2. Tracturain’s Analysis of Fictional Entities
Among the most salient questions in recent literature of Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language about literary studies is the abundant discoursed, commented upon, and argued over Tractatus Logico philosophicus (TPL)
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
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. On such a basis thus the theory of fiction is explored. A huge number of researchers who were concerned with the philosophical enterprise of Wittgenstein acquiesced to the fact that Wittgenstein remarked neither on literature nor the issue of fictional discourse in his early writings. Nonetheless, Alex Burri in his chapter
Facts and Fiction: Reflections on the Tractatus | [2] | Gibson, John, and Wolfgang Hummer. The Literary Wittgenstein. Routledge, 2004. |
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presupposed that Wittgenstein's early ontology and philosophy of language (or a particular interpretation thereof) espouses the interplays between the theory of fiction and early philosophy
| [2] | Gibson, John, and Wolfgang Hummer. The Literary Wittgenstein. Routledge, 2004. |
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. The ontology of fiction can be read as the one of Burri's arguments, which results in his refutation of the opinion that argues against the representational dimension of fiction entities. The denial of such a claim involves that fiction texts are not senseless or subject to a virtuously instrumental interpretation in the spirit of van Fraassen
| [2] | Gibson, John, and Wolfgang Hummer. The Literary Wittgenstein. Routledge, 2004. |
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Believing that any sort of fiction entities are about something is thus embedded with the fact that they have a truth-maker.
Along with the ontology of fiction, its logic is equally a substantial subject that engages a dialogue between Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language (mainly in his picture theory) and literary studies theorists. That is, a set of Wittgenstein’s writings, TPL as an example, correspond to the logic of fiction. Arguing against the counter argument suggests pondering the features necessary for the semantics of fiction discourse. First, the very significant criterion seeks reference and description of the actual non-existent properties of objects and states of affairs. Second, the prominent condition remains the interpretation of statements extracted ostensibly from fiction about non-existent properties of objects and states of affairs, as true in at least some cases relative to the non-actual worlds that are partly described in a work of fiction. Third, also it is of an important role to consider engaging in the deductive reasoning of fiction characters, and narrators concerning the situations they described as experiencing, and nontrivially to derive logically valid inferences from the descriptions of the objects and states of affairs recounted in a work of fiction. The last, but not least, is understanding the personality and character development, and explains the intentional psychological states, beliefs, desires, emotions, and the like, of fictional characters, as they are presented in literary works.
Since one of the analytical tools applied in this study is picture theory, it unavoidable then to start with how the approach based on TPL takes place. Because TPL is a kind of ouroboros eating its tail, with all of the trouble that involves, a different propositions (constituents of picture theory) are required as an episteme to approach the chosen fiction statements. This analysis should not be, therefore, restricted to a single proposition, as there might be a risk of failure or at least misunderstanding. A reader of TPL would flop and then be unable to decode its puzzles if any attempt to understand them takes place beyond the logical basis. The logical stance suggests that only and only for one of the judgemental triadic: true, false or nonsensical, propositions can be verified. The sections of the analysis of the fiction statements are therefore down to earth to the three conditions noted above.
2.1. The Nature of the Proposition of Logic
Fiction Statement One
‘‘I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces. Perhaps not surprisingly, I am also a man of two minds’’
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
[3]
.
This is how Viet Thanh Nguyen opens his novel. Such a fiction statement is situated at the very outset of the novel, particularly on the first page of the first chapter. It is a sort of confession of an anonymous Captain, whose life in South Vietnam is precarious, who works as a mole for the North Vietnamese Communists. The unnamed narrator is a double agent who positions himself in America with the South Vietnamese character (the General), but serves as a spy for the North Vietnamese. The acknowledgements are conversely written to his Communist Superiors after he goes back to Vietnam to shield his friend Bon in a self-destructive effort to re-take the country. The statement is an ineffable declaration of a new state of being that is attributed to the narrator. One more thing, the speaker's confessions are an explicit whisper of two identities. After having contextualized the statement, the shift turns to its analysis in the light of Wittgenstein‘s chief concern in the
TPL | [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
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which is the meaning of propositions in general, and the nature of the proposition of logic in particular.
In regard to TPL propositions, Wittgenstein comparison's reality with propositions
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
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implies that its pictorial existence in reality can make them either true or false. The following proposition affirms 4.06 ‘‘A proposition can be true or false only by virtue of being a picture of reality’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
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. For example, the author’s declarative sentence: ‘‘I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces’’ expresses the proposition that ‘‘I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces’’. If it is believed that this proposition has a sense, it must tell something about the world, reality. The statement unearths the world of espionage; a world where the narrator caldestinates second identity, and sustains two lives. With the informative statement ‘‘ I am also a man of two minds’’ the novelist introduces readers to the complex world of a spy, which is part of the existing world of human beings. This belief has its response in the so-called propositional theory of literary truth. Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Oslen in their book
Truth, Fiction and Literature: A philosophical perspective (2002) argued that ‘’the literary work contains or implies general statements about the world which the reader as part of an appreciation of the work has to assess as true or false
| [4] | Lamarque, P, and Olsen, S. H. Truth, Fiction, and Literature, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. |
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The same is valid for ‘‘I am also a man of two minds’’
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
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. The informative nature of the novelist statement can also be read as an internal dialogue of the narrator, revealing how a spy lives in reality, which is a mirror of the world. But, does this belief suffice to claim that the statement is true?
It is only within Wittgenstien‘s propositions, more precisely proposition 4.06
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
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the answer would be settled. According to him, a proposition‘s truthfulness or falseness depends on being a picture of reality, and on how the world is arranged. Is it the case then for the novelist’s statement? ‘‘I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces. Perhaps not surprisingly, I am also a man of two minds’’
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
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expresses a proposition with a sense as every proposition has already a sense as it was stated by Wittgenstein in
TPL in 4.064 ‘‘every proposition must already have a sense: it cannot be given a sense by affirmation. Indeed its sense is just what is affirmed’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
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. And the same applies to negation, but not only that, it must as well tell something about reality. However, not all propositions are true though they tell something about the world. Hence, so that ‘‘I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces.’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
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can be true, a’ spy’ must have two faces in reality; if not, it is consequently false. The question comes as follows: Can this proposition be pictured in reality?
Following the same line of thought, let‘s upside down the coin, and inquire into the second part of the proposition ‘‘Perhaps not surprisingly, I am also a man of two minds”
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
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. The very first glance at it evinces that it is a senseless proposition for it does not tell anything about the world. Yet, if the first part of the proposition and the last part are taken into consideration at once and read through the proposition 2.022 ‘‘It is obvious that an imagined world, however different it may be from the real one, must have something—a form—in common with it’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
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, the opposite can be valid; it is true as the two parts tell something about the world – that of espionage though it is an imagined world as there is always something in common between the real and the imagined worlds. Even though the proposition has a sense, its falsity and truthfulness are not proven since part of the difficulty lies in how the proposition can be pictured in reality.
As laid out in
TPL, to be pictured, proposition constituents should have references in reality
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
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. This conception necessitates considering how Wittgenstein unveiled the general form of proposition. A proposition expressed by ‘‘I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces, I am also a man of two minds’’ is sensical as it tells something about the world – that of a spy – and it can be hence analysed; it can be broken down into parts: ‘‘a man of two faces’’
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
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that comprises two propositions joined by the logical constant 'and'
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
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, a man who is of North Vietnamese face and mind
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
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, and a man with a South Vietnamese face. Following the line of argumentation requires taking into account a
proposition 4.12:
Propositions can represent the whole of reality, but they cannot represent what they must have in common with reality to be able to represent it—logical form. To be able to represent logical form, we should have to be able to station ourselves with propositions somewhere outside logic that is to say outside the world.
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
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.
Based on the above proposition it becomes obvious that Wittgenstein‘s objective is to show that propositions cannot represent logical form, but it is reflected in them
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
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.As language fails to represent them
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
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, the act of expression cannot be realised using language. Believing that propositions display the logical form of reality as Wittgenstein asserted
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
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. leads to raising a subordinate question; do the speaker‘s utterances depict reality? If the utterances of the narrator can be pictured in reality, they are then true as confirmed by Wittgenstein in the following proposition 4.06 ‘‘A proposition can be true or false only in virtue of being a picture of reality in proposition’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
. If not, a proposition is either false or nonsensical. Nevertheless, it is sensical as already stated. In case it is assumed that a proposition pictures reality, the question in effect comes as follows: what sort of relation that both a picture and a model of reality have?
Proposition 4.06 suggests that a picture and a model of reality should be in correspondence
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
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. This is the core of Wittgenstein‘s theory of meaning. He considered the truthfulness of a proposition the subject of the state of affairs reflected by the existing picture, otherwise a proposition is false. A short-lived glance at the novelist's statement tells that a state of being cannot be true while being sought from
TPL‘s perspective. A spy is presented as a man of two faces, which cannot be a picture of reality - that is the world.- if it is presupposed that propositions express facts, which implies that they are symbols of facts. This pushes the line of thought towards reconsidering that propositions consist of words, some of them are simple, and they are not composed of any components, which results in the impossibility of being analysed. For example, the components of a proposition ‘Red Jack’ are used to refer to specific objects. If a simple predicate and a proper name are combined, they form an atomic proposition. The belief that language truly reflects the world brings another question into focus: Where can the colour ‘Red ‘be found in reality (or anywhere in the world)? Is there anything like ‘Red’ in nature, where individual objects, predicted to be of such colour, acquire its redness‘?
Colours along with qualities reflected and expressed in speech acts (as linguistic elements) evoke anew probing the following questions: is it possible to effectually trace the structure, its basic and prototype, with reality? Do words, in the authentic sense, correspond to reality? If the answer is affirmative, to what extent then this can be true in the case of a spy? Taking into consideration that ‘a spy ‘exists in reality (or anywhere in the world), when is it possible to be attributed to the world of espionage? And when it can be seen as a man of two faces at once? Considering that language denotes things (objects) in the world, due pensiveness is required so that specific inexistent structures in the world cannot be imposed arbitrarily. As literary works are characterised by the existence of figures of speech, symbolism included, the whole proposition can be symbolically interpreted. Nonetheless, to consider symbolism in this investigation, there must be conditions that should be attained by logically perfect language, as Bertrand Russell interpreted Wittgenstein’s concern with symbolism in the introduction of
TPL. According to Russell, an ideal language is the one that its syntax would work for two purposes: first, to avoid inferences, which are easily misleading because they are based on logical defects of language, from the nature of language to the nature of the world, and second exposing what logic entails in a language that must circumvent contradictions
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
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.
The second purpose proves that the novelist‘s language is fallacious since a spy (referent to human beings) cannot have two minds and faces; if a proposition is true, the novelist is supposed to introduce ‘a spy’ with two faces, and minds in different contexts. Indeed, a spy, with both faces, that of a Captain in the South Vietnamese army, and that of the North Vietnamese, acts under the direction of the man, one of his ‘blood brothers‘. But so that a proposition can be true, the novelist is supposed to stage dual personality of the man. If a proposition is judged to be false as it has no reference in the world, which world falls then within the concern of analysis? Is there only one world, or there are many? Can fictional world be excluded from Wittgenstein‘s conception? If the targeted world is the real one, are there any boundaries between the fictional and the real? Wittgenstein's assertion that the function of language is to represent states of affairs in the world can be illuminating. It is due to the fact that the notion of the world cannot be understood without having an insight into the state of affairs? According to him: 1 ‘‘the world is all that is the case’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
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and 1.1 ‘‘the worlds are the totality of facts, not of things’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
.
The two propositions operate together to highlight that the world is an ensemble of facts – the view against metaphysicians. But, does Wittgenstein mean tangible or intangible reality? If it is read from the perspective of Alex Burri,
| [2] | Gibson, John, and Wolfgang Hummer. The Literary Wittgenstein. Routledge, 2004. |
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Wittgenstein’s reality (the world) is concrete and tangible because there are no abstract entities- this is also called Wittgenstinain's Kantianism
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
[3]
. If it is assumed that language must express reality, what is said must be seen in reality, other realities must be debarred for they are metaphysical. Mental reality is not counted in Wittgenstein's conception. Because it is not subjected to objective investigation and the facts it presents cannot accordingly be verified. If that makes any sense, the proposition is consequently false as Wittgenstein is against both psychological and spiritual realities. Keeping such view, though the novelist presents a spy in different situations, where a spy’s representation of his psychological and spiritual realities, the falsity of a proposition is maintained.
If it is taken as given – there are only concrete entities, and thus reality- fiction entities (the case is the proposition that is made up of such facts) must be concrete. However, as long as entities are many, which ones should be considered? The type which corresponds to this analysis is the Ersatzism
| [2] | Gibson, John, and Wolfgang Hummer. The Literary Wittgenstein. Routledge, 2004. |
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. The latter is defined by Jessica Rett in her paper
A Typology of Semantic Entities (2022) as ‘‘a Type Ersatzist assumes one basic non-functional type – entities in general ‘’
. Rett proposed that to deal with all natural-language phenomena this type should be used
. If this conception – an ersatz entity – is taken for granted, another question is annexed; are fiction entities ersatz? Burri suggested that the very first question that should be raised comes as follows: is it only through literal meaning a fiction statement can be understood?
| [2] | Gibson, John, and Wolfgang Hummer. The Literary Wittgenstein. Routledge, 2004. |
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Let‘s examine ‘‘I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I am also a man of two minds’’
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
[3]
. If it can be understood beyond its literal meaning, then it requires a suitable paraphrase which can be taken at face value, and therefore enables readers to read off the ultimate objective of the source statement, as the possible derived entities – the paraphrase- are ersatz
.
Taking into account ersatz entities ‘paraphrasing, it can be inferred that fiction statements are concrete and ersatz, and consequently the proposition is itself concrete and ersatz. If a proposition of the novel is paraphrased as follows: 'the captain was forced to act in a paradoxical dualism', its entities are ersatz (working as substitute referents of the fictional names like ‘spy ‘and ‘a man‘). The two names occur in the source statement (those tokens) –paraphrase – of linguistic expressions which present themselves literally as a concrete substitute for the original fictional entity ‘‘I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I am also a man of two minds’’
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
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. David Lewis in
Noneism or Allism (1990) refers to this doctrine ‘substitutionalism‘which is defined as ‘
substitutionalists’ simulate quantification over fictional characters by quantifying for real over fictional names‘‘
. This construing implies that the occurrence –tokening – of the parts of the source fiction statement constitutes the truth-maker for the claim that 'the captain was forced to act in a paradoxical dualism' (in the context of the spy's novel). Such substitutionalism is helpful in understanding the picture theory in its built-in doctrine of truth-maker, yet still there are many takes of it. Certain names cannot be substituted, such as proper names and singular terms. This should be read as an escape from being in the quest for substitutionalism within the framework of Wittgenstein’s philosophical investigations. The question therefore is how do ersatz entities and substitutionalism work out in the framework of Wittgenstein’s Tracacturian philosophy?
This question by no stretch of a doubt necessitates bearing in mind the Tractaturian‘s conception about a picture. The latter - that is made of related elements
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
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is a fact
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
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, and hence a propositional sign should be recognised as it is given the proposition 3.14: ‘‘what constitutes a propositional sign is that its elements (the words) stand in a determinate relation to one another. A propositional sign is a fact’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
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. This proposition entails the so-called sentence tokens. For example, ‘‘I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I am also a man of two minds’’
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
[3]
is made true by the tokening of a certain sentence in the novel
The Sympathizer, and it must have the logical structure of a fact. What should be noted is that propositions 2.14 and 3.14
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
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imply in order that a statement can be true, it should be seen from the context in which it occurred. This is exactly what Wittgenstein meant by proposition 3.3 ‘‘only propositions have sense; only in the nexus of a proposition does a name have meaning’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
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. In view of this background, the fictional proposition should be investigated.
Since the objective is to verify whether the statement is true or false based on the contextual basis after having proved that the proposition has a sense, the notion of truth cannot be ignored. Vis-à-vis fiction, the term true can be used in different ways including ‘sincere‘, and 'true to life 'in the sense of having verisimilitude, or being ‘lifelike‘. The one that is adopted in this context is ‘sincere’as it is required for showing the authentic side of fiction characters words. To this end, the truthfulness and falsity of a proposition should be analysed under whether the narrator is sincere and accordingly authentic or not. The statement‘s context, as shown below, that is the episteme of the analysis is thus requisite:
I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I am also a man of two minds. I am not some misunderstood mutant from a comic book or a horror movie, although some have treated me as such. I am simply able to see any issue from both sides. Sometimes I flatter myself that this is a talent, and although it is admittedly one of a minor nature, it is perhaps also the sole talent I possess. At other times, when I reflect on how I cannot help but observe the world in such a fashion, I wonder if what I have should even be called talent. After all, talent is something you use, not something that uses you. The talent you cannot use, the talent that possesses you — that is a hazard, I must confess. But in the month when this confession began, my way of seeing the world still seemed more of a virtue than a danger, which is how some dangers first appear
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
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.
Though the confessions can be interpreted as not being sincere -inauthentic- the commandant claims that the Capitan- spy- is dirtied by the debauchery of the West (300). However a spy asserts his commitment to salve in favour of the communist agendas, his language jackets him a bourgeois
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
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as his words prove ‘‘not clear, not succinct, not direct, and not simple. It is the language of the elite, not written for the people’’
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
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This is also very evident in a spy's words, confessing that rather than obscuring his 'sincere' self and ideals; the language of his confession cannot be isolated from the authentic expression, as his words affirm:
I was recalcitrant, for I could have shortened my unwanted stay by writing what he wanted me to write. Long live the Party and the State. Follow Ho Chi Minh's glorious example. Let's build a beautiful and perfect society! I believed in these slogans, but I could not bring myself to write them. I could say that I was contaminated by the West, but I could not inscribe that on paper. It seemed as much of a crime to commit a cliché to paper as to kill a man, an act I had acknowledged rather than confessed, for killing Sonny and the crapulent major were not crimes in the commandant's eyes.
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
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.
Based on above accounts, the analysis ends up with truthfulness of the statement on the basis of the meaning attributed to the truth – sincerity, which implies three major points:
1) Fictional entities are always authoritative as far as fictional truth is concerned.
2) Fictional entities are not entirely determined.
3) What can be learned of fictional complexes lies in corresponding texts themselves.
To shorten, what cannot be spoken by fiction statements, readers, interpreters and critics are themselves required to pass it over in silence.
2.2. Simple and Elementary Propositions
Fiction Statement Two
‘‘They were my enemies, and yet they were also brothers-in-arms’’
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
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.
The statement is a continuity of a spy confessions that are entrenched with inner paradoxes. The first sight indicates that a spy keeps his duality, ‘‘a man of two faces and two minds’’; an identity that itself questions the statement whether it is true or not. The statement implies that the author unveils the two selves, the person's secret 'spy' and non-spy public self. Is it true then to confess dual identity based on the Trcacturain‘s picture theory? Before being reconciled to the rightness of the assumption, it would be operational to contextually place the statement in the Tractaturian's propositions. The statement ‘components position it more precisely within elementary propositions in relation to logical constants.
A transient reading of the statement discloses that it is not an elementary proposition because it does contain logical constants such as ‘and’, and thus it cannot be verified and analysed. From Wittgenstein stand,, the logical constants cannot represent an object as stated in proposition 4.0312 in
TPL ‘‘the possibility of propositions is based on the principle that objects have signs as their representatives. My fundamental idea is that the 'logical constants' are not representatives; that there can be no representatives of the logic of facts’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
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The reason why logical constants do not stand for nothing is inexistence of logical objects or even logical relations (it is a view against Frege and Russell)
1 as Wittgenstein avowed in proposition 5.4611 ‘‘Signs for logical operations are punctuation-marks’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
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. This proposition can be construed as if one considers denotative nature of punctuation marks in the sense that they represent constituents of a proposition; logical constants 'and', along with 'or' stand for special types of relations. The two -logical constants and punctuation marks- are merely means of combining a set of names (words) that indeed do not denote things. If this conception is kept as the superintendent's perspective, the statement – the narrator's utterances cannot be depicted in the world, and therefore false. If a proposition is read in reflection on logical constants, the analysis cannot be extended beyond, but it should be in due consideration to only logical constants. The else alternative is to prolong the attention and encompass all the constituents of a proposition including names.
Names in the statement are logically independent from each other for every elementary proposition consists of interrelated names, and each of which denotes a simple object
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
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; accordingly, every elementary proposition is independent of others as proposition 5.134 affirms:
‘‘one elementary proposition cannot be deduced from another’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
. In the light of such, there should not be any doubt to claim that Wittgenstein’s objective is to foreground the correspondence between language and the world using the theory of propositions. Out of Such a theory, the sub-theory of elementary propositions emerged starting with proposition 4.2
‘‘the sense of a proposition is its agreement and disagreement with possibilities of existence and non-existence of states of affairs’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
. Additionally, Wittgenstein’s theory of propositions could be read as a mirror of his metaphysics, namely the theory of facts and their constituents. The fact that states of affairs determine facts entails that all propositions are to be explained, and they are determined by a class of basic propositions – elementary ones. As a result, the statement ‘‘they were my enemies, and yet they were also brothers-in-arms’’
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
[3]
can be explained and described – analysed.
In line with the possibility of the analysis of a proposition, as elementary propositions stand for states of affairs
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
, all states of affairs are independent of all other states of affairs, and all elementary propositions are independent of all other elementary propositions.
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
This conclusion implies that elementary propositions are not propositions that are neither used with familiarity, nor the ones Russell termed atomic propositions. With the same line of thought the discussion continues, the statement ‘‘they were my enemies, and yet they were also brothers-in-arms’’ can be read in twofold: the first reading can be against classifying it as an elementary proposition because people to whom a spy refers as ‘enemies’ cannot be so for others; the same is valid for ‘the brothers-in-arms’. The statement can be contradicted by another that goes against the grain if the utterance is said by the commandant for whom and his community is enslaved. This was also confirmed by Wittgenstein’s proposition 4.22
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
. Such a conception parallels the nature of states of affairs, as it was stated in proposition 2.03 ‘‘in a state of affairs objects fit into one another like the links of a chain’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
It is an indication that names stand for objects as a state of affairs refers to an arrangement of objects, and elementary propositions stand for states of affairs, and elementary propositions are an arrangement of names. In view of that, as elementary propositions are correlated with states of affairs, a mention of the Trcacturain‘s proposition 4.3 is required: ‘‘Truth possibilities of elementary propositions mean possibilities of existence and non-existence of states of affairs’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
.
The idea that elementary propositions are matched up one-to- one with states of affairs involves all true elementary propositions point to what is to know about the states of affairs. If states of affairs determine all facts, then it appears that all true elementary propositions uttered are to be said about the facts. If however every proposition has its sense -some (possible) fact- and a proposition is true based on whether the fact is actual, the result must be that all true elementary propositions determine the truth value of all propositions. Because of the fact that ‘‘the simplest kind of proposition, an elementary proposition, asserts the existence of a state of affairs’’ as proposition 4.21 shows in
TPL | [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
, the statement ‘‘they were my enemies, and yet they were also brothers-in-arms’’ is then a simple proposition of ordinary language. Instead hence of naming them proposition, they should called elementary propositions. The same is as well true for states of affairs instead of atomic state of affairs. What make it a simple elementary proposition are the logical constants of which it constitutes. This in a nutshell argues for the possibility of analysing the proposition. Its analysis requires being understood as it was conceived by Wittgenstein.
Wittgenstein synthesised and modified Frege and Russell‘s views about the relationship between propositions and the world. Yet, there is a point of commonness between Frege and Wittgenstein which lies in ascribing the meaning of a sentence to its truth condition, as given in proposition 4.024 ‘‘to understand a proposition means to know what is the case if it is true. (One can understand it, therefore, without knowing whether it is true.) It is understood by anyone who understands its constituents’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
, to know if it is the case in ‘‘they are enemies, and yet rather brothers in –arms’’, it should be verified if it is true or not. In this vein an insight into the meaning of the case imposes itself. Wittgenstein defined the case as states of affairs, but if they exist as shown in proposition 2 ‘‘what is the case—a fact—is the existence of states of affairs’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
, but what is state of affairs? Wittgenstein ‘state of affairs is a blend of objects in proposition 2.01 ‘‘a state of affairs (a state of things) is a combination of objects (things)’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
. State of affairs of this proposition ‘‘they are enemies, and yet rather brothers in –arms’’‘(the ones against whom a spy worked, but they were enemies) is what relates the constituents, including all words given in the propositions, but they must have their references in the world, which is unclear yet. It is doubtless that a proposition has a sense and is understood, but it cannot be pictured in the world because of the pronoun 'they'; the pronoun in English is used in plural form to refer to, people, objects and animals, which makes the proposition puzzling. This confusion arises out of using the pronoun 'they 'which remains a hurdle to figuring out the true referent of it.
All that can be said is that the word 'they' can be used for different roles which is impossible according to Wittgenstein, as it was asserted in proposition 2 0122 ‘‘Things are independent in so far as they can occur in all possible situations, but this form of independence is a form of connection with states of affairs, a form of dependence. (It is impossible for words to appear in two different roles: by themselves and in propositions’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
. This however should not limit the scope of the analysis. The semantic value of propositions in general and names in particular is suggested for one single reason; Wittgenstein‘s philosophy mainly in
TPL tackles in depth semantic values.. The fact that Wittgenstein considered the significance of semantic value lends credence to the adoption of the terminology of semantic significance. Wittgenstein claimed that the semantic value of a proposition is the situation it represents – its sense
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
for a proposition is a set of names, and the name's semantic value is the object it stands for – its referent
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
. In light of the above semantic value and semantic importance, the flow of analysis is continued based on the semantics of pronouns; the use or the utterance of the pronoun ‘they ‘alone results in its ambiguity. But once it is uttered in a certain context as follows: ‘they are enemies’’
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
[3]
it implies pointing at a certain group of people; the same is valid for’ ‘they are also brothers –in arms’’, yet if pointing out to another group. By referring that the pronoun has a sense and thus its referents, though the problem is that 'they' is used for the same group of people. The second 'they' (the one that is used with an indication of who) which is interpreted referentially is termed 'demonstrative,' and the first 'they' which is construed non-referentially is called 'bound'. The two types of the pronoun 'they' calls to reconsider semantic value of the pronoun in context because such a value differs from one context to another. To realise the significance of context and how it can fix the problem, the semantics of pronouns are required. Una Stojni along with other co-writers in their article
Discourse and Logical Form: Pronouns, Attention and Coherence (2017) claimed that
:The semantic value of a demonstrative pronoun, like that of a bound variable, depends on, and can co-vary with antecedent expressions; further, the linguistic meaning of a pronoun, on both uses, fully determines its semantic value in a context.
.
Practically, the pronoun 'they' is not different from the pronoun 'I ' in the first fiction statement (I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces. Perhaps not surprisingly, I am also a man of two minds)
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
[3]
since in both the context of the pronoun fixes the semantic value on any attempt of use. The 'I' refers to a spy – the speaker- in a context, so too, contra the received view of ' they'. Since the pronoun ‘I ' is given its character - determines its semantic value as a function of a fixed feature of context. The meaning of a pronoun by and large identifies its referent in its context. This entails locating the statement in which 'they' occurs in its context within the novel
The Sympathiser. The statement is extracted from the following paragraph in the first chapter. The narrator continues his narration in the form of the follow-up of his confessions:
Then the guitarist began strumming the chords of another song. They do sing songs like this, Man said. It was Yesterday by the Beatles. As the three of us joined in singing, my eyes grew moist. What was it like to live in a time when one's fate was not war when one was not led by the craven and the corrupt, when one's country was not a basket case kept alive only through the intravenous drip of American aid? I knew none of these young soldiers around me except for my blood brothers and yet I confess that I felt for them all, lost in their sense that within days they would be dead, or wounded, or imprisoned, or humiliated, or abandoned, or forgotten. They were my enemies, and yet they were also brothers-in-arms. Their beloved city was about to fall, but mine was soon to be liberated. It was the end of their world, but only a shifting of worlds for me. So it was that for two minutes we sang with all our hearts, feeling only for the past and turning our gaze from the future, swimmers doing the backstroke toward a waterfall
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
[3]
.
On a rough first pass, as surmised, the narrator from a prison cell follows his story that started in Vietnam. A spy, who infiltrates the inner sphere of the General, an American sympathizer and the head of the South Vietnamese secret police finds himself obliged to persecute communists. This context highlights that the pronoun 'they' refers to the two best friends - Bon and Man- of the narrator with whom he meets for a goodbye drink. They are all blood brothers, Man is a communist and Bon serves the South Vietnamese agenda. The statement ‘They were my enemies, and yet they were also brothers-in-arms’’
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
[3]
reflects the belief in his capability of seeing any problem from two sides—which is borne out in his role as a communist spy permeating the anti-communist forces in his mixed-race heritage on the one hand, and his moral inconsistency on the other hand. Despite his allegiance to the communist forces, he still keeps himself as a sympathizer with those people who are supposed to be his enemies. Before the fall of Saigon, in a heart-breaking the narrator's words ‘‘they were my enemies, and yet they were also brothers-in-arms’’
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
[3]
are uttered when they are singing at the cliff of change, journeying into the communal past as stated in the following: ‘‘feeling only for the past and turning our gaze from the future’’
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
[3]
. The two words 'enemies' and 'brother-in-arms' showcase the narrator's continuous dithering, which results in his complicated relationship with the external world. In brief, something of a great importance to this analysis is the semantic value of the pronoun 'they' and its referent that itself cannot be evidenced in the absence of the former.
The present account follows the same line of thought to decide on the truthfulness or the falseness of the fictional statement ‘‘they were my enemies, and yet they were also brothers-in-arms’’. If it is presumed that sentences and nouns have meaning and semantic value, Wittgenstein argued that sentences have meaning but have no semantic value, and nouns have semantic value, but not meaning, as it was proved in proposition 3.3 ‘‘Only propositions have sense; only in the nexus of a proposition does a name have meaning’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
With this view, ‘‘they are enemies, and yet brothers in arms’’ has a sense based on its context. However, it is not demonstrated whether it is true or false. To recognise so, it is very necessary to consider the notion of reference in literature. Reference and reality recall the attention back to reflect on the two terms 'truth' and ‘knowledge’. Literary writes, more precisely novelists, reject the idea that literary works are deprived of truth; instead, they should be read with the same consideration as history because their stories are instructive as history. This is as well confirmed by the fact that literature presents some kind of truth, and yields some sort of insights that constitute its cognitive value according to Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen (1994)
| [4] | Lamarque, P, and Olsen, S. H. Truth, Fiction, and Literature, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. |
[4]
. A good example is Charles Dickens who has strongly emphasised the truth of his novels; no place thus is left for probability or lifelike, Dickens has put:
It is useless to discuss whether the conduct and character of the girl seem natural or unnatural, probable or improbable, right or wrong, it is true. Every man who has watched these melancholy shades of life must know it to be so. From the first introduction of that poor wretch to her laying her blood-stained head upon the robber's breast, there is not a word ex¬ aggregated or over-wrought. ('Preface' to Oliver Twist)
| [8] | Dickens, Charles, et al. Oliver Twist. Maretak, 2017. |
[8]
.
The same view was voiced by Henry James in his work The Art of Fiction‘ in ‗The Art of Fiction‘ and Other Essays (1884), as proven below:
As the picture is reality, so the novel is history. That is the only general description (which does it justice) that we may give of the novel. But history also is allowed to represent life; it is not, any more than painting, expected to apologize. The subject matter of fiction is stored up likewise in documents and records, and if it will not give itself away, as they say in California, it must speak with assurance, with the tone of a historian.
| [9] | James, Henry. The Art of Fiction and Other Essays. University Microfilms International, 1980. |
[9]
.
Based on Lamarque and Oslen, the two views are of the communal idea that the novel is true in its particulars in terms of certain types of situations, persons, etc. in the real world, which attributes to it a humanly interesting content
| [4] | Lamarque, P, and Olsen, S. H. Truth, Fiction, and Literature, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. |
[4]
. Those events, characters, places, actions, and situations are all fictional entities which are considered by Graham Dunstan Martin in his work
A New Look collages of familiar bits and pieces‘
| [4] | Lamarque, P, and Olsen, S. H. Truth, Fiction, and Literature, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. |
[4]
. According to him, fiction will:
Never be entirely fictitious in the sense of there being nothing anywhere that corresponds to it in any way: there will indeed always be things that correspond to its every detail, somewhere, in some way. In short, all its constituent parts will be drawn from reality. It is their non-occurrence together, in that combination, that constitutes the fiction.
| [4] | Lamarque, P, and Olsen, S. H. Truth, Fiction, and Literature, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. |
[4]
.
Martin's words hint at the idea that fiction concepts have 'referring components'
| [4] | Lamarque, P, and Olsen, S. H. Truth, Fiction, and Literature, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. |
[4]
, a variety of descriptions which comprise the description of a fiction entity are referents to existing entities in the real world, and they can be true or false, of these entities. The author‘s aim is to ensure that the description of each single parcel or a combination of parts of the fictional entity is true. A complex description becomes fictional and false in case only qualities and relations (entities) are ascribed to a character, place, or event, which does not exist in
toto. This suggests taking into account Tractaturian‘s Wittgenstein‘s proposition:
3.3 ‘‘only propositions have sense; only in the nexus of a proposition does a name have meaning‘‘
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
for an elementary proposition is made up of names; that is, it is a nexus of names as the proposition 4.22 confirms ‗‗An elementary proposition consists of names. It is a nexus, a concatenation, of the name’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
.
If the two interpretations are considered, one would not be able to acclaim beyond the notion of the aggregate, a combination of names constitutes an elementary proposition, and thus a proposition, which results in having a sense. This implies that a collection of parts of the fiction entity makes the statement true. The proposition ‘‘they are enemies, and yet brothers in arms’’ is a mishmash of names that are put together in a nexus, which provides them a sense on a micro-level. On the macro-level, the fiction entity is true if it is looked upon as one single part of the fiction entities in the novel as a whole. An important point is the fact that such a literary work functions as an eye-opener to real behavior, real actions, real situations, and real events, without which the literary work would not have its value.
From a historical lens, this is indeed true for the novel
The Sympathizer; it depicts a complex fictional representation of a post-1975 Vietnamese community in America. Such representations are characterised by a dreadful war, loss of everything, and struggle to survive in a new country, culture, and conditions of life. The novel is located at a time of the retreating Vietnam War when American forces were increasingly pulling out their officers and people back to the USA from Saigon. The very first confession-two faced man - in the novel
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
[3]
, and the portrayal of the narrator as a mixed-race protagonist along with the theme of espionage is intentionally presented to create a politico-racial classification to dislocate the American perspective of ‗winning ‘this lost war.
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
[3]
. Like the first confession ‘‘a man of two faces, a man of two minds’’, the second confession ‘‘ they are enemies, and yet brothers in arms’’ implies that the narrator has the ability to see both sides of the war
119 and work effectively as a spy, demonstrated by his friendship with Bon and Man, signifying opposite ideologies.
2.3. Thoughts and Propositions
Fiction Statement Three
The account precedes the narrator’s confessions which are embedded with the fragmented self. Such inference prompts a question that is open to many interpretations; does the writer intend to do so or not? This is what is envisioned to be uncovered in the analysis of this fiction statement ‘‘Once again I was trapped by circumstances, and once again I would soon see another man trapped by circumstances’’
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
[3]
based on pictorial conception. The question of intentions proposes an analysis relying on the relation between thought and propositions. A passing glimpse at the fiction statement implies that the narrator sustains his confession with an attempt of earthling his ascribed identity ‘a spy ‘by attributing the role to the Major. The statement contains two key names ‘was ‘and ‘see‘ which are stative verbs employing them to unmask the intended narrator‘s state of being. This state can be either mental or psychic. In whatever sense, names used to uncover that state of being indicate something of the significance in
TPL which are thoughts and speech propositions. If a proposition has to be described, it is in the light of s thought and proposition, which necessitates considering the logical form of a proposition.
The pictorial function of a proposition is seen on the basis of logical form. Wittgenstein assured that a picture is a fact
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
since a proposition is a combination of facts, and a fact should be pictured in the world; if it is a true picture, relations between its elements must mirror the relations that exist in reality. This requires the existence of a picture's logical form that must be in common with a picture of an object. For this objective, Wittgenstein argued that every picture is as well logical
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
. What is in the quest is: how do relations reflect the mirrored relations in reality? Simply put, how does a form of representation take place? Proposition 2.182 in which Wittgenstein highlighted that 'a picture is logical entails that there are other characteristics which can be attributed to it, also ''in use'' has added. What does this suggest? A logical picture is either no material means of representation are needed or there is no correspondence to the pictured object. That is, there is nothing in common, all but its logical form. And this is what the proposition 2.225 suggests
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
. While considering the non-existence of pictures that are true a priori, Wittgenstein claimed that ‘‘there are no pictures that are true a priori’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
.
But if it is supposed that it is the case for the statement ‘‘Once again I was trapped by circumstances, and once again I would soon see another man trapped by circumstances’’, how can this proposition correspond to that conception? It cannot be pictured in the world because it is a nonsensical proposition as it is neither true nor false. The reason lies in the idea the name ‘circumstances ‘cannot be pictured in the world since conditions are not determined. Such drawing conclusion brings the following question: which ‘circumstances’ are addressed by the narrator? If it is presumed that there are the same circumstances, are other characters in the novel entombed by the same conditions? Since there is a variety of conditions which might differ from one person to another, it is hence beyond possibility to speak of all ‘circumstances’ as the novelist is supposed to be to point reading the sort of circumstances. In this vein, Wittgenstein stated that it is nonsensical to speak of the total number of objects
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
. The otherwise analysis should consider Wittgenstein's proposition that highlights the logical picture of facts as thought to correspond to the proposition 3: ‘‘A logical picture of facts is a thought’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
.
Wittgenstein associated a logical picture of facts with thought; the one that constitutes a logical picture of facts. If pictures denote thoughts, it could not be in the right position to state that not only thoughts are represented by pictures, but also the speech of propositions, without which thoughts cannot be transmitted to others. Wittgenstein argued that it is only in a proposition a thought can find an expression which can be perceived by the sense
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
. If thoughts are to be transmitted by speech propositions, of an integral mention is to get readers know what thought means from Wittgenstein's point of view. The word 'thought' is not to be mixed with mental events of thinking – in the latter mental images of things and of words occur within human beings – as justified by the fact that the totality of true thoughts is a picture of the world.
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
. If the proposition ‘‘once again I was trapped by conditions’’ is proposed to be read in based upon the fact that a picture of the world is a true thought, another proposition from
TPL should be considered: which is ‘‘there are no pictures that are true a priori’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
. The latter indicates that so that a picture can be true, it must not be considered in isolation; it should be treated, yet not in the absence of its context. From the very first look at the proposition, it seems that being a two-faced man - a spy- is not a choice, but it is subjected to circumstances in particular. This is also clear in holding the second identity beyond the native in general. To be explicit, the context of the fiction statement is stated below.
The statement is situated in chapter five when the General plans a celebration for the huge inauguration of his liquor store on the first anniversary of Saigon's fall. The narrator – a spy – is asked to leave his work at an unusual time – early- for the party by his immediate superior, a Japanese American woman named Ms. Mori with whom the narrator has already a sexual—but not romantic or committed—relationship. This act reminds him of his first sexual experience- as a little child, using a raw squid to masturbate. The narrator does not find masturbation or sex obscene -he believes violence and war are far more depraved than sexual liberation. Before the party, the narrator meets with the General and Claude their friend in the CIA. Once Claude communicates his lamentations about the bad decisions on America's part which leads to Saigon‘s fall, The General informs Claude that he suspects a communist informant and names the crapulent major. He orders the narrator to plan the crapulent major's assassination; the narrator and Bon are forced to carry the murder out. Despite the narrator is hesitant to comply, he notes that Bon seems happy for the first time since the death of his wife and child. From this context, it becomes clear that the narrator targets the circumstances in which neither he nor his friend Bon can escape because they are ordered by their master – the general. This illustrates that the fiction entity is true yet in its context as suggested in the proposition number two ‘‘they are enemies, and yet brothers in arms’’
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
[3]
, for it is considered within the relationship between whole fiction entities of the novel. Once it is admitted that the picture represented by the analysed proposition is true – as stated above – in the context of the other fiction entities of the novel, its entities constitute thought, and the true thought is a picture of the world –the world of espionage- as the totality of true thoughts is a picture of the world. The thought that is presented by the proposition is true, and accordingly the proposition is true.
Perhaps the analysis may take some way if the auxiliary 'to be’, as one of the key constituents of a proposition, is considerably taken into account. The auxiliary in this context is used for stating the narrator’s thought, and what he thinks is necessary to be true and realised in reality. Once 'was' is attributed to the narrator, two readings are to be inferred.: (1) if the first self (a spy) speaks, it can be understood that being a spy is not his real identity, (2) the second, the act of espionage can be read as his native identity. What he thinks of is not true as it is not a picture in the world. Beyond the
novelistic context, if one says for example ‘W’ is wider than ‘‘X’; another can imagine at the same time that the utterer accommodates a map of the entire area of ‘X’ inside ‘W’. What is the thought in this case? In this context, it is not identical with imagination. The act of imagination of the narrator- a spy- is not identical to his thought as a spy –character-. The reason is what the narrator imagines is not what is pictured in reality, as everyone who reads his utterances can see him as a spy. The narrator in the second part of the statement ‘‘and once again I would soon see another man trapped by circumstances’’ ‘sees (imagines) his friend Bon trapped himself by the same circumstances. Considering the proposition 3.01 ‘‘the totality of true thoughts is a picture of the world”
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
can lead to the conclusion that what a narrator imagines is not what is pictured in reality; it is not a thought thus. The novelist shows the narrator as a spy not else. The major's task is to give orders to a spy. With this consideration, the proposition is untrue. According to the following propositions: 3.02 ‘‘a thought contains the possibility of the situation of which it is the thought.’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
, what is thinkable is possible too. This is additionally confirmed in proposition 3.03 ‘‘Thought can never be of anything illogical, since, if it were, we should have to think illogically’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
.
With the perspective that a proposition is untrue, as it is not pictured in reality, it can be assumed that it exists elsewhere beyond logic, and thus the world. The thought of the narrator is also untrue and therefore outside logic. However, if it is seen through the lens of proposition 3.03 which indicates that thought can never be anything illogical, how comes to hold the view that a proposition is untrue; regarding the idea that thought is logic? Two possibilities are there; either the narrator thinks illogically, or the proposition is nonsensical. And this is the case-nonsensicality - for the proposition ‘‘Once again I was trapped by circumstances, and once again I would soon see another man trapped by circumstances’’; is neither true nor false.
The view that the proposition is untrue for it fails to represent what exists in reality pushes the lines of analysis forward to dissect its constituents and considers significantly the verb and the auxiliary 'see' and ' be '. The two are used to mean 'think', and this implies the existence of 'thought'. Since what is imagined is not what is thought, the latter is hence abstracted from the images. Thinking about something comes from the human ability to make perceptible images. The elements that compose parts of images denote parts of human thought. To make parts of thought or thought itself, people make up signs. To this end, people use words and propositions of speech, and this is what Wittgenstein proclaimed in proposition 3 1431:
The essence of a propositional sign is very clearly seen if we imagine one composed of spatial objects (such as tables, chairs, and books) instead of written signs. Then the spatial arrangement of these things will express the sense of the proposition.
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
.
As a sub-conclusion, plausibly it can be stated that people have the ability to express their thoughts using words, which implies however their experience of inquisitive thoughts that cannot be put into words. That is the case for the novelist; this is similar to the example of taking about thoughts in a dream, which turns afterwards to be nothing except a simple chain of associations.
Even though the previous account concluded with the nonsensicality of the proposition, this is true and only if it has been read from the logical possibility as laid out in
TPL, exactly in proposition 3.02 ‘‘A thought contains the possibility of the situation of which it is the thought. What is thinkable is possible too’’
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
. What should not be ignored in this respect is the notion of imaginability as a criterion for the logical possibility
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
. To better clarify, the grammar of being able to imagine comes into prominence. Wittgenstein dedicated a chapter in his book
The Big typescript (BT) (2005) to imaginability as a principle so that a proposition can have a sense. The latter should be joined with the imaginability and the logical possibility of a state of affairs as stated below:
Consider: "In fact, I've never seen a black spot gradually turning lighter and lighter until it was white, and then turning more and more reddish until it was red; but I know that that is possible because I can imagine it. That is, using my imagination I operate within colour space and do with them what would be possible with colours."
| [10] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig, and C. Grant Luckhardt. The Big Typescript: TS 213: German-English Scholars’ Edition; Kritische Zweisprachige Ausgabe Deutsch-Englisch. Blackwell, 2005. |
[10]
.
The above quote hints at the knowledge, if or not this colour change is possible, does not necessarily necessitate the experience of the colour change itself. It requires however no more than imagination. The possibility in question is its logical possibility. Yet, the word 'imagination' or 'imaginability' should not be understood as the faculty to call up, so to speak, ‘a particular image before one’s mind ‘ eye‘, that can be attempted and failed at. To elaborate, Wittgenstein‘s words are required, as long as the analysis engages with the imaginability as a condition by the example of divisibility of a strip in BT he stated:
But then there is the criterion of the imaginability of division. We say "Oh yes, I can quite easily think of (or imagine) this strip as divided." […] And here one says: Surely I can imagine in this case that the strip is halved. But what does this mental ability consist in? Can I do it if I attempt? And what if I don't succeed in doing so? You can find out what is meant here by "I can imagine …" by asking "How is it that you can now imagine the halving?" The answer to that is: "All I have to do is imagine the black part of the strip as a little wider"; and it's assumed that to imagine that is no longer difficult. But in this case, it isn't a question of the difficulty of calling up a particular image before my mind's eye, nor is it a question of something that I can attempt but fail at; rather it's a question of acknowledging a rule for a mode of expression. To be sure, this rule can be based on the ability to imagine something; that is to say, in this case, a mental image works like a model, that is, like a sign, and of course, it can also be replaced by a painted model.
| [10] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig, and C. Grant Luckhardt. The Big Typescript: TS 213: German-English Scholars’ Edition; Kritische Zweisprachige Ausgabe Deutsch-Englisch. Blackwell, 2005. |
[10]
.
Inferred from the quote, the term imaginability is used in the form of the enunciation ‘‘I can imagine it’’, an expression of admitting a rule for a style of expression. Simply put, the statement ‘’I can imagine it’’ denotes the acceptance of both a rule for a mode of expression and, the grammatical norms. For the utterance that something is imaginable is an application of language, of grammar itself, and hence an expression of the acceptance of the rules of grammar. Tout Court, Wittgenstein did not target a psychological capacity, but focused on certain situations in which language is put with imaginability that underlies public rules of grammar. This conception of imagination parallels that of narrative in that the focus appeals to the different practices, in which the former has a role in investigating the relevant referential and truth-bearing commitments regarding the proposition under analysis. Such understanding purposes due attention to the difference between imaginations in its twofold; an activity and an attitude.
It might seem apposite to adopt the conception of imagination in the sense that it is reflective, but not its creative sense, a form of attention, and a way of holding something in the mind. More importantly, the concern of this account has nothing to do with the imagination of the novelist as an activity of mind. But, there would not be reflective imagining – an attitude of mind- in the absence of imagination of the writer because they are the images created by him that bring to the fore imagination of the reader. This distinction is very important as it is the one that leads the way towards imagination and fictional works. Yet, imagination as an attitude is in sharp contrast with belief; the latter is associated with truth and assertion. That is, to believe a proposition is to see, to be true, and to hold the disposition to assert it as true that should the occasion ascend, as Lamraque and Oslen noted
| [4] | Lamarque, P, and Olsen, S. H. Truth, Fiction, and Literature, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. |
[4]
. The concern is accordingly with imagining as a propositional attitude which encompasses suspending the link with truth and assertion. Such sub-conclusion entails holding in mind the proposition without the disposition towards the assertion
| [11] | Scruton, Roger. Art and Imagination: A Study in the Philosophy of Mind. ROUTLEDGE AND KEGAN PAUL, 1982. |
[11]
. The difference then is imagination in the attitude sense that can be adopted, whereas belief cannot. Another reason is that imagining is neutral between truth and falsity.
The idea that there is a possibility to imagine both what is true and what is not argues for the fact imagining is an attitude that is involved in the active stance. This is also clear if it is applied to the proposition in its context; the fact that the General orders the narrator to murder an innocent man (see the context of the proposition above). The act of ordering can be read as if the General believes that he can take back South Vietnam. As for the narrator, there is a possibility to accept the orders of the General; he values his life and his position as a communist spy, which is why he says ‘‘I was trapped by circumstances’’ The affirmation of the claim that the act of imagining the narrator is true lies in uneasy and guilty left —the major is innocent. To comfort his conscience, a spy seeks moral justification in a dinner party conversation with an old college professor and Claude, who eases his guilt by helping him recall the major's corrupt behaviour during the war. The proposition ‘‘I was trapped by circumstances’’ as stated by the narrator reflects his true imagination as after weeks of planning the narrator and Bon ambush the major outside his apartment complex. And the narrator's friend Bon shoots the major in the head, which gives meaning to the second part of the proposition ‘‘I also see another man was trapped by circumstances’’. This is unconcealed in the novel while the narrator is faced with assassinating the major, he grapples with his clashed sense of guilt and duty; his situation requires his obedience, yet he wonders if this murder would be in favour of the common good.
In short, the narrator's imagination is not only an attitude adopted by convention, but also a way of holding in mind the propositional content of the whole novel. If the coin is reversed, once a reader imagines that the novelist performs speech acts, this is also an attitude embraced by convention, and meanwhile it is a means of having in minded the propositional content of the novel. It is the context hence in which the proposition occurs that marks off truth-bearing uses of imagination from fiction-creating human beings.
2.4. Subject of Names
Fiction Statement Four
Tragedy was not the conflict between right and wrong but right and right, a dilemma none of us who wanted to participate in history could escape. The major had the right to live, but I was right to kill him. Wasn‘t I?
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
[3]
.
At first sight, the proposition induces a step back in time to Hegel. The novelist takes Hegel as a reference to make the readers into the recognition of the snags of duality and opposition. Already stated, the narrator tries to split himself from his identity by attributing a spy to the major with the ascription ‘‘trapped by circumstances’’. Yet, his later words- the proposition above – reveal moral doubt he sustains; identity is a determinant that relates the narrator's early and later words. The inconsistencies the narrator lives are to be described- analysed- to make sure if what is said is truly pictured in the world or not. From Wittgenstein's theory of logical language, exactly the subject of names, this investigation takes place.
In the introduction of
TPL, according to Russell’s understanding of the book, names are given to simples; two names do not refer to one thing, one name for one thing (11). This points towards if such a conception is excluded, no other means is available to describe the totality of things which can have a name (can be named). The totality concerned in this regard is what exists in reality. Russell himself equally pointed out that if there is another way to describe such a totality of things, it is required to be knowledgeable about certain properties that must belong to everything by a logical necessity
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
; this property is in itself an identity. He moreover appealed Wittgenstein's subject's identity to a critical criticism from which there seems no seepage. Russell, however, had another alternative while rejecting Wittgenstein's conception of identity using the identity of imperceptibles
| [12] | Russell, Bertrand. On Denoting. Blackwell, 1905. |
[12]
. Succinctly, the identity of indiscernible seems to be not a logically necessary principle. In the light of such a principle, it can be said that ' x' is identical to 'y' if the latter gets every property of 'x'.
| [12] | Russell, Bertrand. On Denoting. Blackwell, 1905. |
[12]
Russell's pursuit of argumentation lies in claiming that this can logically be possible for two things to have the same properties. Furthermore, he stated that assuming if such does not take place; it is then an inadvertent characteristic of the world, but not a logically necessary characteristic. For him, accidental characteristics of the world must not be admitted into the structure of logic.
| [13] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Lecture on Ethics. Wiley. 1929. |
[13]
Russell concluded that Wittgenstein banished identity and then adopted the convention that different letters are to mean different things
| [12] | Russell, Bertrand. On Denoting. Blackwell, 1905. |
[12]
.
After such a short-term account of Russell's reading of Wittgenstein’s conception of identity, it could be appropriate to consider Wittgenstein’s conception based on
TPL. For Wittgenstein, on the one hand, usually, the same word is taken as a word of different modes of signification in everyday language, and these results in believing that they belong to different symbols. On the other hand, the two words that are considered as having different modes of significations are employed in propositions, yet in what is superficially the same way. Therefore, the word ‘
is‘ is considered as a copula, as a sign of identity, and as an expression of existence. ‘Exist ‘appears as intransitive as 'to go' and 'identical' as an adjective; it is as if talking about something, but also about something that is happening as it was stated in proposition
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
. A proposition suggests Russell perhaps failed to understand Wittgenstein ‘s conception of identity. Wittgenstein did not relate one word to different meanings. He alternatively argued stating that the word can have different symbols, but only one meaning. However, Wittgenstein did not deny that happens in everyday life. That is, people think of having the same word for different meanings, but this is not the case for Wittgenstein.
On this basis the narrator‘s words ‘‘Tragedy was not the conflict between right and wrong but right and right, a dilemma none of us who wanted to participate in history could escape. The major had the right to live, but I was right to kill him. Wasn‘t I?’’ are interpreted. The narrator lives the complications of duality and opposition which lies in his unspoken moral doubt. The question raised at the end of the statement argues for such a fact. An insight into moral doubt according to Wittgenstein is inescapable. Following an abundant discussion of the issue, the two parts of the statement; ‘‘Tragedy was not the conflict between right and wrong but right and right, a dilemma none of us who wanted to participate in history could escape’’ and ‘‘the major had the right to live, but I was right to kill him. Wasn't I’’
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
[3]
indicate something of commonness; both, the major and a spy seek safety. The major on the one hand gives instructions and orders for one single not else reason, to live safe in a nutshell. A spy on the other hand betrays his brothers in arms to live safe as well. Moral doubt the narrator lives is due to his quest for safety. The word 'safe' leads the analysis to argue with Wittgenstein's conception of 'absolute safety' which was highlighted in his
LE (8). However, Mikael Burley (2010) doubted that Wittgenstein's statement on absolute security should be paired with the notion of morality as a security guarantee in the right sense, or it can be read to represent a point of view beyond what is ordinarily accepted.
, both virtue and vice, a view that is consistent with thoughts expressed in Wittgenstein's Tractaturian‘s period, can be called mystic.
Based on Wittgenstein’s ethical lecture, one might also call it the experience of absolute security. That is, the one termed another experience, which is also known, and which others may know. It means the state of mind where a person is inclined to say ‘‘I'm safe, nothing can harm me no matter what’’
| [13] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Lecture on Ethics. Wiley. 1929. |
[13]
. Based on such construing, an assertion forces itself and then suggests considering moral goodness as a condition so that human beings can be protected against evil or punishment. Pursuing discussion on the statement of the novelist regarding Wittgenstein's absolute safety necessitates recognising what is meant by absolute safety. Hitting the nail directing towards reversing the question since 'safety' is opposed to harm, by inquiring: is there anything that can harm human beings? This is the question which was raised by Peter Winch in his essay
Can a Good Man Be Harmed (1965) , but formulated differently from how it is reworded now. This question bears different answers that should be considered. Winch was inspired by Wittgenstein and the question he highlighted his
Lecture on Ethics LE
| [13] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Lecture on Ethics. Wiley. 1929. |
[13]
. Such an appeal should not be beyond the fact that the question in essence was a concern of many philosophers including Winch. Socrates in
Plato's apology (399 - 387 BCE) insisted on facing death with good hope because a good man cannot suffer any evil at all, be it in life, or after death, as confirmed by Winch in
Can a good man be harmed in the following
: ‘but you, too, my judges, must face death with good hope, and remember this one truth that a good man cannot suffer any evil either in life or after death, and that the gods do not neglect his fortunes’’
. In the same regard, Kierkegaard in
Purity of Heart (1948) argued that an innocent man cannot be punished, the following quote upholds ‘‘ […] Even if the world gathered all its strength, there is one thing it is not able to do, it can no more punish an innocent one than it can put a dead person to death […]’’
| [15] | Kierkegaard, S. Purity of Heart. Har-Row, 1948. |
[15]
.
However the above conceptions are of some similarities with those developed by Wittgenstein, the latter as did declare any sort of relation between harm and moral goodness as well as virtuousness. The very shared between Wittgenstein and other philosophers is their explicit announcement that human beings cannot be harmed by anything. If this is a true presupposition, the narrator‘s question ‘‘wasn‘t I? ‘’is no more than a fuss about nothing. This is not the case, as it implies something of full width if there is a possibility of bearing in mind the analogies between the entire statement and Wittgenstein‘s conception based on their contexts. In regard to the former, if one intends that nothing can harm him or her, the utterance still bears a predictive element. This results in the fact that ‘‘whatever happens’’ if added to the utterance it becomes valueless. In case he or she fails to do so, the absolutism does not exist in what is intended because predictive element' and ‘‘whatever happens’’ are in brief forms of argumentation in the eyes of Wittgenstein. Notably, according to Wittgenstein ‘‘whatever happens’’ is a phrase that deprives the whole sense of the proposition of its absolutism, arguing that it entails a prediction; that is, there is a possibility of not feeling safe (safety referes to absence of physical harm). For him, this is nonsense; if someone says ‘‘I am safe’’, ‘‘whatever happens’’ is nonsense, and this illustrates the misuse of the word ‘safe’. In brief, the proposition – the utterances of the narrator - is nonsense as it is subjected to the second part ‘‘whatever happens’’. According to Wittgenstein, absolute safety requires no additional phrase whatsoever it might be, yet the ones that imply a sort of prediction, or any sort of doubt. If none of these takes place then the word 'safe' is not appropriately used and thus misunderstood.
The first part of the statement, ‘‘he has right to live and I have right to kill him’’ might be contributory to elongate this account with the objective of ascertaining that the word ‘safe’ is misused. Likewise, it as well can help to realise the correlations, if they exist, between the novelist and Wittgenstein. On the account of the fact that absolute safety should not be confined to any other condition, or any proposition that can let readers suspect or predict something to happen, this analysis continues. Though the word ‘safe’ is not mentioned in the first part of the statement, the two sentences ‘‘he has right to live and I have right to kill him’’ imply that the narrator seeks safety, as the other -the major- himself does in the eyes of the narrator. Deletion of the logical constant ‘and ‘should not be ignored as it is of an instrumental role in Wittgenstein‘s conception. For him, the utterances with logical constants are nonsensical, which implies that the novelist’s inability to properly understand the notion of ‘safety’. This is traceable to the use of two names:’ major’ and ‘right’ combined with a logical constant 'and'. The name 'right' is used as an adjective to indicate one and only one meaning; that is, it is employed by the narrator as a referent to the same symbol and the same meaning.
The unassailability of ‘symbol ‘lies in its difference with the ‘sign’, which cannot be recognised in the absence of TPL. Overtly, Wittgenstein stated the distinguishing point that is notably set out in proposition 3.32
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
; the sign is defined as what is perceived as a symbol. The perceptible aspect of a ‘symbol’ is a sign which can be either written or even a sound – Wittgenstein used a scratch or noise to refer to a sound. This is what is oblique in proposition 3.323
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
, and in consequence the three propositions propose an implication of the fact that the difference of meaning is less strong than that of ‘symbol’. Providing that difference of situations, the same ‘symbol’ can have different meanings. A ‘symbol’ entails, as a result, a 'mode of signification', but not meaning as a matter of its identity. The same sign is common to different symbols, in which they are used to signify in different ways as it has been suggested in
TPL proposition 3.321
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
.
Unlike Wittgenstein‘s conception, the name ' right' is used as a sign, which is common to the symbol' right' that itself is perceived in written form as 'right'. The issue is still confusing; the puzzlement lies in whether 'right' as a symbol has the same perceptible aspect or not. What is conceived as 'right' – sign- by a spy is the same as the one that is perceived by the Major? Nitty-gritty account requires reconsidering what the narrator means by 'right' for the self – a spy - and the Major. Since the novelist refers to Hegel to uncover the narrator‘s dual personality based on the name ‗right‘, the latter‘s use should be read in its twofold ‘‘tragedy is a conflict between right and right’’ based on Hegel. The reference made to Hegel by the novelist is not out of the ashes; rather, the field of aesthetics makes them sink into the same pond, within aesthetics
| [16] | Roche, Mark W. ―The Greatness and Limits of Hegel‘s Theory of Tragedy.‖ A Companion to Tragedy. Ed. Rebecca Bushnell. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. 51-67. |
[16]
, According to Mark W. Roche in the article
Introduction to Hegel‘s Theory of Tragedy (2006), Hegel defined the sufferings of tragic heroes using reconciliation with opposing moral claims
| [16] | Roche, Mark W. ―The Greatness and Limits of Hegel‘s Theory of Tragedy.‖ A Companion to Tragedy. Ed. Rebecca Bushnell. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. 51-67. |
[16]
. The novelist himself addresses the tragic trajectories of his hero throughout his enduring journey as a spy. Heroism and tragedy are the two meeting points that bring the two, Hegel and the novelist, together. The conflict- though hidden - between the Major and a spy- is rooted in Hegel’s conceptualisation of the nuclear Greek tragedy. He asserted that the Greek tragedy lies in conflicting valid claims of ‘conscience ‘which is represented by Antigone‘s obligation to give her brother a suitable burial and ‘law’ which is reflected by King Creon's edict that enemies of the state should not be allowed burial.
With such an account the move takes place towards Hegel dialectic in which it is manifested that the conflict is not between good and evil, but between the goods- as Hegel claimed-, the two sides - a spy and the Major- thus consider the grass greener only on their fence. Antigone (consciousness) – spy in this context – considers himself right on the one hand, and on the other hand, the king (law) – the Major in the novel- regards his orders right. If Hegel considered 'the original idea' as a thesis and its opposition as an antithesis; which one then can be considered the original and the opposition in the novelist’s statement? Is he a spy or the Major? If the question is otherwise put as follows: are they a spy's words or the Major's words? All words are articulated by the narrator who is a spy. Is it possible, according to Wittgenstein, for Man to utter two propositions which are contradictory at once? If this is the case, how can the two propositions picture reality?
As long as the novelist‘s aim is unveiling dual identity of a spy -the narrator- (complications and oppositions), it is palpable then that the issue of identity spreads over the surface for the novelist. And with the issue of 'identity', the analysis pulls back readers to that philosophical dialogue between, despite how distanced they are in terms of time, ‗analytic– continental split ‗– Hegel and Wittgenstein. Hegel explored things that look different as being the same. However, for Wittgenstein, the focus was laid on the things that seem the same as being different as given in
M. O'C. Drury «Conversations with Wittgenstein» in: Recollections of Wittgenstein (1981)
. Despite such a difference, affinity is also there, which cannot be apparent if the analysis fails to confess the contribution of John Niemeyer Findlay. In his two books,
Hegel: A Re-examination (1958) and
Wittgenstein: A Critique (1984) Findlay acknowledged the conceptions of philosophy of Hegel and Wittgenstein
| [18] | Friedrich, Hegel Georg Wilhelm, and John Niemeyer Findlay. Hegel a Re-Examination. Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1958. |
[18]
. To the latter, philosophy is seen as a battle against puzzlements that results from a misunderstanding of the logic of language as stated in
Philosophical Investigations PI | [19] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Basil Blackwell Ltd, 1958. |
[19]
, whereas to the former philosophy is regarded as a battle of reason in which the quest takes place to overcome the inflexibility which the understanding has brought in LE
| [13] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Lecture on Ethics. Wiley. 1929. |
[13]
. This point to the idea that both philosophers are amalgamated in their use of 'understanding', they both have agreed on the exaggerations of ordinary language in which philosophical language consists. However, there is a point of divergence which is associated with the ultimate goal of such a philosophical method. If Wittgenstein failed to realise no benefit at all in the use of exaggerations philosophically speaking and they are only there for confusion, Hegel insisted on the importance of these exaggerations and admitted that they are essential to the ultimate result as they are preserved in some sense
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
.
After such a swift deal about 'from identity to difference' between Hegel and Wittgenstein, it is imperative to go back to the latter's insight in which Wittgenstein acknowledged his interest in unearthing that things which seem the same are different. While this idea is applied to the two names 'right' and 'right'; the first appertains to the Major, while the second is related to a spy. Keeping the perspective that ' right' and 'right' are similarly used to denote the same thing, for Wittgenstein they are different because what is 'right' for the Major is not necessarily 'right' for a spy. The name ‘right’ is thus misused. Let‘s hypothesise that the narrator reformulates his statement as follows: ‘the Major is right to give orders, and I am right to refuse them’. In this formula, it can be concluded that the name ‘right ‘is aptly used to indicate the same thing because a name can be used to mean only one thing; that is to refer to only one object. Wittgenstein argued in this regard stating that the identity of the object is expressed by that of sign, but not by the use of the sign to refer to identity since the difference of things is expressed by the difference of signs, the following proposition 5.53 in
TPL confirms
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
.
The proposition ‘‘Tragedy was not the conflict between right and wrong but right and right, a dilemma none of us who wanted to participate in history could escape. The major had the right to live, but I was right to kill him. Wasn‘t I? ‘’ cannot be verified as it lacks being pictured in the world. This is a reminder of the first statement, how can a man be with two faces and two minds at once? This also applies to the statement of the narrator in this statement. Wittgenstein added that however it is a must to know what the two expressions mean, it is impossible to realise the meaning of two expressions if we fail to know if they mean the same or different things. Because of that, the identity of the meaning of these expressions cannot be asserted as given in proposition 6.2322
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
. Since it is neither true nor false, the statement is thus nonsensical. It also should be noted that the narrator can be understood as passing through two identities at the same time, which cannot be true at all based on the Tractaturian‘s approach to language. The statement's nonsensicality requires further proof. To this end, reference to the proposition 5.4733 is integral
| [1] | Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated. by D. Pears, & B. McGuinness). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. |
[1]
. According to Frege, each lawfully formulated statement must have a meaning and believe that any potential proposition is properly created and that if it lacks meaning, it is only because a failure occurs to give some of its elements significance. (Even if we believe we have done so.). As an example, 'Socrates is identical' says nothing since any ‘adjectival meaning is given the term 'identical'. Because it is represented differently when it occurs as a sign of identity—the signifying connection is different—the symbols are likewise wholly distinct in the two cases: the two symbols share just the sign, and that is an accident.
Such a conception suffices to conclude that the novelist fails to give meaning to the constituents of a proposition uttered ‘‘Tragedy was not the conflict between right and wrong but right and right, a dilemma none of us who wanted to participate in history could escape. The major had the right to live, but I was right to kill him. Wasn‘ t I? ‘’ The name ‘right ‘is inappropriately used as the novelist is unable to give meaning to it. If the novelist means by 'right' the opposite, he should then clearly put it wordily because the two symbols cannot have the same sign as the case for 'right'. Though it is nonsensical, the proposition still has meaning. But what if the novelist intends so? The questions lead the analysis to reconsider the key concept of intentionality in the philosophy of Wittgenstein.
2.5. Negation and Propositions
Fiction Statement Five
‘‘I was not a bastard, I was not a bastard, I was not, I was not, I was not, unless, somehow, I was’
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
[ 3]
.
The statement above is located at the end of chapter 12 of the novel. It is not different from the ones that were already analysed in terms of its theme, identity. However, the narrator in his words confesses that he is not a bastard though a Vietnamese person considers him as a product of colonial rule and American occupation. Seeing him as the dust of life as proved in ‘‘our countrymen preferred euphemisms to acronyms, calling people like me the dust of life’’
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
[3]
argues for the point. The narrator in the eyes of the Vietnamese people is nothing but a leftover after colonial occupation and war. Not only such attribute that shows why the narrator attempts to escape from being a bastard, in the context of the statement a spy is named ‘‘a bastard who does not look like anyone’’, but he is also an outsider because he fails to make a test of racial purity within reach. The narrator's denial of the identity attributed to him proposes the negation of propositions as a paradigm of such analysis.
A quick look at the proposition tells that it has to be constructed using negation. The latter brings the analysis of the meaning of negative and false propositions into prominence. Having said that requires bearing in mind two separate problems, negative proposition (-p) – which stands for ‘I was not a bastard’ that itself bears either truthfulness or falseness, and a false proposition. Wittgenstein's focus however considered the former. According to his conception, to say (-p) ‘I was not a bastard ‘is to perform a truth-functional operation on the picture (p).‘I was a bastard’. In the sense of the ‗normal ‘negation (he was not a bastard) and in the sense of radical ‘negation (There are no bastards), so that negative propositions have meaning requires being derivative from the meaning of the pictured proposition it negates. Applying this to the proposition: ‘‘I was not a bastard, I was not a bastard, I was not, I was not, and I was not, unless, somehow, I was’’ discloses that such a proposition has meaning if truly the narrator is a bastard. But the question is how can it be true?
To decide if it is true or false, it must picture reality. This is an appeal to Wittgenstein‘s proposition 4.0621 in
TPL: the signs ‘P ‘and ‗’P ‘are used to say the same thing as they depict that there is nothing in reality that corresponds to the sign
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
[3]
. Also in 4.0641, the logical place of the negated proposition is used by the negating proposition to identify a logical place for it defines it as being outside the latter's logical location
| [3] | Viet Thanh, Nguyen. The Sympathizer. Grove Press New York, 2015. |
[3]
. In this analysis '-p' (was not a bastard) is the 'place' in logical space designated by 'p' (was a bastard) that determines the 'Sinn' of the truth-functional statement '- p' (was not a bastard). In brief, this treatment of negation is expressed in nothing in reality that corresponds to the sign. Wittgenstein passed over in silence the question of negation from any ontological arena. This should be understood as 'not being' has secondary or derivative 'reality' in Wittgenstein's philosophy; as an alternative, it represents no reality at all; rather, it only instructs human beings to perform a certain operation on completely positive places in logical space.
Since negation is only an operator, negative propositions are not pictures at all, the proposition ‘‘I was not a bastard, I was not a bastard, I was not, I was not, I was not, unless, somehow, I was’’ ’is therefore not true. The narrator is untrue in his claim as in the very beginning of the novel, he confesses that ‘‘I am a spy, a man of two faces’’ and bearing in mind that in everyday life a spy cannot be truthful in his words merely because he is a spy. However, the two propositions seem a little bit paradoxical; how comes then a man confesses that he is a spy, which is a negative attribution and later on he denies being a bastard? If his denial is taken as a sort of nostalgia for his first identity, which is being a spy, it cannot be true that being a spy is a confession that implies that state of being 'a bastard '? With this consideration, it can be concluded that however the proposition is false, it has meaning. The one derives from being a bastard because he is a spy and the latter is always a man of nowhere, which cannot escape him any attributes given to him as Vietnamese people pinpoint to him.
If it is presumed that the fiction entity does not represent reality and negative propositions cannot be pictures at all, another issue is raised. How can a false proposition – picture reality -have meaning? And this is one of the traditional platonic problems. As a result, the proposition ‘‘I was not a bastard, I was not a bastard, I was not, I was not, I was not, unless, somehow, I was’’ is false as it does not picture reality and also because of its inclusion of ‘not‘, but it has meaning according to Wittgenstein's conception.
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