Skepticism Bertrand Russel and Ludwig Wittgenstein\'s Personal

Skepticism

Bertrand Russel and Ludwig Wittgenstein's personal and professional relationship is well-known, with Russel having famously sponsored Wittgenstein's submission of Tractatus Logic-Philosophicus for PhD credit at Cambridge University. Both philosophers were important early contributors to the theory of logical atomism, and although they would both go on to reject many of the ideas central to logical atomism, their work nevertheless represented an important break from philosophical Idealism and set the stage for the developments of the twentieth century (Hylton 105, 116). However, despite the general agreement between Russel's The Philosophy of Logical Atomism and Wittgenstein's Tractatus, the philosophers disagree on the question of skepticism. For Russel, skepticism is an irrefutable position, whereas Wittgenstein characteristically describes skepticism as being "palpably senseless" (Wittgenstein 187). Fully understanding Wittgenstein's meaning requires an analysis of the role of skepticism in both Russel and Wittgenstein's work, but ultimately one can say with relative confidence that Wittgenstein is largely successful in dissolving the problem of skepticism, in that he is able to demonstrate how the notion of skepticism falls within a category of thought exercise that Wittgenstein sees as outside the useful parameters of philosophy because it does not actually contain any kind of sense or meaning.

Examining Wittgenstein's description of skepticism as a kind of self-evident nonsense allows one to not only appreciate how he dissolves the supposed problem of skepticism discussed by Russel, but also gives insight into Wittgenstein's larger criticism of the tendency to propose questions for which there is no answer, something Wittgenstein argues is neither useful nor an appropriate part of philosophy. Instead, Wittgenstein argues for a kind of simple critical methodology of philosophy, in which the full extent of philosophy's purpose is the delineation of what is and is not knowable and intelligible and the pointing out of those statements which fall outside this delineation and thus can be described as senseless or nonsensical. In this way, Wittgenstein is able to simultaneously disregard a number of supposedly crucial problems of philosophy while offering his readers a fairly simple means of performing philosophical work going forward.

Before discussing the notion of skepticism in greater detail, it will be helpful to provide a brief gloss of logical atomism as such, if only to better contextualize both Russell and Wittgenstein's positions. Russel proposes that the idea of logical atomism can firstly be understood to mean that he "share[s] the common-sense belief that there are many separate things," and furthermore, that these separate things are not simply "phases and unreal divisions of a single individual Reality" (Russell 2). This what is meant by the term "atomistic." To this Russell adds the term "logical" because "the atoms that [he wishes] to arrive at as the sort of last residue in analysis are logical atoms and not physical atoms," meaning that Russell is suggesting a mode of philosophy that has as one of its goals the identification and use of fundamental units of logic (Russell 3). This entire notion is based on what Russell sees as the self-evident truism "that the world contains facts, which are what they are whatever we may choose to think about them, and that there are also beliefs, which have reference to facts, and by reference to facts are either true or false" (Russell 6).

In some ways Russel is essentially describing the division between subjectivity and objectivity, with facts representing an objectivity of the universe while beliefs correspond to the subjective experience and interpretation of that objectivity. There is a slight difference, of course, because while one can speak of true or false beliefs it is difficult to speak of true or false subjectivities, in that every subjective experience of objectivity is "true" in the sense that it cannot by definition be anything else, even if that subjective experience leads to untrue conclusions regarding the nature of that objectivity. This is part of why Russell's logical atomism is so useful, because by discussing facts and beliefs rather than the objective and subjective, Russell does not really need to deal with the individual or any of the issues that might arise when attempting to delineate between what is perceived as an individual subjectivity and everything else.

The idea of logical atomism was groundbreaking because it represented a distinct shift away from Idealism, which posited the existence of a single, holistic reality which could not ultimately be atomized or discussed in legitimately discrete units. This shift is important for Russell because it allows him discuss reality with an eye towards "passing from those obvious, vague, ambiguous things, that we feel quite sure of, to something precise, clear, definite, which by reflection and analysis we find is involved in the vague thing we start from, and is, so to speak, the real truth of which that vague thing is a sort of shadow" (Russell 4). Russell is concerned with identifying and parsing the atomistic facts which underlie belief and perception, and as such he adopts a position of skepticism, in that he ultimately presumes that what one believes to be true can be analyzed philosophically in order to determine the relation between that belief and the atomistic facts which underlie it.

However, at the same time he seems to recognize that these facts are, in the end, ultimately unattainable, because although there appears to be a kind of correspondence or congruence between the realm of language (and thought) and the seeming self-evidence of facts, one cannot escape the limitations imposed by subjectivity. As a result, Russell presumes that skepticism is both necessary and irrefutable, because one will never have sufficient access to the actual facts that might refute a position of skepticism regarding any given proposition. This does not prevent Russell from making certain claims or arguing for a particular interpretation of certain facts, but it does suggest a kind of asymptotic futility to the process of philosophical investigation, because in Russell's framework, one can only ever move infinitely toward the clarification and refinement of ambiguously rendered "intrinsic obviousness" without ever coming to a definitive kernel of logic or fact (Hylton 321).

This is why for Russell skepticism is irrefutable. This skepticism can never be fully justified or refuted, because either situation would require a level of accuracy and knowledge that is ultimately impossible through philosophical inquiry and discussion. As will be seen, this decision to view skepticism as irrefutable represents a kind of misidentification of philosophical propositions, because Wittgenstein makes clear that those statements which cannot be refuted or justified are not merely difficult problems, but are actually meaningless in the sense that they cannot refer to anything intelligible.

As mentioned above, Wittgenstein disagreed sharply with Russel in regards to skepticism, saying "scepticism is not irrefutable, but palpably senseless, if it would doubt where a question cannot be asked. For doubt can only exist where there is a question; a question only where there is an answer, and this only where something can be said" (Wittgenstein 187). Wittgenstein's forceful divergence from Russell's position is notable because the two generally agree on the purpose of philosophy and the notion of logical atomism, except that Wittgenstein's conception of the purpose of philosophy ultimately discards a number of questions or ideas as inherently senseless or nonsensical. Because Wittgenstein and Russell agree on a number of concepts central to logical atomism, such as the notion that "the world is the totality of facts, not of things," or that "philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts," it will not be necessary to provide a comprehensive comparison of The Philosophy of Logical Atomism and Tractatus (Wittgenstein 31, 77). Instead, it will be useful to focus on Wittgenstein's notion of what philosophy should be used for, and furthermore, how this conception of what is and is not within the domain of philosophy leads to his statement that skepticism is not irrefutable but rather senseless.

In general, Wittgenstein agrees with Russell that the purpose of philosophy is to move "from those obvious, vague, ambiguous things, that we feel quite sure of, to something precise, clear, definite," in that Wittgenstein proposes that "philosophy should make clear and delimit sharply the thoughts which otherwise are, as it were, opaque and blurred" (Russell 4; Wittgenstein 77). However, there is a subtle detail in Wittgenstein's formulation that leads to his disagreement with Russell, because Wittgenstein specifically argues that "the result of philosophy is not a number of 'philosophical propositions,' but to make propositions clear" (Wittgenstein 77). While this appears largely consistent with Russell's position, it differs slightly in that Wittgenstein proposes that he is not actually interested in making epistemological statements about reality, but rather is concerned with making clear how such statements are made, and whether those statements can actually be said to have any sense or meaning to them. In other words, Wittgenstein is proposing a kind of critical tool or methodology, while Russell can be described as offering his readers a kind of position or paradigm. While on the surface the difference between these two offerings are slight, when examined in detail it becomes clear that Wittgenstein is engaged in an extremely different endeavor.

This is where it is important to point out that when Wittgenstein refers to something as senseless or nonsensical, he is not doing so in a trivial or dismissive way, but rather is arguing that whatever nonsensical statement or position is literally just that. In other words, he is saying that the statement or position does not make or contain sense, but rather simply recapitulates a kind of tautological unintelligibility that does not make things clearer but instead simply multiplies misunderstanding or ignorance through a multitude of nonsensical propositions (Griffin 25). While Wittgenstein ultimately shows his disinterest in making "philosophical propositions," he suggests that identifying senseless statements is in fact one of the most important tasks of philosophy, because the activity of philosophy is to limit "the disputable sphere of natural science" (Wittgenstein 77). By this he means that philosophy, while not one of the natural sciences, is nevertheless related to them because it limits what can and cannot be said and learned about the world through those sciences (Anscombe 20).

Thus, when Wittgenstein says that something is senseless or nonsensical, he is not berating whoever holds that belief for making a fantastical or otherwise unbelievable statement, but is actually claiming that this statement cannot even be judged in regards to its accuracy or truth, because "it is impossible to judge nonsense" (Anscombe 114). Put simply, there is no way or even reason to judge what Wittgenstein would call a philosophical proposition in regards to its accuracy or truth, because by definition these kinds of metaphysical statements do not contain the sort of sense or meaning that is necessary to actually make a truth claim. One need not and in fact cannot bother disagreeing with such statements, because they do not actually contain anything to agree or disagree with.

Understanding this leads one inexorably to Wittgenstein's dismissal of skepticism, because from the perspective of sense and nonsense, a position of skepticism is in fact senseless if it is maintained in the face of senseless propositions. This is what Wittgenstein means when he says "doubt can only exist where there is a question; a question only where there is an answer," because skepticism, which means rejecting a positive claim, would be self-evidently senseless in the face of a proposition that itself was senseless. To be skeptic of a senseless proposition would be to engage in that senselessness, because in the same way that philosophical propositions lack sense and yet purport to impart meaning, to claim skepticism of a proposition rather than dismissing it as senseless is to aid in maintaining the appearance of sense where there is none.

Wittgenstein is not actually saying that one can never be skeptical, but rather is suggesting that the philosophical position of skepticism is senseless when taken to the kind of extreme as Russell does. When he says that skepticism is irrefutable, Russell is suggesting that philosophical propositions will never be able to effectively refute a position of skepticism to any final degree, because there remains space for doubt due to the inevitable gap between subjectivity and objectivity. Wittgenstein suggests that Russel errs by supposing that philosophical propositions could ever refute a position of skepticism, because they are not actually making meaningful claims in the first place. As a result, skepticism is not shown to be irrefutable, but rather senseless in that it does not actually say anything, since what it is being skeptical about does not actually say anything.

Wittgenstein's dissolving of the problem of skepticism is convincing because it is merely one side effect of his larger effort to elegantly demonstrate the problem with much extant philosophical thought. Understanding why Wittgenstein dismissed skepticism as senseless allows one to better understand Wittgenstein's larger argument, which is that "the right method of philosophy" would be:

To say nothing except what can be said, i.e. The propositions of natural science, i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy: and then always, when someone else wished to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had given no meaning to certain signs in his propositions. (Wittgenstein 187-189)

In this way, many of the "problems" of philosophy disappear because they are revealed to be problems arisen out of senseless premises or terms, rather than actual questions with the capacity of being answered.

Wittgenstein proposes a kind of philosophical "golden rule," with the last line of Tractatus stating that "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent," and just before that, he goes so far as to say, "my propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them," adding, with his characteristic sense of humor, "(he must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it)" (Wittgenstein 189). These final lines help tie Wittgenstein's dismissal of skepticism as senseless in with the rest of his larger project, because it makes clear that his intention is not to discard philosophy as a practice, but instead to refine it into an astoundingly elegant and simplified method and praxis. Wittgenstein succeeds precisely because he is not really interested in offering comprehensive account of every philosophical concept. Instead, his goal is to offer his readers a quick and easy tool for differentiating between sense and nonsense, which he quite convincingly argues is the entire purpose of philosophy in the first place.