The Puzzles Of Wittgenstein's "Phenomenology" In The Process Of His Philosophical Transition

Independent of the influence of the continental phenomenological movement,Ludwig Wittgenstein developed his own edition of "Phenomenology"as soon as hereturned to Cambridge at the beginning of 1929. His conception of "phenomenology"liesin his temporarily held belief in the possibility of establishing a so-called"phenomenological language" in favor of representing the immediately givenphenomena, which seem to be impossible to be described by the ordinary-physicallanguage. Nevertheless, his further exploration of the nature of the "data"forced him toacknowledge that any attempt to realize the representation of immediate experiencewould inevitably involve the expressions of the physical language in itself at the cost ofthe independence of the "phenomenological language". This discovery leads him toabolish the idea of "phenomenology "eventually. This dissertation would focus on this brief but significant period in Wittgenstein'scomplicated and gradual transformation from Tractatus to his later philosophy. Byanalyzing and interpreting the unique published text in which Wittgensteinian"phenomenology"was formulated— "Some Remarks on Logical Forms "( abbreviatedform: RLF)-- and the new-released Wittgenstein's Nachlass, especially the WienerAusgabe including The Big Typescript as the 11th volume of it, the author would presenta new approach to Wittgenstein's philosophical investigation of the expressions of sense-data, the implementation of which are both in the name of the construction and thedestruction of his "phenomenology". The author would further argue for the theses listedbelow: (1) Wittgenstein's "phenomenological period"could be regarded as the beginningof his lasting interest in "the philosophy of psychology"into the end of his life, whereasthe interest of this kind didn't appear obviously in Tractatus; (2) By interpreting the "atomic propositions "as the simplest description of the datainstead of avoiding illustrating what it is as Tractatus did , Wittgenstein's VII"phenomenological period" does show us an amazing affinity between his ownstandpoint at that time and that of the Russellian logical atomism, which is surely underthe influence of the empiricist tradition; (3) Wittgenstein's critique of his phenomenology , however, revives the celebratedTractarian dichotomy between "unspeakablity"and "speakablity"in a new context bydenying any attempt to employ any linguistic tool to designate or describe theabsoluteness of the data which could be only "shown". In The Big Typescript, thisdichotomy is detailed in his analysis of the temporal, spatial and genitive expressions,resulting in the distinction between the unspeakable "memory-time"(Ged?chtniszeit) andthe speakable "physical time", and that between the unspeakable "visualspace"(Gesichtsraum) and the speakable "Euclidean space", etc; (4) From another perspective, the destruction of the conception of the"phenomenological language"could also be seen as the logical consequence of theradicalization of the one and the same conception, since this destruction does reinforcerather than weaken RLF's original intention of distinguishing the physical system fromwhat are given in phenomena by demonstrating the incompatibility between thisintention itself and the insistence on the speakability of the phenomena , which givesbirth to the illusion of the "phenomenological language"; (5) Nevertheless, what the radical distinction between the sense-data and the physicallanguage (as the unique possible language) implies, according to Wittgenstein, is notthat the latter has nothing to do with the former, but that the association between the twodoes not follow the "original sample-copy"pattern but the "screen-presenting— film-operation" pattern, which indicates that phenomenon itself can be aroused by orincluded in –rather than to be described by—...