Firstly, it claims that what shows itself helps us to grasp some metaphysical insights that transcend the limits of sense, such as the existence of simple objects, the truth of solipsism and the very essence of the world. Secondly, according to the traditional reading, the method of the work is based on the capacity of showing to reveal what cannot be said. In this paper, I demythologise the traditional reading of saying and showing. What shows itself reveals not some mysterious metaphysical properties of the world but rather mundane and familiar properties of language, such as the entailment between propositions, the logical forms of propositions and the sense possessed by a proposition. Moreover, the traditional reading falsely assumes that there is a single overarching concept of showing that unifies Wittgenstein's work. The topic of the paper is important because the resolute readings have so far focused on a critique of the traditional reading of saying and showing without a positive construal of the saying–showing distinction. My paper fills this gap: It provides a positive story about saying and showing that allows us to account for the crucial importance that Ludwig Wittgenstein ascribed to them.