Wittgenstein's Notion of an Object

Abstract

1. The ultimate constituents of the world. In The Philosophy of Logical Atomism ,1 which was influenced but not dominated by Wittgenstein's work before the First World War, Russell draws up an inventory of the world and offers the following as a complete list of the ultimate constituents of the world: particulars, qualities, relations, and facts (p. 270). One question that might arise concerning Russell's inventory is this: Why is it necessary to list facts in addition to particulars, qualities, and relations ? So that I may contrast Russell's theory with the theory of the Tractatus I want to develop an answer to this question that is implicit in Russell's own theory. First of all, relations as well as particulars are counted as components of facts (PLA, p. 192). Secondly, one component may occur in several different facts (PLA, p. 193). It follows, then, as Russell himself allows ( On Propositions, p. 286), that two different facts might contain exactly the same components. This can be easily illustrated if we are allowed for the moment to think of human beings as particulars. The fact that Caesar loved Cleopatra is different from the fact that Cleopatra loved Caesar, but both contain the same components. This answers our original question, but now another arises: How do these two facts differ ? The only answer that suggests itself is that the relation is related to the two particulars differently in the two cases. It is certain that Russell would object to this interpretation, for he says in a somewhat later essay that if we mean-as opponents of external relations suppose us to mean-that the relation is a third term which comes between the other two terms and is somehow hooked on to them, that is obviously absurd, for in that case the relation has ceased to be a relation, and all that is truly relational is the hooking of the relation to the terms ( Logical Atomism, p. 335). Nevertheless, it does seem that Russell's theory contains this absurdity. Wittgenstein's theory in the Tractatus stands in elegant contrast to Russell's. Wittgenstein's inventory of the world lists only two items instead of four: objects and objects in configuration. And the puzzle concerning relations disappears by the simple expedient of not counting relations as objects. For Russell an atomic fact consists of particulars and a relation (or a particular and a quality) in relation. Thus relations occur twice, as a component of a fact and as joining the components of a fact. (They need not occur more than twice, however, if the way in which the components 'Republished in Logic and Knowledge (ed. Marsh), to w-hich all references to Russell refer,