ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to establish a connection between Wittgenstein’s thoughts on showing and the latter passages in the Tractatus on the mystical. At 4.12 Wittgenstein states that while propositions show the logical form of reality, they cannot say what the logical form is or what they have in common with reality. According to Wittgenstein, the representation of logical form would only be possible if propositions could be placed outside logical form, that is, outside the totality of facts that share that form, but this, he believes, is impossible. K. T. Fann in Wittgenstein’s Conception of Philosophy (WCP) offers a diagram to illustrate the distinction between showing and saying. His diagram consists of a large rectangular box, which has inside it a smaller box of the same shape. The smaller inner box contains language, or all that can be said. Outside the smaller box, but still inside the outer box is what Fann refers to as what cannot be said, or “showing”. Fann’s model is useful because it helps to illustrate two interpretations of the Tractatus. If Wittgenstein presents a model of language in which propositions, being inside the smaller box, are found within the limits of forms of representation or logic, two alternatives appear to follow. In the fi rst case, philosophy is limited to the inside box or what can be said. Nothing else can be signifi ed, so the outside box is not part of philosophy. On the other hand, if it is assumed that the inside box signifi es something outside what can be said, philosophy includes both propositions that correspond to reality (the inside box) and propositions that do not correspond to reality but signify metaphysical truths (the outside box). In the case of the Tractatus, it can be argued that in making clear what can be said, it is possible to point to something transcendental that cannot be put into words (c.v. 4.115). However, in this view there appears to be a division between what can be spoken and the transcendental. This case could be interpreted in terms of a metaphysical reading of the Tractatus. That is, such a reading would imply that something exists outside what can be said. Reconciling the apparent division between what can be spoken and what lies outside words is key to the position I shall take to show that the passages on showing are connected to the mystical. That is, the position I
shall defend in this chapter will be neither the anti-metaphysical inside box model, nor the metaphysical both inside and outside model. Rather, if we understand that what cannot be said is what shows itself in such a way that there is no actual distinction between the two, I believe we have one key to understanding Wittgenstein’s statements about the mystical.
