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Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein: PHIL 117

Essay VIII: Solipsism
11 March, 2014
Wittgensteins Endorsement of Solipsism
The 5.6s of Wittgensteins Tractatus are devoted to exploring the notion of solipsism
and to what extent and in what way it is correct. It is not entirely clear from this section of
the Tractatus what role solipsism plays in the work, or even whether or not Wittgenstein
endorses or refutes the position. The pivotal passage, 5.62, makes a number of bold claims
that appear to be an endorsement of solipsism, albeit within the constraints of the sayingshowing distinction. However, there are some authors who believe that Wittgenstein is not
endorsing solipsism but fully repudiating the notion. This latter position requires one to view
the Tractatus in a light that is not consistent with the rest of the work, and so should be
rejected as an overstatement.
A brief explication the pressures driving the development of solipsism in the
Tractatus will allow us to see how both of these positions might be arrived at. From there,
we will be in a position to see the role of solipsism in the Tractatus as a defense of the truthfunctional view of propositions and a paradigm example of the saying-showing distinction,
forced on us by the picture theory.
It is worth noting that when we use the word solipsism in the Tractatrian sense, it
bears little resemblance to the Cartesian view that often goes under this moniker. The
position led to by the traditional Cartesian skepticism of things outside ones mind is, if
anything, rejected in the Tractatus. Wittgenstein makes it clear that there is no place in the
world for a metaphysical subject such as that which the solipsist attempts to refer to with the
pronoun I. However, as we shall see later, there is an interpretive puzzle that might tempt
us to think that Tractarian solipsism is not so far from Cartesian solipsism as I have made it

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seem. I will hold this to be a mere illusion resulting form unfortunate word choice and which
is not substantiated by the rest of the text.
The progression of propositions in the Tractatus provides a frame in which to view
the role that solipsism plays. By the time we come to the 5.6s, Wittgenstein has already
developed the picture theory, metaphysics and logic that form the foundation of his views.
Proposition 5, which the 5.6s comment on, is that propositions are truth-functions of
elementary propositions. As a result, the discussion of solipsism is ultimately there to help
justify this truth-functionality. Further, once Wittgenstein has explained solipsism, he
believes himself justified in moving directly on to Proposition 6, the general form of a truthfunction. As a result, the 5.6s are most naturally read as an explanation of the issues that
arise for the truth-functional account of propositions in the 5.54s and 5.55s. These sections
focus on the problem of intensionality with regard to truth-functionality and what can be
known a priori respectively.
The problem of intensionality is the classic issue of dealing with belief reports such as
A believes that p. As Frege famously pointed out, many sentences of this form appear to
not be truth functional. In What house is that? Wittgenstein on the self1, Hans Sluga
notes that when faced with this problem, Wittgenstein has three options. He can either
abandon or restrict his commitment to truth-functionality, rule out the counterexamples as not
being well-formed propositions, or explain why the counterexamples do not conflict with the
truth-functionality of language. The first option is distinctly unattractive, as it undermines
the entirety of Wittgensteins argument in the Tractatus. The second is almost as unsavory to
Wittgenstein, given that belief reports certainly appear to be empirical (not philosophical)
propositions. Indeed, in 5.5422, Wittgenstein writes that The correct explanation of the
form of the proposition, A makes the judgment p, must show that it is impossible for a

1 In Sluga and Sterns The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein

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judgment to be a piece of nonsense. As a result, the remaining option open to Wittgenstein
is to show that these propositions have a hidden logical form.
Wittgenstein notes that the sentence A believes that p, looks as if the proposition p
stood in some kind of relation to an object A (5.541). However, given the picture theory,
this cannot be the case. It is only facts that can be correlated in this way. He points out in
5.542 that the actual form must be p says p, as in this way facts can be correlated by
means of the correlation of their objects. The result is that there is no such object as the
subject.
If the subject is not some object, how are we to account for the truth-functionality of
intensional sentences? Before fully explaining this, Wittgenstein considers what can be
learned from logic. The 5.55s are devoted to explaining why logic cannot be the source of a
priori knowledge about the world. Logic, as Wittgenstien concludes in 5.61, pervades the
world. However, it is not in the world, and so does not determine what elementary
propositions there are on its own. These remarks are foremost a rejection of transcendental
idealism, but also drive us toward solipsism.
Having seen that the subject, the I, cannot be in the world, we still need a way to
make sense of intensional propositions. Clearly, is not referring to the empirical self, the
body or the like. Instead, we are looking for what it is that can have a belief. Given that
logic permeates the world, it is through logic and the languages that logic makes possible that
we can deal with the apparent counterexamples. The idea is that in language, the subject and
the world meet, and so we will be able to understand how these sentences are actually truthfunctional by understanding the identity of the subject and the world, which is, ultimately, a
form of solipsism.
Marie McGinn holds that the key here is that the world, the totality of facts, is simply
what is described in the true propositions of my language. While the world is independent of

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the subject, it cannot be conceived of except in the propositions of a system projecting onto
reality. With this, we go from the limits of my language meaning the limits of my world to
the world being my world. The result is that the subject and the world are correlate notions;
The world is my world (5.62) and I am my world (5.63). The metaphysical subject is, as
Sluga puts it, The nonobjective condition of the possibility of the objective world.2 It is the
subjectivity that we need to account for in an otherwise objective world.
A result of this view is that there is no accompanying notion of privacy. Unlike the Cartesian
skeptic who has to believe that their mind it the sum-total of reality, Wittgenstein is able to
recognize other people and allow that they have a similar relation to the whole world as we
do. The world is mine in that I represent the world to myself, but it is perfectly possible to
recognize other thinking entities.
However, this entire reading relies on a questionable interpretation of 5.62, which reads in
McGuinness and Pears translation:
This remark provides the key to the problem, how much truth there is in solipsism.
For what the solipsist means is quite correct; only it cannot be said, but makes itself
manifest.
The world is my world: this is manifest in the fact that the limits of language (of that
language which alone I understand) mean the limits of my world.

The tricky portion is the parenthesized of that language which alone I understand. McGinn
follows McGuinness in reading this as meaning that the/my language is all that I understand.
This allows the world to be precisely what is described by the true propositions of my
language. Unfortunately, the original German makes this quite a difficult interpretation to
accept.
The German text for the parenthesized phrase is der Sprache, die allein ich verstehe.
McGuinness translation is one of three possible accounts of the meaning here, and
2 Sluga Ibid p. 329

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unfortunately, is the least plausible. While a gulf of nearly a century separates Wittgensteins
German for the modern dialect, it has been confirmed to me by several native speakers as
well a student of German Linguistics that to achieve the connotation McGuinness wishes it to
have would require an entirely different structure.
It also raises difficulties for my favored reading of the saying-showing distinction.
Regardless of whether we reject the Tractatus in the end, and indeed this solipsism may
provide us further impetus to abandon the picture theory, it seems clear that Wittgenstein is
trying to convey some understanding or elucidation through the Tractatus. This particular
reading restricts what I can understand to my language and so seems to eliminate ineffable
understanding, which appears to be necessary if Wittgensteins nonsense is to achieve its
aims.
The other two translations are much more plausible. The most natural of these is that
favored by G.E.M. Anscombe, which in idiomatic English is akin to of the language, which
only I understand. Such a reading poses problems for the strong anti-Cartesian overtones of
the discussion. The metaphysical subject is not a thing; the soul cannot exist. There is very
little place for a notion of privacy in the Tractarian solipsism, but Anscombes reading makes
it almost inevitable. McGuinness objection to Anscombes version is that, if we
imagined everyone with his own language, there would be worlds that I had no access to,
whereas in truth all possibilities are implicit in language, which is the same for all and the
only medium of understanding.3 There is a measure of correctness in this objection, and it is
by examining the third interpretation of the passage that we can draw this out.
The final reading, which is favored by Hintikka, is that the passage is taking about the only
language that I understand. While this is certainly not as natural of a reading as Anscombes,
it is still possible and fits in well with the rest of Wittgensteins pronouncements. While this
3 McGuinness, Brian Solipsism in the Tractatus in Charles and Childs Wittgensteinian
Themes (OUP 2001) p. 9

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view no longer requires that each person has their own individual language, it does not mean
that we all speak the same language. McGuinness is convinced that there is only one
language. While there is only one logic which all languages utilize, Wittgenstein holds that
he deals with natural languages and so would recognize that some people have different
languages.
On Hintikkas view, the metaphysical subject is akin to a totality of thoughts. This
leads to a view largely similar to that advocated by McGuinness and McGinn, except that the
identification of the self with the logical limits of language does very little work. To a greater
extent than McGinn, Hintikka is able to recognize that Tractarian solipsism has nothing to
do with the classification of elementary propositions into mine and yours. That is, it
recognizes that the boundaries of the self are contingent, and so the metaphysical subject
really is a correlate of the world. As a result, the Tractarian solipsism can in fact coincide
with pure realism where McGinns view still needed a somewhat more significant separation.
As mentioned early on, there is a strong feeling among some of the commentators,
especially David Pears, that Wittgenstein soundly repudiates solipsism in this section of the
Tractatus. It is undeniable that Wittgenstein rejects the doctrine of solipsism because it is a
philosophical doctrine. The propositions of solipsism are not sayable. Since the
metaphysical subject is the limit of the world, language cannot actually refer to it, so
everything we say about the topic is nonsense. In this way, the solipsism debate is a
paradigm example of the saying-showing distinction that we are led to by the picture theory.
While Pears holds that this is a revolutionary rejection of solipsism on the grounds
that it lacks sense, I am largely unconvinced. The Tractatus rejects all of its propositions as
nonsense, not just the solipsists claims. In fact, given how comfortable Wittgenstein is
saying that which can only be shown, there is very little to make us think that Wittgensteins
rejection of solipsism is any stronger than his rejection of the rest of philosophy. Instead, it

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seems that, as Morris points out in his Guidebook to the Tractatus, the beginning of 5.62
commits Wittgenstein to three things: a) What solipsism means is quite correct; b) What
solipsism means cannot be said; c)What solipsism means shows itself. 4 Pears seems to
hold that Wittgenstein takes (b) to be reason for not asserting (a). However, as I have said, I
find it much more plausible that Wittgenstein asserts both at the same time, despite the
apparent paradoxicality. Such an interpretation is consistent with the rest of the Tractatus and
its practice of saying what cannot be said.
Hence, I find it unlikely that Wittgenstein is actually pursuing a concerted rejection of
solipsism. The role of the Tractarian solipsism is first and foremost to handle the difficulties
with truth-functionality. In order to resist abandoning the overall conception of language in
the Tractatus, Wittgenstein adopts this brand of solipsism and it is not particularly
detrimental, as it ultimately coincides with realism. The rest of the results that this solipsism
brings with it are more ancillary. The picture theory commits us to a view of language that
forces us into this mildly unsavory position from which the Tractatus cannot escape. As
Wittgensteins later work shows, the best method for escaping this conclusion is simply to
reject the picture theory view of language.

4 Morris, Michael RGP to Wittgenstein and the Tractatus p. 307