Elucidation, elucidation, wherefore art thou elucidation?

"When's a door not a door? When it's ajar!"
"When's an elucidation not an elucidation? When its a proposition!"

Okay.... so it's with a sense of puzzlement and a lack of (even philosophical) humour that I write this post. The 'joke' above (or at least it has that ring about it) is about the only criticism I could properly discern from an article of Hacker's about ostensive definition in the Tractatus. Apparently, we elucidate the meaning of an object via ostensive definition. To do this is to balance two contradictory elements: the true-false feature of an ordinary proposition and the supposed feature of an ostensive definition that it can link language to reality.

My attention was drawn to this article by N.N. He is 'inclined to disagree' with my view that "It is no part of the Tractatus account that names get their meaning (the object which is their meaning) via ostensive definition." Now I certainly think that what I put is the orthodox view but not only that, one that seems cogent in light of what else Wittgenstein says/ shows in the Tractatus. As N.N. rightly said, Kenny shares my view (or to be more precise, I share his! He wrote it before me). And I found this quote from Hodges (after I had made the suggestions responding to N.N.'s comment):

One might be tempted to treat elucidation as a kind of ostensive definition, but that would to seriously misread Wittgenstein... it totally ignore his view that only in a proposition does a name have meaning.. Hence, what the referent of a given primitive term is, is necessarily tied up with the meaningful occurrence of that term in propositions. The relation here is internal, and the notion of ostensive definition simply ignores that. it makes no sense to suppose that we can first be acquainted with a simple object and then discover in which facts it is a possible constituent"

N.N. kindly pointed me in the direction of this Hacker article where it is claimed that in the Tractatus there is an 'opaque discussion of (what was later called) 'ostensive definition'. Before reading the article I put down suggestions as to why I would be dubious about this claim. Nevertheless, I was very interested at how such a suggestion would go. It might help an understanding of what in the Tractatus, the PI was arguing against.

Now what caused my sense of puzzlement was that I couldn't find anything much wrong with what Hacker claims that Wittgenstein says; yet I have still not quite sure why he believes that we connect names to objects via ostensive definitions. He even mentioned the positive suggestion that I made in the comments section and which I believe is entirely relevant. That is, there is a kind of mental or intentional ostension between name and object. For example, he says and I agree that "the correlation is mental (intentional) and meaning is conveyed by [elucidations]." But this is not something achieved by ostensive definition in the PI sense of standing in front of the object and saying "This is x" Instead... it is... well... mental. Now if this is wrong, we need an argument to that effect and to show it is that doctrine which is refuted. I could not discern any such criticism, but then again, he probably deals with it elsewhere. However, he argues that the Tractatus is wrong because it has a confused notion of ostensive definition.

This arises (apparently) from proposition 3.263 of the Tractatus:

The meanings of primitive signs can be explained by elucidations. Elucidations are propositions that contain the primitive signs. So they can be understood only if the meanings of those signs are already known

So, they are elucidations in that they ostensively define the objects, they help us explain what is meant by the primitive signs. "This is red" i.e. this is what is meant by red. And... they are also propositions. "This is red" as in the statement that it is not-blue, not-green (someone may have falsely uttered that it is green because they were in bad light and I have corrected them by saying what is true.)

Now, as I said, this is the only direct and spelt out criticism of the Tractatus that the (admittedly quick preousal through) Hacker's article I could find. Whilst ostension in the Tractatus connects language to reality; in PI it simply provides a sample that becomes 'part of the grammar'. As such, if one accepts Hacker's analysis of 3.263 and the PI's arguments about the role of ostensive definition, one can show that the Tractatus is mistaken. Yet, as seen in the context of Tractarian arguments, his analysis of 3.263 is wrong. If Hacker thinks Wittgenstein explicitly held this view, then he has (in my humble opinion) misread the Tractatus. If, on the other hand, and this might be more likely given other comments, that this is only implicit in the Tractatus; then I question the wisdom of his methodology and the charitableness of his interpretation of the Tractatus.

Yes the elucidations are sentences that can act as propositions. It is in virtue of a proposition being able to say that something that is the case (have a sense), that it can show what sense it has (and thus, which objects are involved). Yet, when elucidating they are neither used as a proposition to assert something or to ostensively define something. They are used, as Hacker rightly says to convey the meaning of a sign: "the correlation is mental (intentional) and meaning is conveyed by [elucidations]." In other words, names are mentally correlated with objects (because of which we can say anything at all), but if we want to know which object a name stands for we can elucidate this using propositions in which this sign occurs. Yet there is a simple reason why an elucidation is neither a proposition or ostenisve definition (as opposed to Hacker who thinks its both) is two-fold: 1) we already know how to use senseful propositions 2) we already know the meaning that the sign stands for.

As for number 1, I have already said that is the only in this way know what the internal properties of the objects are. If the sense of the proposition isn't already known, then one indeed may point to the situation and say "This situation"/ "This is x" etc. Indeed, as I said in my comment in the previous post, that one may call this ostensive definition. But it is not ostensive definition of a (Tractarian) object or how a sign is able to stand for an object. When you are saying "This is x" in the Tractatus, you are pointing to a complex or a state of affairs i.e. the very stuff that makes up the sense of a proposition. One may indeed define this complex or state of affairs as being represente by this sign if you want but that is not of philosophical relevance to the issue at hand. The aim is simply to point out which sense it is that we are using for the purpose of elucidation. Granted we understand the sense of the proposition, and are not confused about the logic of our language, we can analyse the proposition into its constituent parts and thus, find out what objects are involved.

As for number 2, the very quote Hacker uses "So they can be understood only if the meanings of those signs are already known". And indeed they are... that is a precondition of using a proposition with sense. However, this needs clarification. The meanings of the signs are known, but not which meaning a particular sign has (the signs in themselves, are abitrary). That is, we are already mentally correlated with all the simple objects. It is they that form the substance of the world. It is the psychic components standing for these objects, 'concatenating' in various ways that allow us to speak with sense (and as said above, we use a proposition with sesne for an elucidation). So Wittgenstein concludes, to be able to elucidate propositions at all, we must already know the meanings that correspond to the signs in its analysed form. Therefore, all that is left to find out is which object a signs stands for and that is done by looking at it as a symbol- the sign in its logical-syntactical role. In other words, we look at the sign as used in a proposition or propositions that have sense. That is the context principle in action and has nothing to do with ostensive definition.

If it be objected that we cannot use a proposition and not know the meanings of its parts, then Wittgenstein explicitly says otherwise in 4.002 "Man possesses the ability to construct languages capable of expressing every sense, without having any idea how each word has meaning or what its meaning is". Hacker presents us with a stark choice that either the two people (elucidator and person being elucidated to) both know the meaning of a sign or their understandings have to meet halfway. In other words, the person elucidating has to 'leave it to fate' whether they understand at all. Yet, this is just not the case. We start from the premise that we can both use a particular proposition with sense but that doesn't mean we know which menaing a sign has. Then, we can both, intersubjectively, and without leaving it to fate, analyse a proposition to see what the logico-syntactical role of the sign is.

Now, as I have pointed out, I agree with Hacker that there are certain similarities between Tractatus and PI. In both we can point to something and say "This is x". In theTtractatus, there are psychic constituents that have the same rolse ostension does in PI etc etc. However, in the context of the Tractatus, ostensive definition itself does not play the role of connecting a sign to reality. Given his talk of mental ostension, Hacker doesn't necessarily attribute the incorrect position to Wittgenstein explicitly. But if this is the case, then Hacker's real sin, is to read the Tractatus as a precursor to PI rather than as a work in and of itself, that is later criticised by PI. As I said, his article says lots of things I agree with plus the occassional comment like "the Tractatus contains a tacit and confused doctrine of ostension". Now you can't simply read a tacit and confused doctrine back into the Tractatus, when there is nothing there that is intended to play that role. If you want to claim something about the Tractatus you have to look at it on its own terms.

Then one can say that there is something that bears similarity to ostension (i.e. mental ostension), this is a natural consequence of the tractarian view, and the PI shows that anything bearing this role is confused. [Although again, you can't just say that, it has to be argued for.] But one can't say that Tractarian Wittgenstein actually held such a view (confused or otherwise) about signs getting there meaning via ostensive definition. EVEN IMPLICITLY