Action and the Will

Wittgenstein's discussion of the will is particularly interesting because of the way he addresses the common assumption that willing is a kind of act. I would like to expand upon Wittgenstein's claim that "'Willing' is not the name of an action" (137) and what this statement might mean about language.

As Wittgenstein points out, it simply does not make sense to talk about willing as an action. Perhaps, he says, it is something that I can "bring about" when I jump into water; however, it seems that the only action is jumping into water, and there is nothing separate that we can call "willing". So is willing simply the completion of other actions, Wittgenstein asks, or is it something else?

My answer to this question is that the will is the manner in which a human being performs actions rather than an action in itself. In other words, the will is more of an adverb than a verb. The way that we use the verb "to will" in English supports this claim. We would never say, "I willed to jump in and then I jumped in," but we might say, "I willed to jump in but I was unable to jump because my legs were paralyzed." What these two examples show is that we only say that we willed something when we were unable to do it, so it seems that we use the verb 'to will' as a sort of euphemism for failure. As a further illustration of this point, consider the common response to someone who said only, "I willed to jump into the water": we would ask, "Well, why couldn't you actually jump?" because it is clear that the speaker must not have succeeded. Clearly we do not use the verb 'to will' to describe some sort of action that a human must perform in order to perform any other action.

Rather, the will is better thought of as an adverb that describes the manner in which human beings act. Any action of a human being is not fully determined by external causes in the way that a ball's motion is determined by another ball that hits it. Humans are free to deliberate about which possible action is best for them, and to perform actions in this choice-based manner is to perform them in the manner that is indicated by the word 'will'. Thus, any action that a human being performs is a willed action because it is not fully determined by external causes.

It seems to me that, contrary to what Wittgenstein might want to say, this adverbial definition of the will means that the will is not dependent upon language. Even if human beings were unable to speak or think in a language they would still be able to act in a manner that is not fully determined by external causes. As we saw above, the way that we use the verb 'to will' in English does not represent the way that will actually works, so it seems that the loss of this inaccurate linguistic expression would not have an effect on our actual characteristic of will. In other words, the will seems to be a language-independent phenomenon that stems from the human ability to choose between multiple responses to any particular stimulus, whether we can talk about it or not.

"External" Descriptions

In his “Rejection of Logical Atomism”, Wittgenstein states “that Φ(x) must be an external description of x” in order for something to be actually described in the way that logical atomism requires (35). In other words, one must always be able to distinguish the subject from the predicate in order for the utterance to be a proper and logical one.

The example that Wittgenstein offers as support for his statement is that, upon hearing a loud noise, one could ask, “‘Was that thunder, or gunfire?’” but not “‘Was that a noise?’” because to ask whether ‘that’ was a noise when ‘that’ refers to a noise is to ask, non-sensically, whether a noise was a noise (35). In other words, the predicate Noise(x) is not external to x in this case.

It seems to me, however, that the impropriety of the question “Was that a noise?” stems not from the fact that the predicate is internal to the subject, but rather from the fact that the predicate’s applicability to the subject is self-evident in any situation in which the question could be understood. The same problem arises from the question, “Was the shooting star in the sky?” because it is self-evident that any shooting star would have to be in the sky. However, the fact that the shooting star was in the sky is certainly external to the shooting star itself; its location is not an internal property.

Further, there are many cases in which it can be useful and important to predicate something of an object that is internal to the object. For instance, it might at some point be important for me to say that the atomic number of gold is 79 because I am speaking to someone who is not aware of that fact. Thus, even though that predicate is internal to the nature of gold, it can be stated meaningfully and properly.

So, it is not whether a predicate is internal or external to the subject but rather whether it is empirically self-evident or not that determines whether it can be properly predicated of the subject.

Wittgenstein's Definition of Philosophy

According to Wittgenstein, “The object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts” (Tractatus 4.112). Wittgenstein seems to embrace this extremely limited definition of philosophy as a result of his belief that there are very few things that language can properly express: since we cannot even talk about things like ethics and aesthetics, philosophy should limit itself to clarifying our pictures of those few things about which we actually can speak. In order to evaluate Wittgenstein’s limited definition of philosophy, I will critically consider his claims about the unspeakability of something that I and many others normally consider to be an important part of the object of philosophy: ethics.

Wittgenstein states quite clearly that ethics cannot be spoken of because value cannot lie within the realm of fact, i.e., within the realm of which we can speak. “If there is a value which is of value, it must lie outside all happening and being-so” because meaning and purpose cannot be a part of the “accidental” realm of fact (Tractatus 6.41). This idea of ethics, however, is misguided because it sees value as something that must “exist” on its own, as a sort of agent that actively “gives” meaning to the otherwise accidental facts. Value is not something that exists independently; rather, it exists as a judgment of a human being about those accidental facts. Value cannot exist without a human mind who judges something as valuable by some standard that she has chosen. By this definition, value is derived from the things that exist by human beings rather than having to exist on its own. In fact, value that existed independently would not really be value because it would not be of value to anyone in particular: value without a valuer is an empty concept. Thus, of course it is impossible for Wittgenstein to talk about a sort of value that exists independently: no such thing is actually or even possibly real.

If value is derived from the things that exist and that can be described by propositions, it seems that we would be able to talk about it after all. We could use one proposition to describe a particular fact, and then we could use another to describe the way in which that fact makes our lives better or allows us to survive. In other words, value is logical. It is based on facts and logic, and thus it is something that can be both thought and spoken about. This understanding of value allows us to talk about value without having to force language to transcend its own bounds in any way.

If value can, in fact, be spoken of, it seems that it is far too important a matter to be excluded from the object of philosophy. Since Wittgenstein is so concerned about philosophy as a source of clarity, it seems that he would have wanted philosophy to clarify which things are truly valuable to individuals and which are not. It seems to me that if Wittgenstein had realized that value is connected directly to facts and is therefore not transcendental, he would have included ethics as an important part of philosophy.

To amend Wittgenstein’s famous line: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must think a little bit harder and make sure one really understands what is going on.