Beyond the Bounds of Thought: Speculative Philosophy and the Last Proposition of the Tractatus

Abstract

Wittgenstein's Tractatus attempts to characterize, via an account of the meaning and truth of propositional expressions, the limits to human thought. It turns out that not only, according to him, are the limits to human thought something which lie outside the capacity for humans to express, but such a notion is strictly speaking without sense. He concludes the book with the sentence "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence." Whitehead, on the contrary, is concerned to suggest that human sentential expressions are always inadequate to the thoughts which we wish to express. Nonetheless he suggests that a happy speculation a la Plato might just be right, even though we may never know that it is. This paper argues that there are no convincing arguments that either Wittgenstein or Whitehead is right here. So it is best that we maintain an agnostic position with respect to the view that human thought is strictly limited or that no adequate expressions of our thoughts can be found. Both educationally and practically, failing of any convincing arguments to the contrary, it is better that we presuppose, along with the mediaeval Christian thinkers, that our reason and insight are sufficient to the task of ultimately penetrating into the mysteries of the world, however difficult that task might be. Thus a happy speculation with no grounding is a perfectly good thing to engage in. It just might be true.