I’m blowing the dust off of this puppy and giving it a new coat of shellac:
Picturing, Showing, and Solipsism in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. [link to draft]
In this paper I attempt to show how Wittgenstein’s Tractatarian views on solipsism follow from a certain construal and elaboration of the picture theory of intentionality. I do this by first reconstructing Wittgenstein’s famous distinction between showing and saying in terms of the key notion of the picture theory: that intentionality is equivalent to resemblance. I interpret the distinction between showing and saying as a distinction between two different ways that facts can manifest intentionality. It is only with this construal of the distinction in hand that Wittgenstein’s remarks on solipsism can be properly understood.
I am Associate Professor and Chair of Philosophy and Coordinator of the Cognitive Science Laboratory at William Paterson University in New Jersey. This blog largely concerns my interests in the Philosophy of Mind and Philosophy of Neuroscience, but also contains evidence of my messing around with art, photography, fiction, and robotics. Find out way more about me and my work