Chon Tejedor

The Earlier Wittgenstein on the Notion of Religious Attitude

I defend a new interpretation of Wittgenstein’s notion of religious (or ethical) attitude in the Tractatus, one that rejects three key views from the secondary literature: firstly, the view that, for Wittgenstein, the willing subject is a transcendental condition for the religious attitude; secondly, the view that the religious attitude is an emotive response to the world or something closely modelled on this notion of emotive response; and thirdly, the view that, although the religious and ethical pseudo-propositions of the Tractatus are nonsensical, they nevertheless succeed in expressing the religious attitude endorsed by Wittgenstein. In connection to the first, I argue that the notion of willing subject as transcendental condition is abandoned by Wittgenstein in the Notebooks and is no longer a feature of his position in the Tractatus. In connection to the second, I argue that the religious attitude is dispositional rather than emotive for Wittgenstein: it is a disposition to use signs in a way that demonstrates one’s conceptual clarity. Finally, in connection to the third, I argue that the religious or ethical attitude is strongly ineffable in that it cannot be described, expressed or conveyed by language at all.

Sense and simplicity: Wittgenstein's argument for simple objects

This paper puts forward an alternative interpretation of the argument for simple objects advanced in the 2.0s of the Tractatus. In my view, Wittgenstein derives the simplicity of objects directly from his account of possible states, complex objects and senseful propositions. The key to Wittgensteins argument is the idea that, if there were no simple objects, possible states would not be necessarily possible. If this were the case, however, there would be no senseful language, in Wittgensteins view. One of the subsidiary aims of this paper is to question the idea that Wittgenstein posits simples because, without them, language would be infinitely analysable.1

Normativity and Ethics in the Tractatus : Method, Self and Value

Chon Tejedor, ‘Normativity and Ethics in the Tractatus: Method, Self and Value’, in Mark Bevir, Andrius Galisanka, eds., Wittgenstein and Normative Inquiry, (Netherlands: Brill Publishing, 2016), ISBN 978-9004324091, eISBN 978-9004324107.