Wittgenstein Rhetoric

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Dinda L. Gorle*

Wittgensteins persuasive rhetoric

DOI 10.1515/sem-2015-0121

Abstract: Wittgenstein surprised with the rhetorical inversion of his style of

writing, often at the expense of thought. In his works, he skillfully constructed

the fragmentary paragraphs to solve the confusionsof language. The result of

Wittgensteins conscious endeavor is the persuasive effect of new reasoning in

theornamentaltype of the philosophical writings about language. Wittgensteins

verbal genres are the interplay of deduction, induction, and abduction, formed

consciously and subconsciously, following the three categories of Peirces

semio-logical reasoning. Wittgensteins rhetoric changed the first certainty of

philosophy into the abductive uncertainty of his later works, keeping the story

of Wittgensteins reasoning in suspense.

Keywords: Wittgenstein, stylistics, linguculture, Peirce, speculative rhetoric,

deduction-induction-abduction, Barthes

If I do not quite know how to begin a book that is because something is still unclear. For I

should like to begin with the original data of philosophy, written & spoken sentences, withbooks as it were. And here we encounter the difficulty of Everything is in flux. And

perhaps that is the very point at which to begin.

(Wittgenstein 1930, CV 1998: 11)

1 Persuasive and ornamental speech

Ludwig Wittgensteins (18891951) newphilosophy, as he envisaged it, was to

be the idea of writing books and writings in conflicting rhetoric to question the

readers. Wittgensteins philosophy has become so diversified and specialized in

the secondary literature, that we would need a number of examples to show that

the first form of systematic knowledge developed into Wittgensteins creative

philosophy of language. Perhaps he could derive his twentieth-century moder-

nity from the difference between his present knowledge and the knowledge of

our ancestors. Instead of talking in monologue for himself, Wittgensteins life

also decided to feature the dialogue as didactic tool of persuasion. Regardless of

*Corresponding author: Dinda L. Gorle,University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway,

E-mail: [email protected]

Semiotica 2016; 208: 4977

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fame or adversity, Wittgenstein in his later years kept true to his first vocation of

finding the social dialogue with the readers.

Perhaps Wittgensteins personal development could make sense of the world

in which he lived by following the footsteps of the orator of Athens, Demosthenes(c. 384322, BCE). So the legendary story goes that the lawyer Demosthenes was a

stutterer (Ostwald 1973: 356366; Gray 2012: 34). After years of practicing law in

the courts of Athens, Demosthenes wanted to overcome his weak voice to become

a famous orator with passionate orations to persuade the Greek audience.

Standing on the beach of Athens, Demosthenes put a mouthful of pebbles in

his mouth to improve the tone of his voice. This handicap practiced his vocal

appropriateness or political adequacy to train the acoustics of his eloquent voice

against the noise of the sea. The Greek statesman won his own battles, composing

and delivering his series of political speeches, and reaching his success in public

policy as the great orator of the golden age of Greek oratory.

Demosthenes and young Wittgenstein stuttered for words in the articulation

in public, inhibiting their power to speak straightforwardly (McGuinness 1988: 52).

When writing the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgensteins first speech dis-

fluency was clearly observed by his friend Paul Engelmann, when he listened to

his explanation of the work. Nervously, Wittgenstein stammered the paragraphs of

the incomprehensible and controversial manuscript, while Engelmann, as he said,

with a sensitive understanding for what he wanted to say helped him find theright words by stating myself the proposition he had in mind(qtd. in CPE: 94).

Perhaps the blocking of sounds and articulation of words remained after the

disappearance of the stammer as the desire of Wittgensteins fragmentariness in

narrative speech.

Wittgenstein also seemed to fulfill the biblical story of Ezekiels prophetic vision

(c. 600 BCE). During the hard times of the Jewish exile in Babylon, the prophet

Ezekiel pronounced divine speeches promising to the banished Israelite people the

garden of Eden(Ezek. 36: 35 Authorized King James Version). The vision of the

future fixed on the future in the Promised Land. Following the exile, the Jews would

restore the ruins of the Temple at Jerusalem (Ezek. 4048). Ezekiels spiritual images

explained the process of restoration in the volumes of the outer wall, the dimensions

of the inner courtyard and the sanctuary of the Hebrew Temple. The complex

dimensionality of Jerusalems sacred temple was measured exactly by Ezekiel. His

gift of prediction was full of detailed information about the numerical and algebraic

dimensions of the breadth and length, the height and depth of the parts of the

Temple. Metaphorically, the deduction of the outer wall, the induction of the inner

courtyard, and the abduction of the sanctuary gave the three dimensions of Ezekielsbuilding tools to draw an analogy between the shape or form of the architectural

framework and Wittgensteins narrative style and genre.

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The domain of Wittgensteins life started with the philosophical oratoryof his

early work, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The basic thoughts of this book were

about solving the questions of grammar and logic. The effectiveness of this academic

volume was in the paragraphs measured in the numbered and subnumbered items.Tractatusis the only work of Wittgenstein that was published during Wittgensteins

lifetime. The other writings, from the 1930s onwards,The Blue and Brown Bookand

his masterworkPhilosophical Investigationsright up to his last pages inOn Certainty

(OC) feature his mature philosophy. These and other new works (articles, lectures,

and notebooks) were written and rewritten by Wittgenstein to achieve the final

formulation of his world view. However, Wittgensteins works and writings were

circulated in the provisional form of stencils produced to be read by interested

colleagues and students suitable for early dialogue in academia.

The dimensionality of the contemporary scientific rules shaped Wittgensteins

early linguistics of the Tractatus. Wittgenstein focused on true or false proposi-

tions, which he judged not only by appearances but from the facts of logic

and mathematics. In the series of propositions, he revealed the list of free vari-

ables used in the confusions of language in order to clear up the doubtful

points. According to Lunsford, the subversivedifficulties indicate the relativism

of the vitality, the sense of excitement and playful purpose(1992: 77) regarding

the production of words with a new meaning. As a creative philosopher,

Wittgensteins new ideas solved the good and false meaning of linguisticproblems through the cultural background of the community. The novelty of

Wittgensteins language philosophy animates and inspires the fact that language

is not a fixed collection of words and sentences, but a shared instrument for all

speakers and readers. Language shows the linguistic-and-cultural mannerisms of

linguculture (Anderson and Gorle 2011: 222226).

Wittgenstein did not write only logical books but composed his albums

written in daily language (PI 2009 [1953]: 4; see Pichler 2002, 2004, 2009; Gorle

2012: 6869, 187, 228). Like Barthes, Wittgenstein transformed the ordinary state-

ments of language into literature, creating for the author a kind of social, theolo-

gical, mythic, aesthetic, moral end(Barthes 1983 [1979]: 492). The literary speeches

and conversations signify that the traditional type of the architectural and preme-

ditatedbook existed toreproduce an order of the worldas opposed to chaos; but

the relative order led Wittgenstein to transfigure it into a kind ofwritten word

according to a special code (Barthes 1983 [1979]: 491492). After publishing the

coded form of theTractatus, Wittgenstein wrote that he was, as Barthes, not able to:

achieve the status of the Book (of the Work); it is only an Album

The Album is acollection of leaflets not only interchangeable (even this would be nothing), but

above all infinitely suppressible to the complete annihilation of the Album, with

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the excuse that I dont like this one: this is the method of Groucho and Chico Marx,

reading aloud and tearing up each clause of the contract which is meant to bind

them. (Barthes 1983 [1979]: 492)

Wittgensteins fragmentary albums unite the unbroken and broken signs in hisstream of discourse (Gorle 2007). In the theory of logic in the literary frame-

work, Wittgenstein attempted to operate the simple and complex signs of

language to create a permanent fixture between the official form of published

book and the intimacy of the album.

One could argue that Wittgenstein followed the Peircean categories of sense,

meaning, and significance (NEM 3: 844), expressing in his reasoning the three

stages of thought. Wittgenstein created the pragmatic stages formulated in

words, paraphrases, and arguments. Although the three stages of thoughtwould suggest Wittgensteins reading of Peirces work, the inescapable truth is

that Wittgenstein did not read Peirce, although he could have discussed the

semiotic themes, and particularly Peirces semiotics, with his English friend,

mathematician Frank Ramsey (Gorle 2012: 2730). This means that

Wittgensteins thoughts and its overlaps with Peirces organization of work

institute a semiotic connection between them (Gorle forthcoming). Peirces

categories form the basis for Wittgensteins demonstrative and fallible thought-

signs in the use of language, while language is suffused with the undemonstra-

tive and unfallible signs of non-thought. Wittgensteins philosophical confronta-tion and linguistic negotiation regarding the use of alternative and creative

forces in ordinary vocabulary, phraseology, and textology (Gorle 2004: 197

198) was to be understood in a general sense, reaching the understanding of

general readers.

The complex interplay between the domestic accommodation of linguistic

forms with the cultural pressures of Wittgensteins hard times consider the

political background of the Habsburg monarchy, the impact of both World Wars,

and the Cold War

gave Wittgenstein the threatening challenge of transactingthe globalized, but still fragmented, world view implying the conflict and war

around. The political puzzle of Wittgensteins survival dealt with a constantly

changeable and manipulable situation of world politics. The political uncer-

tainty has become transplanted in the fragmentariness of Wittgensteins short

paragraphs or aphorisms (Gorle 2007). He spoke not in the general voice of

universal scholar, but as individual person facing the world around. Instead of

dealing with the immediate situation of the danger in his environment, he

tended to escape from reality to build his version of pseudo-reality in

composing the persuasive rhetoric. Wittgenstein wanted to tell the truth in

fragmentary albums. The albums had an emotional reference to Wittgenstein

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as a person and scholar, but also maintained the historical tension of being

inspired by the genres of PlatosDialoguesand the influence of Saint Augustine

(Gorle 2012: 107128). Plato benefitted for Wittgensteins eyes the pedagogical

argumentation in teaching pure logic, while Augustine added the sacred writ-ings of biblical writings, hymns, and sermons.

In Wittgensteins intellectual company, the archaic teaching of philosophy

and religion of Plato and Augustine gave the special form and unorthodox shape

to the philosophical pseudo-realityof Wittgensteins personal reality:

As recognized faithful patrons, their mission and persuasiveness taught Wittgenstein the

way that passive words can turn into active deeds. On reading the sources, Wittgenstein

underwent a change of heart: Platos evidence alerted him to the hazards of interpretation,

whereas Augustine taught him interpretative translation. The supportive forces of Plato s

socio-political thought the utopian ideal of the good life and good society of the Laws

and Augustines personal or perhaps egotistic notebooks of Confessions inspired

Wittgenstein to pursue his scientific learning, aiming to resolve the social confusions

of language today with his authoritative answers and to confide his own philosophical

schemes in his lectures and publications. (Gorle 2012: 138139)

As a teacher, Wittgensteins style emphasized the degree of experimental learn-

ing and the value of scientific method in his lectures. This new style is trans-

planted into Wittgensteins new reasoning of humanities. The literary effect of

the emergence of linguistics was for the readers or students the wide exposure tothe grammatical, logical, and rhetorical otherness, including fragmentary

reading, writing, and speaking. Analytic philosophy addressed the new and

contemporary interests of the twentieth century audience.

Against the ancient sources of the genres in the traditional drama, epic, and

lyric, Northrop Fryes division of poetic rhetoric refers to two kinds of rhetoric:

persuasive speech for applied literature and ornamental speech meaning the

lexis or verbal texture of poetry (1973 [1957]: 245). At first sight, both kinds of

rhetoric seem:

psychologically opposed to each other, as the desire to ornament is essentially disin-

terested, and the desire to persuade essentially the reverse. In fact ornamental rhetoric is

inseparable from literature itself, or what we have called the hypothetical verbal structure

which exists for its own sake. Persuasive literature is applied literature, or the use of

literary art to reinforce the power of argument. Ornamental rhetoric acts on its hearers

statistically, leading them to admire its own beauty or wit; persuasive rhetorics tries to lead

them kinetically towards a course of action. One articulates emotion; the other manipu-

lates it. (Frye 1973 [1957]: 245)

The rhetorical sides of Wittgensteins philosophical works appear in the long

and mostly unedited narratives as they seem to be in the first version or the



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variety of different re-versions, written by Wittgensteins hand; or else the

rhetorical sides can shrink back to smaller units of the edited titles or appear

in editorial volumes. After Wittgensteins death (1951), Wittgensteins rhetoric

became a mixed genre for the readers of his edited volumes. These are com-posed out of Wittgensteins own materials, but include the alien (radical, even

mythical) imagery of all kinds of textual editors, revisers, and translators of his

work. The ethical criticism of these reviewers can refer back to Frye s assertive,

descriptive, or factual reorganization (1973 [1957]: 245) of the realism of

Wittgensteins own writings into the critical rearrangement of his total frame-

work of language philosophy.

Returning to the linguistic ornaments and schemes to plan the logical truth

of language, Wittgensteins volumes concentrate on the rhetorical inversion of

the persuasive (meaning non-logical and emotional) forms of style, discourse,

passage, phrase, and words, often at the expense of logical thought. Focusing

on emotional aspects of the persuasive style, ornamented with scientific argu-

mentation, Wittgensteins treatment of language reached forward by decades

into the contemporary mistreatment of social media of the twenty-first century.

As language philosopher, he was constantly aware of the philosophical certainty

of his work, but often sharply contrasted with the uncertainty of the fragmentary

albums. Wittgenstein created in natural language the groundless manuscripts of

interweaved paragraphs and aphorisms, which must be read not directly butindirectly to be rightly understood as critical remarks. This paradox has created

the puzzle of reading Wittgensteins writings.

2 Speculative rhetoric

Practical creativity as the linguistic and psychological engagement with every-

day life was the subject of Wittgensteins lectures about aesthetics delivered atthe University of Cambridge in 1938. The published lectures about the confu-

sions of the term of aesthetics were not written by Wittgenstein himself, but

compiled and taken down by the students (including Yorick Smythies and Rush

Rhees) in their notes, which were edited in that provisional form after

Wittgensteins death (LA). This happened, of course, without his agreement on

this procedure, since Wittgenstein actually wanted the students to stop making

notes at his lectures (Monk 1990: 403; see Klagge and Nordmann 2003: 331332).

During the dialogue of Wittgensteins lectures, he gave practical examples from

architecture, music, the art of hairdressing, costume, and other cultural examples.

To define the objective meaning of aesthetics, he answered to Rheesquestion that:

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I may join up with the things I like; you with the things you dislike. But the word [of

aesthetics] may be used without any affective element; you use it to describe a particular

kind of thing that happened. It was more like using a technical term possibly, though not

at all necessarily, with a derogatory element in it. (LA: 10-11, see Drury 1984: 141)

The solution of the philosophy concerned with personal art was that one must

get clear about aesthetic words you have to describe ways of living(LA: 11). To

determine what is portrayed as beautiful or ugly objects of art, looking like

good or bad artifacts, one needs to go back to the basic social patterns in

Wittgensteinian cultural forms of life (Lebensformen). The forms of life mix

aesthetics with the cultural remarks about modern life to integrate into the

mechanism of science (LA: 1117). As underlying forms of life, including

the theories of art and science, the cultural forms build the speech-act of the

language-game(Gorle 2012, forthcoming). The language-games have removed

the traditional rules, but are not un-ruled, since they must function within a

shared culture to be rightly understood in a particular society. The efforts to

creativity in language reaffirms the constantly fluctuating activity of cultural

beliefs, practices, commitments, joined with the strength of scientific theories

to perform the pervasiveforce of Wittgensteins ornamentallanguage-games.

In the attempts to solve the vagueness of the creative play-acts in

Wittgensteins language-games, the deliberate effort to reasoning is the use of

the logical method to grasp the meaning of the subject. Wittgenstein appeared tofollow the semio-logical method of the formal logician and active scientist Charles S.

Peirce. As argued in my book Wittgenstein and Translation: Exploring Semiotic

Signatures(Gorle 2012), the method of semiotics can define Wittgensteins logical

methodology. Peirces laboratoryinquiry serves here as the method of threeway

reasoning for Wittgenstein. While semiotics, as a methology, remains neutral

(and here undiscussed), the scientific inquiry is orthodox reasoning, linked to the

classical logical rules. Nevertheless, it is, in Peirces doctrine of semiotics, trans-

posed in other working forms of semio-reasoning and can become unorthodox

thought. These forms of reasoning are usual to grasp and drive the flux and flow

of ruled thought of the creative and non-ruled imagination in Wittgensteins mind

and heart.

Peirces article Ideas, Stray or Stolen, About Scientific Writing, discussed

the abstract forms and concrete shapes of scholarly writing between logical (and

illogical) problems. Scientific communication must be trained to the scientific

lifein which the coupling of the ideas of rhetoric and science would hitherto

equally have been regarded as a typical example of incongruity (EP 2: 325),

something Wittgenstein would certainly agree with. Peirces general idea ofrhetoric will include the rules of expression as stringent as any of those by



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which the excellence of composition in Chinese or in Urdu is judged (EP 2: 326,

see EP 2: 329) in order to become a cross-cultural tool. Peirce stressed:

as an ens in posse, a universal art of rhetoric, which shall be the general secret of

rendering signs effective, including under the term signevery picture, diagram, natural

cry, pointing finger, wink, knot in ones handkerchief, memory, dream, fancy, concept,

indication, token, symptom, letter, numeral, word, sentence, chapter, book, library, and in

short whatever, be it in the physical universe, be in in the world of thought. (EP 2: 326)

The universal art (EP 2: 326) of the signs of language can be broadened and

enlarged by Peirce with just contempt of mere words to transfigure into the

literary culture(EP 2: 325) of figures of non-verbal speech. The outcome will be

Peirces speculative rhetoric (EP 2: 326330; see Liszka 1996; Freadman 2004:

9394, 103), concerned with the methods that ought to be pursued in theinvestigation, in the exposition, and in the application of truth (CP 1.191).

Instead of speculative rhetoric, Peirces other name of speculative rhetoric was

pure rhetoric or the methodeutic of rhetoric. Methodeutic shows how it

[rhetoric] differs from critic: how, although it considers, not of what is admis-

sible, but what is advantageous, it is nevertheless a purely theoretical study, and

not [just] an art (NEM 4: 26). The new, but formal, science of speculative

rhetorics serves as the objective logic of the utility(meaning, generally, the

scientific utility)

(NEM 4: 27). Speculative rhetoric applies persuasively, eco-nomically, and mathematically to the practical questions of knowledge of

education, learning, and erudition.

Continuing the Roman trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, Peirces

speculative rhetoric is divided into speculative grammar, speculative critic,

and speculative rhetoric (EP 2: 327). Speculative grammar and speculative criti-

cism have been argued, as Peirce proposed, but the details remain unclear.

Peirce added that speculative rhetoric has been comparatively neglected(EP 2:

327). In the oratory of speech and language, the image of the rhetoric of fine

arts stands to provide the activity of practical persuasion to direct the formand shape of the text, according to the individual and collective knowledge

(EP 2: 329) of the author. Speculative rhetorics is inspired by the formalistic

treatment of the relationship of perfection to execute the truth of content.

Wittgensteins strategy contains a good deal of practical philosophy. He wrote

and rewrote his temporary and fragmented versions, but after his Tractatus he

never wrote a final or definitive version to be made public. Instead of Peirces

ideal of semiosis, Wittgensteins pseudo-semiosis (discussed in Gorle 2012) did

not improve on the speculative expression of Peirces

Ideas, Stray or Stolen,

About Scientific Writing. Unusual words, sentences, or fragments needed for

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Wittgenstein the dry-cleaning process of recovering the unusualities and

restoring them to working order (CV 1984: 39; CV 1998: 44; see Gorle 2012: 61).

Wittgensteins grammatical (terminological) puzzle in the article Some

Remarks on Logical Form (1929) started with:

Every proposition has a content and a form. We get the picture of the pure form if we

abstract from the meaning of the single words, or symbols (so far as they have independent

meanings). That is to say, if we substitute variables for the consonants of the proposition.

The rules of syntax which applied to the consonants must apply to the variables also. By

syntax in this general sense of the word I mean the rules which tell us in which connec-

tions only a word gives sense, thus excluding nonsensical structures. The syntax of

ordinary language, as is well known, is not quite adequate for this purpose. It does not

in all cases prevent the construction of nonsensical pseudopropositions (RLF: 162)

The vagueness of content and the form of the writings expressed Wittgensteins

struggle. In 1930, he suggested a more positive tone:

But it seems to me too that there is a way of capturing the world sub specie aeterni other

than through the work of the artist. Thought has such a way so I believe it is as though

it flies above the world and leaves it the way it is observing it from above, in flight. (CV

1980: 5; retranslated in CV 1998: 7)

Wittgensteins flight of thought avoided the confusions of the earlier philosophy of

language. Instead, he formalized the scientific value and the utility of the methods ofreasoning, the conclusion(s) are regarded as Peirces interpretants. The series of

Peirces three interpretants that follow and interact with each other are the immedi-

ate and dynamical interpretants, as well as the final interpretant, also called the

emotional, energetic, and logical interpretants. The interpretants are building-signs

of earlier signs, actively involved with the constructive and deconstructive inter-

pretation to give special content and form to the signs of communication. The

exhaustive analysis of interpretants does not always reach the final analysis of

semiosis, but the reasoning of the sign system gives in informal logic the temporary(Peirces pseudo-semiosic) style of communication (Gorle forthcoming).

Wittgensteins reasoning minimized the risk of subjectivity and provided

maximum objectivity. To achieve this ideal of seeking rational truth through

persuasive untruth,he observed his own writing style and grounded his own

demonstrative and fallible data by a variety of inferential reasonings, in accor-

dance with Peirces semiotics and the three categories. The three-step methods

of reasoning are expected to eventually yield true conclusions. Logical reasoning

was traditionally either deductive or inductive reasoning. Peirce revolutionized

the traditional dichotomy which he expanded and redefined as a trichotomyby including his discovery of abduction (from 1867). The decision-making



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distinguished between explicatory (or analytic) reasoning in deduction and

ampliative (or synthetic) reasoning for induction; together with Peirces dis-

covery of abductive reasoning, Peirces steps of logic were three-dimensional.

Explicatory (or analytic) reasoning corresponds to deductive inference, as inthis example taken from Peirces metaphor of the beanbag:

Rule All the beans from this bag are white.

Case These beans are from this bag.

Result These beans are white. (CP .)

Deduction simply substitutes for the facts presented in the premise, what is

implicit in them. Since all of the beans in the sample are white, the sample from

the known whole to the parts of the bag means that the deductive argumenta-tion stays as it is (whiteness) and does not draw upon the unknown or the

partially unknown. This makes deduction the only form of necessary (that is,

explicatory) reasoning to reach truth in itself. Deduction as such forecloses

critical examination or evaluation of its premises and does not engage in the

introduction of new insights, nor in the rejection of hypotheses already adopted.

While deduction makes no error, non-deductive reasoning does not lead to

necessary conclusions but to other conclusions which can be probable or merely

plausible. While deduction proves that something must be and induction

shows that something actually is operative, Peirce suggested that abduction

merely suggests that something may be (CP 5.171). Apart from the traditional

reasoning about the clear signs seen in reality (deduction and induction), the new

abduction (also called hypothesis or retroduction) is the hidden logic of the real

impulse of the intuitive sensing of the known parts to the unknown whole and

come to the conclusion. Abduction is Peirces talent for guesswork. As temporary

guidepost to logic, induction and abduction are the statistical inferenceto logic,

since Out of a bag of black and white beans I take a few handfuls, and from this

sample I can judge approximately the proportions of black and white in thewhole (CP 5.349). While induction and abduction are similar viewpoints, they

point to different approaches (as shall be argued further).

Instead of the ampliative or synthetic arguments of deductive reasoning, the

inductivist character rests on what actually is (CP 5.171) in the reality of

propositions. Peirces signs of inductive reality are:

Rule These beans are from this bag.

Case These beans are white.

Result All the beans from this bag are white. (CP .)

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Inductive inference gives the course of experimental investigation (CP 5.168).

Induction assumes that what is true for a whole collection is true of a number

of instances taken from it at random (CP 5.275). The conclusion of the fair

sample taken from the bag is that we can judge that all the beans are, both nowand in the future, white. Induction is a statistical proposition, since the sign

points outside itself to the object referred to, giving a fragment torn away from

the object, the two in their Existence being one whole or a part of such whole

(CP 2.230).

Induction establishes a clear cause-consequence relation between premise and

conclusion (semiotically, between sign and interpretant). The conclusion requires

the investigator to follow the judgment almost blindly, but there can be no

absolute certainty in induction. The active inquirer (reader), spurred by his or her

intellectual curiosity (CP 5.584), is in fact making predictions and thereby judging

the unknown by the known. New knowledge is inferred by extrapolating it from

actual fact toward the unknown of the future. Induction is therefore something like

a practical truth (CP 6.527), bringing the inquirer halfway on the path of logic,

leading closely from interrogation and doubt to certainty and truth.

Every scientific inquiry and pseudo-scientific story (the case) needs to for-

mulate and adopt certain beliefs or rough hypotheses on which to further build

the argumentation. The belief uses instinctive reasoning to come to the abduc-

tive hypothesis. In the abductive inference, we catch a newcasefrom aruleandresult (CP 2.623). Peirce explained: On the table there is a handful of white

beans; and, after some searching, I find one of the bags contains white beans

only. I at once infer as probability, or as a fair guess, that this handful was taken

out of that bag (CP 2.623) or in the practical example of Peirces beanbag:

Rule All the beans from this bag are white.

Case These beans are white.

Result These beans are from this bag. (CP .)

Abductive mannerisms are radically contrasted with the forward reasoning of

deduction and induction, since they concern backward reasoning through new

ideas. Abduction is based on hunches and guesses of the inquirer. The emo-

tional or affective attitudes of the case is the intuitive feeling adopted through

the case inside the result. The intuitive opportunities state the possibilities of

mayand maybe not.Through the abductive experiment, the experience is a

surprising requirement to offer new information and new grounds for reasonable

doubt of what seems to happen in reality.

Of the three modes of reasoning, abduction is the only one to open up new

ground (NEM 3: 206) and to introduce novelty into the intellectual (or pseudo-



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intellectual) observation of the case. Induction moves from ideas to things,

whereas abduction is a reverse operation, moving from things to ideas, from

outside to inside. Abduction seems to start with capturing the inquirers flavors,

tastes, and expectancies, until it reaches the hypotheses on the story. Weak as theabsolute truth value of abduction may be and in fact is (at least when compared to

the probative force of its stronger counterparts of deduction and induction),

abduction is nevertheless the creative force of logical reasoning, breathing the

air of originality into what would otherwise be a reasonable (CP 5.174) but

utterly rationalistic and, thereby, lifeless process of reasoning. Abduction must be

defined as individual creativity bringing new ideas into the story.

Peirce relabeled a mode of thought which, for all his conjectural tentative-

ness of feeling, was often plausible in real cases. Abduction suggests more than

gratuitous guesswork of the problems of the story, but introduces the lightning

flash breaking through logical analysis to shed new light on the underlying

instinctual feeling with a moral or ethical element. The tentative explanation is

iconically prefigured in the premises. The first premise describes what the beans

must be like to qualify as beans from Peirces bag. The interpretant (final

conclusion) of the abduction is the iconic quality, here the whiteness of the

beans. The rest is guesswork based on rational instinct, recreating feeling not

from the mind but from the heart. It is believed that abduction looks somehow

into the unseen universe of mind and heart in the attempts to form somehypothesis concerning the forms, shapes, and other features of the subject.

The abductive overtones of logical reasoning are acritical feelings or psy-

chological reflections, suited to Peirces Ideas, Stray or Stolen, About Scientific

Writing. The judgment of abduction gives no certainty; the decisions have the

emotional nature of some form of intuitive perceptions. The more or less intel-

lectual feelings are expressed by the ejaculatory sentence It seems to me that

to explain the story of abduction. Abductive judgments offer personal values

and rebuild the signs to acquire the feelings of the meaning (or meanings) of the

case, at a distance from the moral control of self-control of data through the

settling of doubts within, firstly, induction and subsequently, deduction.

Abduction starts the evolution of the speculative reasoning, in which abductive

beliefs are the first and essential steps of poetic unreasonableness to move

further on the way toward final reasonableness the truth of the conclusion.

Abduction is not included in the purely cognitive laws and dispositions.

Abductive forms are not (or not yet) regarded as intellectual inquiry but, rather,

answer imaginary forms of inchoate questioning of new ideas, out of which

rational discourses may possibly emerge to solve the case. Abduction speaksabout the emotive, religious, and political values as implicit argument, integrated

into explicit argument, remaining as the surprising phenomenon of feelings or

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other acriticial reasonings of the story. Despite the hidden nature, abductive

reasoning is adopted within deduction and induction, but, as the case may be,

is often not discussed as meaningful element of illogic transformed into logic.

3 Narrative style and genre

Peirces logical reasoning seems to put in order Wittgensteins persuasive and

ornamental genres of the primary works, as well as in the ongoing editing of the

edited secondary works. Mastering the linguistic and cultural obstacles of the

language-game, Wittgenstein has named, explained, and made understood (or

perhaps misunderstood) the varieties of meaning (such as persuasive, econom-ical, and mathematical meanings) he used. The ostensive definitionswent into

what he called the collection of the general term proposition (for Satz; Glock

1996: 274, 315319), also calledsentenceor theorem.Wittgenstein fostered a

more realistic formation of the definable and undefinables of the logical

elements in the expression of the contemporary speculative rhetoric. The prac-

tical and theoretical questions of rhetoric seem to be split into three stories of

deduction, induction, and abduction.

What I mean isnothowever giving up an old style a new trim. You dont take the old forms& fix them up to suit todays taste. No, you really speaking, maybe unconsciously, the old

language, but speaking it in a manner that belongs to the newer world, though not on that

account necessarily one that is to its taste. (Wittgenstein 1947, CV 1998: 69)

In one story, the first flow of thought is expressed in the catalog of definable and

undefinable elements in WittgensteinsTractatus Logico-Philosophicus(TLP 1933),

theBibleof logical empirism. This slim but rich book was, miraculously, written

by the young Wittgenstein as an Austrian soldier serving in the trenches of the

First World War, but served, translated into English, at a later date asWittgensteins doctoral thesis, submitted to the University of Cambridge. Under

the professorial aegis of Bertrand Russell, the manuscript needed to comply to

academic standards to qualify for a dissertation. Apart from the introduction

written by Russell (TLP: 723), strongly criticized by Wittgenstein himself, the

text of the Tractatus expresses the quasi-mathematical body of rules concerned

with deductive reasoning whose formal decisions form logical precedents in

respect of succeeding cases. Tractatus corresponds to statements of the facts of

life in imperative propositions, like a legal document (Gorle 2014 [2005]).

The essentially rational argument was grounded in pure ratio and propor-

tion, but the total design of the Tractatus was based on an open-and-closed



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syllabary in numbered and subnumbered materials, ordered together in a formal

series (TLP: 83 [ 4.1252]). The deductive nature of the Tractatus was clear from

Wittgensteins counting of the separate paragraphs of the proverbial proposi-

tions of the text. The quasi-mathematical technique of sign-counting in thediversity and variety of arrangements of Wittgensteins ideas showed that:

The decimal figures as numbers of the separate propositions indicate the logical impor-

tance of the propositions, the emphasis laid upon them in my exposition. The propositions

n.1, n. 2, n. 3, etc., are comments on proposition No.n; the propositionsn.m1, n.m2, etc., are

comments on the proposition No.n. m; and so on. (TLP: 1 fn.)

Wittgensteins own medley of punctuation, the words in italics, or sentences

used in brackets are used as special parenthetical remarks of his logical style

and propositional genre (TLP: 127 [ 5.4615.4611]; see also CV 1980: 13, 48, 68;

CV 1998: 15, 55, 77). Steiner described the Tractatus thus:

TheTractatus is a graphic example of the kind of book, of the forms and motions of spirit,

which I am trying to define. It is built of aphorisms and numbers, as if borrowing from

another kind of certitude. It makes its own syntax and idiom an object of doubt and rigorous

appraisal. Wittgenstein has a poets capacity to make every word seem new and full of

untapped, possibly destructive vitality. At several points the Tractatus, with its economy of

image and its typographical effects, reads like a poem. (Steiner 1969 [1967]: 114)

Despite the basic formality of the book, the Tractatus had, however, some

informality in the poetic appendices which gave the personalized (that is,

persuasive and ornamental) tone of Wittgensteins belief in abduction. Also,

Wittgenstein began the account of theTractatusby the epitaph dedicated to the

memory of my friend David H. Pinsent followed by the quotation of a poetic

line from the Austrian journalist, poet, and playwright Friedrich Krnberger:

und alles, was man weiss, nicht bloss rauschen und brausen gehrt hat, lsst sich

in drei Worten sagen(and all that one knows, having heard only the raging

and roaring, can be said in three words). To illuminate the condensed matrix ofthe Tractatus, Wittgensteins Preface (TLP: 2729) briefly expanded the pejora-

tive implications of the epigraph in the abductive overtones of his self-belief:

The book deals with the problems of philosophy and shows, as I believe, that the method

of formulating these problems rests on the misunderstanding of the logic of our language.

Its whole meaning could be summed up somewhat as follows: What can be said at all can

be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent. (TLP: 27)

The alternation of the ego-directed phrasing of as I believeclearly formulates

the break of the literal or figurative opinions to the definitive silence of

Wittgensteins final judgment, ending the rational speech of the Tractatus.

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The closure of the Tractatus seemed to metamorphose Ezekiels vision of

building the temple into the framework of the right propositions at the right time

and space. In Wittgensteins words:

My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes

them as senseless, when he has climbed through them, on then, over them. (He must so to

speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.)

He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly. (TLP: 189 [ 6.54])

Philosophy can be compared to the biblical ladder of wisdom. In Jakobs

spiritual vision, the ladder reached from earth to heaven with angels climbing

up and down the steps (Gen. 28: 12). Wittgensteins metaphor let it be known

that philosophy works not in evolution, but in reality (Kishik 2008: 6668).

Philosophy shows gradually, by steps of logic, the translation from the naive

confusions of language until the final steps of Jakobs ladder, reaching the

Holy Temple of God.

Away from the abstract principles of reasoning, the concrete meaning of

most propositions can be clearly formulated in the deductive strategy. Yet the

rest, the so-called unclear propositions, has the obscure or oblique sense of

Wittgensteins confusions made in the use of language. In the final sentence

of the Tractatus, Wittgenstein famously declared: Whereof one cannot speak,

thereof one must be silent (TLP: 189 [ 7]). The unclear propositions supposethe solution of Wittgensteins inexpressible (Unaussprechliche) problems of life

(unsere Lebensprobleme). The solution is applied to the thoughts of silence,

which can hardly be solved by logical reasoning, but rather by the speculative or

hypothetical reasoning of Peirces abduction. Without the illogical consequence,

the meaning of the non-verbal silence can become nonsensical, cryptic, or

even mystical (TLP: 187 [ 6.522]). In Wittgensteins terms, the mystical feeling

can come alive in the personal silence(TLP: 187 [ 6.446.45]).

Wittgensteins skeptical interpretation of what the opaque or sterile silence

is has remained a controversial refrain from scientific logic and religious mythol-

ogy. The myth of Wittgensteins silence can be demythologizedinto the sense

of emotive language. By any standard, we live in two worlds, interacting within

our mind and soul. Apart from the known microcosm of the world around us,

there must exist the unthinkable macrocosm of the unknown or unseen world

(TLP: 151 [ 5.621]). The limit between both worlds solves the problematic area

between rational certainty and the uncertainty of emotive language in the bodily

act of avoiding or rejecting Wittgensteins silence. To eliminate the uncertainty

of verbal statements with obscure meaning, the non-verbal silence is clarified bythe speculation of the figurative, optional, or necessary mysticism of what ought

to be thought of as silent speech of Wittgensteins soul. The vague and



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allegorical sense of non-language is the abductive process structured by the

speculation of Peirces unconscious feeling with an intellectual backing. The act

of magic can be described as Wittgensteins logical end to the Tractatus, in

which he moved the expressive form of logic into the meaning to the inexpres-sive areas of non-logic. The deductive precision of the inductive clarity of the

illumination of facts foregrounds the possibility of sense-experience by reach-

ing the solution accepting the fair hints and guesses of abduction (Gorle 2014

[2005]).

Le style cest lhomme. Le style cest lhomme mme.

The first expression has a cheap epigrammatic brevity.

The second, correct, one opens up a quite different perspective.

It says that style is the pictureof the man.


The second story bridges the deducibility gap between the paragraphs of

Wittgensteins Tractatus and the counterparts, The Blue and Brown Book (BBB

1969) and Philosophical Investigations (PI 1968, 2009). The latter albums show

how the logical reasoning of deduction has been broken down to the inductive

patterns of the narrations of human experience, giving neither true not false

propositions. The narrative description on the literal level is almost a number of

episodes, but the

novel

can grow from the episodic narration to the logicalreasonableness (truth) in the future, despite the fact that in induction the view of

the future remains an unruled unknown or indeterminate world.

The rule ofThe Blue and Brown Book prepares the way for Philosophical

Investigations, but these allusive, uncharacterized, or even self-contradictory

sets of manuscripts does not obey real logic. The lack of rule in Wittgensteins

albums signifies that the reader (inquirer) needs to ascertain what actually is

(CP 5.171) going on in the variety of different propositions. The subject shows, as

in a detective novel, how the events of paradigms and aphorisms can be

regulated at all into the forms of a real story; but the story remains on themetaphorical level. The opinions of Wittgensteins sturdy tome of the

Philosophical Investigations have been forwarded in many argumentations and

explanations by analysts, read by scholarship, and judged by evidence; how-

ever, the characterization of Wittgensteins Brown Book, first introducing the

concept of language-game, might give other answers to the dramatic mode of

narration (see Gorle 2012: 221230, 237271).

The line of the fin-de-sicle Viennese political author and moral playright

Johann Nestroy (Janik and Toulmin 1973: 27, 85

87, 90

91)

berhaupt hat derFortschritt das an sich, dass er viel grsser ausschaut, als er wirklich ist (The

trouble about progress is that it always looks much greater than it really is,

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see PI 2009 [1953]: 2) is noted for the witty engagement with Wittgenstein s

stylistic and technical achievement of the Philosophical Investigations. Can this

volume in the edited form be approached from the general question: is bigger

better? By measuring the dense complexity of the volume of the PhilosophicalInvestigations, compared to the brief volume of the Tractatus and preparatory

Blue and Brown Books, the question is: does the bigger size of the new

philosophy advance the progress of Wittgensteins successes (or failures)?

Thefirst edition of the substantial volume ofPhilosophical Investigations (1953) consisted of two

parts of longer or shorter paragraphs, but without subtitles or thematic note to identify the

nature of both materials, implying both related paragraphs and unrelated episodes. Was the

limited degree of self-illumination in Wittgensteins narrative program necessary to under-

stand accurately the vast collection of differentstoriesin thePhilosophical Investigations?

According to the EditorsNote of the third edition with some modifications of the

English translation (PI 2001 [1953]), the editors (Elizabeth Anscombe and Rush

Rhees) remarked after Wittgensteins death (1951), that their task was certainly

not a radical revision of Wittgensteins writings:

What appears as Part I of this volume was complete by 1945. Part II was written between

1947 and 1949 Part II was written between 1947 and 1949. If Wittgenstein had published his

work himself, he would have suppressed a good deal of what is in the last thirty pages or

so of Part I and worked what is in Part II, with further material, into its places. (PI 2001[1953]: Editors note)

In fact, the good deal of Wittgensteins editorial revision concerned the

practical problems of the variant readings for words and phrases written

on slips which Wittgenstein had cut from other writings and inserted at these

pages, while the words standing between double brackets are Wittgensteins

references to remarks either in this work or in other writings needed the

editorial choice [that] never affected the sense (PI 2001[1953]: Editors note).

The thematical note to Part II (PI [1953] 2001: 147197) has remained more orless unclear, but became christened during the work of the following team of

editors (Elizabeth Anscombe, P.M.S. Hacker, and Joachim Schulte), preparing

the 4th edition (PI 2009 [1953]). Part II was given the subtitle Philosophy of

Psychology A Fragment (PI 2009 [1953]: IXIV) after the re-arranged set of

remarks written between 1946 and 1949 dealing chiefly with questions in what

Wittgenstein called the new philosophy of psychology(Hacker and Schulte in

(PI 2009 [1953]: XXIII). Wittgensteins new science was, as he said himself in the

Preface to the Philosophical Investigations (written in 1945 in Cambridge), still

characterized by the fragmentariness of the old and new manuscripts of the

Philosophical Investigations. These manuscripts were, for the various editors,



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both oldmanuscripits and newtypescripts, which were re-worked, cut up,

and re-arranged (PI 2009 [1953]: XIX) from rereadings, drafts, and revisions of

early manuscripts.

In the Preface, Wittgensteins conception of writing and reading exploredthe inventory of ideas within some fragments of:

all these thoughts as remarks, shorts paragraphs, sometimes in longer chains about the

same subject, sometimes jumping, in a sudden change, from one area to another.

Originally it was my intention at first to bring all this together in a book whose form I

thought of differently at different times. But it seemed to me essential that in the book the

thoughts should proceed from one subject to another in a natural, smooth sequence. (PI

2009 [1953]: 3)

Wittgensteins poetic style was based on words and punctuation, on clues ofremarks and short paragraphs and longer chains, jumping together in

thoughts. Far away from composing the traditional book, Philosophical

Investigations shows a vacuum of words for meaning and emphasis. The con-

clusion was, technically speaking, that deduction offered the general concepts

of mental laws conceived in the traditional book of the Tractatus. Wittgenstein

stressed that deduction was, at least for Philosophical Investigations, an impos-

sibility. In the next paragraph, Wittgenstein continued the negative conclusion

as follows:

After several unsuccessful attempts to weld my results together into such a whole, I

realized that I should never succeed. The best that I could write would never be more

than philosophical remarks; my thoughts soon grew feeble if I tried to force them along a

single track against their natural inclination. And this was, of course, connected with the

very nature in the investigation. For it compels us to travel criss-cross in every direction

over a wide field of thought. The philosophical remarks in this book are, as it were, a

number of sketches of landscapes which were made in the course of these long and

meandering journeys. (PI 2009 [1953]: 3)

Importantly, there are the clues for understanding the criss-cross of the

whole of Wittgensteins thoughts, which are weakened into the number

of sketches of landscapes in the Philosophical Investigations. Technically,

Wittgensteins biased narrativity in the inductive episodes gave as examples

some fairly selected topics (such as the paradigm of pain or tooth-ache, men-

tioned throughout PI 2009 [1953]) to argue further the whole trajectory of the

general investigation.

For the new functional generalization of the inductive manuscript, the

logical imagination of the scenery seems to require new sketches from otherperspectives. These were in turn, in Wittgensteins words, badly drawn

or lacking in character, marked by all the defects of a weak draughtsman

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(PI 2009 [1953]: 3). Instead of verbal speech, some artificial (scientific) illustra-

tions were needed to pictorially envisage Wittgensteins inductive principles in

practice. The illustrations, such as the duck-rabbit and the picture-face (PI 2009

[1953]: 204), were Wittgensteins own drawings. The meaning of these nonverbalimages (diagrams) enables the reader to see the illogical view of the abstract

symbolism. Yet the drawings find or make an unrepresentative ground for

objects in reality, and even turn into degrees of irreality. Wittgenstein apol-

ogized in the Preface ofPhilosophical Investigations, saying that in order to

give the viewer an idea of the landscape this book is really just an album(PI

2009 [1953]: 4).

In the lengthy survey of the Preface, Wittgenstein struggled historically with

choosing verbal genres for the speculative rhetoric in the Philosophical

Investigations. In the unfinished formulas of fragmentary formulas, he gave the

readers the equivocal statements about the false tautologies (RLF: 167, in

particular TB) presented in the text of the Philosophical Investigations. See, for

example, these two examples of experimental testing (CP 4.155):

Point at a piece of paper. And now point at its shape now at its colour now at its

number (that sounds odd). Well, how did you do it? Youll say that you meant

something different each time you pointed. And if I ask how that it is done, you ll say you

concentrated your attention on the colour, the shape, and so on. But now I ask again: how

isthatdone?Suppose someone points to a vase and says Look at that marvellous blue forget about

the shape. Or: Look at the marvellous shape the colour doesnt matter. No doubt

youll do something different in each case, when you do what he asks you. But do you

always do the same thing when you direct your attention to the colour? Imagine various

different cases! (PI 2009 [1953]: 33).

These things can hardly be fully understood. On closer look, the blue color can

probably be indigo or another color; the experiences of seeing the shape, color,

and even number can give inductive remarks about the unrevealed but

practical appearances of the object. Under different eventualities of life, the

deductive rules of logical appearances can be transformed into other rules. In

ordinary language, the inquirer (reader) meets with colours, sounds, etc., etc.,

with their gradations, continuous gradations, and combinations in various

proportions, all of which we cannot seize by our ordinary means of expression

(RLF: 165). This means that slight variations in the colors can deal with

properties which admit of gradations, i.e., properties as the length of an

interval, the pitch of a tone, the brightness or redness of a shade of colour,

etc. (RLF: 166167).The linguistic tautologies play with the same indefiniteness [that] sur-

rounds the emotional physiognomy of abstract colors (Blocker 1979: 139). The



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concrete material is not the formal or conventional color, but presents an

attractive conceptual picture (Blocker 1979: 179) with many different kinds of

meaning. Observing the complex physiognomy of defining the colors, they

represent the cultural variables of the language-game, indeed embracing thegame-with-language-and-culture. The emotional sense shows how one plays a

game of chess with form and content, which doesnt consist only in pushing a

piece from, here to there on the board not yet in the thoughts and feelings that

accompany the move; but in the circumstances that we call playing a game of

chess, solving a chess problem,and the like(PI 2009 [1953]: 33). The circum-

stances of the game are a cultural story (Anderson and Gorle 2011: 222226).

Induction is the practical interpretation of rule and case, moving from a

persons doubt and interrogation to the result of the individual decision to solve

the cultural story, as observed. The cause-consequence story of induction differs

from the previous, deductive authority of cases and precedents, which leads to

the unquestioned rules of certainty and truth. Wittgenstein provided mixed text

types together, calibrating the proximity of real or fictional narration with the

chronological order of events of episodes. Wittgensteins narration is closely

connected to maintaining the dialogue of events with the readers, whose interest

or effort is the didactic ideal to understand the inductive stories of the

Philosophical Investigations.

The conflicting tests of the actual facts in the two colors or the shape of thevase can puzzle the scientific activity of reasoning, leading to the confusionin

everyday living. Within other cultural contexts, particularly exotic environ-

ments, the shade of the colors and the forms or shapes of Wittgensteins vase

can be observed differently. Analytic reasoning did not solve Wittgensteins

fragmentariness into a whole. Wittgenstein points out that To piece together

the landscape of these conceptual relationships out of their individual fragments

istoo difficultfor me. I can make only a very imperfect job of it (CV 1998: 90; CV

1980: 78).

Moving from deduction to induction, Wittgenstein pursued the experience

further from formal logic into informal logic. For Peirce, this movement was on

the surface one of the worst of these confusions, as well as one of the

commonest, [it] consists in regarding abduction and induction taken together

as a simple argument (CP 7.218). The reasoning to justify the confirmable

predictions in deduction and induction was based on seeingthe phenomenon

in experience. Thereby, in the reasoning of the pure seeing-as, one neglects

the inconsistent but pervasive force of introducing new ideas beyond what is

given in the experimental observation of the world of phenomena. Wittgensteinsuggests the possible hypothesis of abductive guesses to solve the actual cases

(Merrell 2004: 256).

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Its possible to write in a style that is unoriginal

in form like mine but with well chosen words;

or on the other hand in one that is original in form,

freshlygrown from within oneself.

(And also of course in one which is botched togetherjust anyhow out of old furnishings.1)


Finally, the third story is about the abductive style of Wittgensteinian new

ideas called by Wittgenstein freshly grown ideas introduced into the

furniture of pseudo-scientific reasoning. These ideas show the insight into

Wittgensteins privacy in the titles of poems or sentences, and in the lectures,

notebooks, letters, and conversations. In the reading of what happened in the

private occasions (Klagge and Nordmann 2003), one gets a personal feel ofWittgensteins beliefs, opinions, and also the final judgments. The aphorisms

have a relative isolation, but draw attention to a word, a phrase, or a para-

graph. They structure Wittgensteins comments and commentaries, clearing up

a manifold of interesting subjects culture, politics, music, arts, cultural life,

philosophy, the Bible, Jewishness, Shakespeare, and so forth. The form and

content of Culture and Value (CV 1980, CV 1998) collects the separate and

decomposed remarks together in a volume; but originally the remarks were

interspersed or intertwined throughout the written pages of Wittgensteins

scientific work. Despite the fragmentary meaning of the remarks, they give in

its incompleteness a measure of plenitude about Wittgensteins private sensa-

tion (Pitcher 1970 [1966]).

Culture and Valuegives the diaristic remarks revivedin the context of this

album or phrase-book. The remarks do not reflect the entire framework of

Wittgensteins writing nor his rewriting as such: the remarks are borrowed

from his writings to produce in themselves a contradictory and ambiguous effect

of Wittgensteins poetic and thoughtful frame of mind and heart, thereby show-

ing the workings of his abductive heart as opposed to the deductive andinductive mind. The first edition ofCulture and Value(CV 1984 [1980]) consisted

of extractions from the pages of the early writings, Tractatus Logico-

Philosophicus (TLP), Philosophical Investigations (PI 2001 [1953]), and the

Notebooks 19141916(TB).Culture and Valuefollowed the step-by-step method

ofNotebooks 19141916 of keeping a kind of diary in the habit of writing short

aphorisms (see PR).

1 Wittgensteins original was aus alten Stcken, Winchs translation old bits and pieces

(Wittgenstein 1984 [1980]: 53) was re-translated into old furnishings (Wittgenstein 1998: 60).



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During the First World War, the abstract manuscript of the Tractatus was

joined with the private diaries as a separate manuscript in a list of daily events

and moods. This diary written in 19141916 seems to feature the autobiographical

biscript of theTractatusnarrating how the inductive life of military battles aroundhim influenced the philosophers private identity living the melancholy of physical

and psychological anxieties of a world of horrors. Later, the remarks ofCulture and

Value(CV 1984 [1980]) were supplemented with other personal observations taken

from Wittgensteins later course of lectures at Cambridge, private notebooks, and

other forms of diaries. These further remarks were taken from Wittgensteins

unpublished heritage on electronic deposit in the Wittgenstein Archives at the

University of Bergen (from 1990) to publish the larger revised volume ofCulture

and Value (CV 1998; see Gorle 2012: 187212). These diaries, precisely because

they were not intentionally created as raw material for philosophizing, seem to

be the instinctive (abductive) rock of Wittgensteins language-game, on which his

deductive and inductive creations and his version of himself were built.

The worknotes about warfare were continued throughout Wittgensteins life.

They were unexpected in the orthographical spelling as far as they affected the

private cryptography in Wittgensteins coded diaries (Pichler 20052006: 143

144; see GT: 75). The crucial step of Wittgensteins cryptography was the codi-

fication of the words into a simple rule: the literal code of the alphabet returned

from a z, b y, c x, d w, e v, etc. This Geheimschrift suggestsWittgensteins secret code, when he wrote entries of the diary during difficult

days. Wittgensteins abductive pensiveness or sad reflection comforted him

during the uphill battles.

For example, during the emotionally charged trip to Skjolden (Norway) in

August 1937 to work in solitude on the Philosophical Investigations(Monk 1990:

361384, esp. 373), Wittgenstein wrote on the ferry from England, in between the

pages of his ordinary work in philosophy, he wrote in secret code that:

Been working a bit. And yet I cannot keep my mind wholeheartedly on the work. At the back [ofmy mind] lurks a vague sense of the problem of this life of mine. From the ship to Skjolden. (MS

118: page front cover [Mjmna 13.8.1939], my trans.; see Pichler 20052006: 141)

Three days afterwards, Wittgenstein continued:

Am writing more or less because I am bored. I feel: I am adrift. Vain, thoughtless, anxious.

I wish now not at all to live alone. Fear that I will become depressed and unable to work. I

would now like to live with someone. To see anothers human face in the morning. Still, I

have now become so pathetic that perhaps it would be good that I am alone by necessity.

Am now utterly wretched. Writing it is of course the untruthfulness. Unhinged. (MS 118:page front cover [16.8.1937], my trans.)

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Arrived at his hut in the Norwegian fjords, he continued that:

In Skjolden. Feeling poorly. Unhappy, helpless, and thoughtless But then I remembered

again how unique Francis is, almost irreplaceable. And how little I am aware of this, when

I am with him.

Am completely entangled in pettiness. Am irritable, think about myself only, and feel

that my life is miserable, but have no idea how miserable it really is. (MS 118: 1r [Skjolden

17.8.1937], my trans.)

As seen in the double translation from secret code to German and translated into

English, Wittgensteins standard formal brain has now rejected the truth of the

mental things and objects in accepting the untruthfulness(Unwahrkeit) of the

feelings of the informal heart. In first-person repetition, he moved from the self-

referentiality of his own monologue into a narcissistic kind of dialogue, embody-ing the fictional reality around him with the (ir)reality of being alone. The poetic

repetition of singular words in the three-way series of adjectives (vain, thought-

less, anxious and unhappy, helpless, and thoughtless) give the ups-and

downs he now (jetzt) suffered in the space and time, but then (da) written

in coded form to make the text not readily available when foundby outsiders.

The emphatic clues of the abductive activity of dreams (the vision of his friend

Francis Skinner [Monk 1990: 331342]) realize the sum total of Wittgensteins

conflicting nervous temperaments of love and hostility.

The aphorisms are essentially fragmentary remarks (Gorle 2007) about

Wittgensteins affective states or private moods, as he himself wrote it down in the

diaries. Beyond the isolation of the separate remarks as such, here translated, the real

volumes ofCulture and Value offered a new collection of contextual materials. The

dates of writing the private remarks inCulture and Valueare not real diaries, written

every day about daily events. The autobiographical notes happen sporadically,

written at the same time as the main text (the philosophical writing) as the unformu-

lated set of unstable biscript, whenever Wittgensteins psychological need arises to

relieve his emotions to himself. In the ruled and many un-ruled observations,Wittgenstein balances the high mannerisms of life and the cultural background,

together with his illogical (hardly logical) arguments about what tortured him in

pain, despair, and stupidity in his environment. The common thread of the explana-

tory hypothesis of Wittgensteins abductive belief, repeated throughout the pages of

the volumes ofCulture and Value, is place and time repeated again in the chronolo-

gical analysis of Wittgensteins private archiveof sensations in private moments.

Wittgenstein echoed his ideas and phrases in analogies and similes.

Throughout the pages ofCulture and Value, the modelling of comparison con-

nects the whole reasoning loosely together. Wittgensteins crucial paradigms

may seize, grasp, or envision the optical illusion or are similar to,



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remarkable in, familiar with, nothing but, being-as, seeing-as, as if,

as it were,or as you like(see, for example, CV 1998: 61). The modelling may

imply all kinds of poetic metaphors, such as: Resting on your laurels is as

dangerous as testing when hiking through snow. You doze off & die in yoursleep(CV 1998: 41) or Religion is as it were the calm sea bottom as its deepest,

remaining calm, however, high the waves rise on the surface (CV 1998: 61).

For example, in the years 19391940, following theAnschlussof Austria by

Nazi Germany (1938), Wittgensteins survival as an alien citizen of Jewish

extraction was to receive the British passport. The sense of living as a mean-

ingful philosopher sought to express itself in a new cosmology. Considering the

political affliction of the Second World War, he wanted to give up academic life

in Cambridge, hoping to find elsewhere the peace of mind and concentration he

required to finish his book [Philosophical Investigations] (Monk 1990: 401). At

the same time, the friendship with his partner, Francis Skinner, had deteriorated

to the degree that the logical, ethical, legal, and sexual troubles, as seen in a

number of manuscripts (MSS) during these perilous years, were a moral battle.

In these years 19391940, Wittgenstein wrote 67 long or short aphorisms (CV

1984 [1980]: 3439, CV 1998: 4045), which on different dates seem discon-

nected but on analysis are connected phrases.

The common thread of these private phrases written in the years 19391940

(MS 122) seems to embrace the cultural hypothesis of psychoanalysis (thenfashionable in academic circles). Psychoanalysis displayed, in Wittgensteins

words, the wild courage of the passion of active feelings reverted as

tamed nature broken by death (CV 1998: 40, 43).2 MS 122 has become interlaced

with MS 162 to describe the inventive character of genius. The particular

genius moves away from the mediocrity of primitive or idle thoughts to con-

centrate on the genuine truth. Wittgensteins example ofgeniusmentioned his

private courageto realize the deep wish to fill a nice notebook with writing as

soon as possible (CV 1998: 41). Since creative art (including Wittgensteins

idea of philosophy) serves to arouse feelings(CV 1998: 42), Wittgenstein then

compared the genius of Freuds psychoanalysis, the deep human passions of the

art of Shakespeares work, and the bottomless interpretation of the persons in

2 Analyzing Wittgensteins short fragments is not an easy way to provide a conceptual attitude

of precise meaning, particularly in their relation to Wittgensteins fashionable clues (key-

words, catchwords). The specific guesses of clues create with the language-game the cognitive,

linguistic, and cultural realities of what is called the possible worlds in language and culture

(Gorle 2012: 231237). See the jargon of Wittgensteins terminology aesthetic, art, cul-

ture, creative, genius, myth, nature, originality, personality, and many other

terms as defined in Williams (1983 [1976]).

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the New Testament (CV 1998: 42). To resist the temptation of simplicity in

Wittgensteins untruthfulnessin the empirical reality, he created the outlook of

multiplicity of the truth (CV 1998: 41). He originated artistic genius not as inspira-

tion, not as cleverness, but as forms of courage(CV 1998: 44) to tell the truth.Wittgenstein fluctuated in variations between the heart and the mind in the

notebooks of the fragmentary albums, adopting the explanatory hypothesis

about his private form of reality. Beyond the remarks ofCulture and Value, the

hunting-ground of Wittgensteins abductive beliefs stand essentially in the

quotable lines, lectures, notebooks, letters, and conversations. The diaristic

forms and shapes express the intimacy of Barthes-like Journals (Barthes

1983 [1979]). The paradoxical fragments of Wittgensteins journals in the note-

books give a kind of narcissistic attachment(Barthes 1983 [1979]: 480) within

or without his scientific writings. Some of the journals were lectures reflecting

stylized efforts for teaching, for the dialogue with students (as argued, only

published from the studentsnotes). Some were personal writings in correspon-

dence to his family and friends (letters, postcards), some were his own mono-

logue, but not meant with a view to publicationsince he asked and self-asked

the question Can I make the journal into a work?(Barthes 1983 [1979]: 480).3

Wittgensteins journals act as a particularly dramatic pose, in the best sense of

the word, as the dramatic performance of the alter ego. In the stylistic mannerisms

and figures of his day, Wittgenstein attracted the attention as an instinctive writer,later encouraging and inspiring the fashionable style of other, alternative writers

(or journalists). Seeking the argument of his abductive journals, Wittgenstein

behaved from intellectual or emotional temperaments. His first argument was,

according to Barthesself-analysis, a text tinged with an individuality of writing,

with a style(as we used to say) with an idiolect proper to the author (as we said

more recently); let us call this motive: poetic (Barthes 1983 [1979]: 481).

Wittgensteins poetic behavior is his personal style of writing mere fragments

including the poetic figures of speech. Wittgensteins speech was daily language

for the sake of persuasive clearness. Yet instead of philosophical clichs,

Wittgenstein used as literary ornament the rhetorical devices of emphasis and

bracketed words or sentences. The argument was general logic, including the

ordinary strategies of deduction and induction, but the cryptography of the

whole alphabet turned the text into the engineering manufacture of ego-directed

artifacts. When found and deciphered, it gives way to the speculative interpretation

of Wittgensteins silentfield in secretabductive speech.

3 These preoccupations with personal communications are further argued in Klagge and

Nordmann (2003).



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The second argument of Wittgensteins journals was the historical background,

in the sense of including the culturaltraces of a period, mixing all dimensions and

proportions, from important information to details of behavior (Barthes 1983 [1979]:

481). The archeological traces came in particular after the Tractatus from the culturalmundanity of Plato, Augustine, and other historical thinkers. Wittgenstein inte-

grated the historical thinkers into the deductive creativity of twentieth-century

modernity; see the long quotation of the Confessions of Saint Augustine starting

Part I of thePhilosophical Investigations. The lyrical-romantic visualization of Platos

argumentation created the highly moralistic-educational purpose of Wittgensteins

quasi-conventional deduction. The modern details of old knowledge equally evoked

Wittgensteins feelings of nostalgia in the abductive beliefs.

The third ground is Barthes object of desire(1983 [1979]: 481). The journals

implied Wittgensteins intimacy, the small change of his time, his tastes, his

moods, his scruplesin which he (Barthes, not Wittgenstein) may even go so far

as to prefer his person to his work, eagerly snatching up his Journal and neglect-

ing his books(Barthes 1983 [1979]: 481). The goal and purpose is to seduce, by

that swivel which shifts from writer to person which is supposed to compensate

the inadequacies of public writing(Barthes 1983 [1979]: 481). Here, Wittgenstein

preferred the abductive speech of his fragmentary lectures and notebooks, even

his correspondence with friends and colleagues, over the fatigue of his scientific

work, which is what he strongly comments on all the time.The fourth argument focuses on the subject of this article, concentrating on

giving a passionate form to the content of his inner thoughts. The special

impressions of the amorous or idolatrous writer (Barthes 1983 [1979]: 482)

ornaments the serious work with the observations and details of the private

journal. Barthes purely abductive journals are the depiction of Wittgensteins

real individuation, the seduction, the fetishism of language(1983 [1979]: 482).

Barthes illustrated this instruction (or self-instruction) by the biblical proverb

Yea, my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips speak right things(Prov. 23: 16, qtd.

in Barthes 1983 [1979]: 482). Wittgenstein probably hoped that the deductive-

inductive knowledge of the philosophy of language could be abandoned to

credit, without probative force, the abductive comfort of loneliness, anxiety,

and melancholy in his autobiographical remarks written throughout his life.

4 Conclusion

To summarize Wittgensteins formidable multitask to give special style and formto the typescripts and manuscripts, the analysis of his universe of discourse

suggests that he supported Peirces three logical leading principles of deductive,

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inductive, and abductive reasoning.4 Wittgensteins artof speculative rhetoric

in his philosophical writings used the logical rhetoric of deduction. Then, the

deductive rhetoric was recalibrated into narratives of inductive episodes, creat-

ing a kind of novel in the procedure of his manuscripts. Wittgenstein realizedthat the old verification principles of deduction and induction had become too

narrow, so that in his secret journals he wrote his personal paragraphs by

abductive beliefs, part coded and part uncoded. The shifting of his personal

activities in the use of various modalities of reasoning to himself and to others

echoed Wittgensteins forms of ego-directed truth, displaying the weak or mod-

ified feature of his newphilosophy. In Wittgensteins discourses, the narrative

speeches are no mismatch with his authority as author-philosopher, but are

emotionally involved with the artisticlook of uncertainty of form. Uncertainty

shows the mutually intertwined and interpenetrating meanings of Wittgensteins

fragmentary form. Wittgensteins variety of forms restated in clear and intelligi-

ble reasoning the interpretation of his writings, that is the product from the

defective or incoherent untruth to illuminate the truth of logical analysis.

References

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Sbrocchi (eds.), Semiotics 2010, 221232. Toronto: Legas.

Barthes, Roland. 1983 [1979]. Deliberation. In Susan Sontag (ed.), Barthes: Selected writings,

479495. Oxford: Fontana/Collins.

Blocker, H. G. 1979. Philosophy of art. New York: Charles Scribners Sons.

Drury, M. OC. 1984. Conversations with Wittgenstein. In Rush Rhees (ed.), Recollections of

Wittgenstein. 97171. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Freadman, Anne. 2004.The machinery of talk: Charles Peirce and the sign hypothesis. Stanford,

CA: Stanford University Press.

Frye, Northrop. 1973 [1957].Anatomy of criticism: Four essays. Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press.

Glock, Hans-Johann. 1996. A Wittgenstein dictionary. Oxford: Blackwell.

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4 Peirce, as a semiotic logician, has distinguished this simple reasoning with one possible

interpretation of the three-way reasoning. Peirce suggested hypothetical, relational and argu-

mentative deduction from qualitative, sequential, and causal induction, as well as sensory,

descriptive, and conceptual abduction.



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Gorle, Dinda L. 2012. Wittgenstein in translation: Exploring semiotic signatures (Semiotics,

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Gorle, Dinda L. 2014 [2005].Hints and guesses: Legal modes of semio-logical reasoning.

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Wittgenstein Rhetoric

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