FROM THE ARCHIVES

1. Introduction

In the Preface to the published version of Philosophical Investigations, dated “January 1945”, Wittgenstein acknowledges the “criticism” that Sraffa “unceasingly applied to [his] thoughts” and actually writes that “[i]t is to this stimulus that [he] owe[s] the most fruitful ideas of this book” (PI 2009: 4). It is worth mentioning that the drafts for the Preface to the early version of the Investigations, prepared in 1938, also contain this acknowledgment (cf. MS 159: 40r-40v; MS 117: 114-115, 119-120 and 125-126; TS 225: III; PIP 2010: 188), and as a matter of fact Wittgenstein already mentions Sraffa in his 1931 list of influences (cf. VB 1998: 16). As pointed out by Alois Pichler in a note on this list in his revised edition of Culture and Value, “Wittgenstein first wrote ‘Frege, Russell, Spengler, Sraffa’ and added the other names later” (ibid.: 101, note 8). This clearly shows that Sraffa exerted a lasting influence on Wittgenstein. However, apart from the various versions of the Preface in which the above-mentioned acknowledgment occurs, Sraffa’s name is rarely found in Wittgenstein’s Nachlass. Indeed, there are only three relevant remarks, which date from 1932, 1937 and 1940 (cf. MS 113: 25r-25v; MS 157b: 5v; MS 117: 172). No surprise then that in his book on the figures listed by Wittgenstein in 1931 and the role they played, Allan Janik has left out Sraffa, stating that “the exact nature of Sraffa’s influence upon Wittgenstein remains a mystery and a matter for speculation until today” (2006: 224; see also 11). Brian McGuinness’ new edition of the Wittgenstein correspondence (WC 2008) brought to light not only letters but also conversation notes that help to clarify Sraffa’s place in the development of Wittgenstein’s ideas. However, none of these documents make explicit the “stimulus” Wittgenstein talks about and that G. H. von Wright, for example, also recalls. In his memoir we read:

It was above all Sraffa’s acute and forceful criticism that compelled Wittgenstein to abandon his earlier views and set out upon new roads. He said that his discussions with Sraffa made him feel like a tree from which all branches had been cut. That this tree could become green again was due to its own vitality. (von Wright 2001: 14-15)

In a recent paper, Franco Lo Piparo (2010) argues that Sraffa’s influence on Wittgenstein can only be fully accessed if we take into consideration another figure: Antonio Gramsci. Lo Piparo builds on Amartya Sen’s insightful suggestion that “it may be important to reexamine Sraffa’s interactions with Wittgenstein ... in the light of Sraffa’s relationship with Antonio Gramsci, the Marxist theorist, who had a strong influence on Sraffa” (Sen 2003: 1241). Sen, in turn, is following John B. Davis (2002a; see also 2002b), who had first focused on that triad. Lo Piparo’s extensive study of Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks and of the correspondence between Sraffa and Gramsci’s sister-in-law, who transcribed his letters for Sraffa while he was in prison, illuminates significantly the impact Sraffa may have had on Wittgenstein. There are many aspects in Gramsci’s thought that are truly reminiscent of issues characteristic of the later Wittgenstein. Be that as it may, Wittgenstein’s debt to Sraffa continues to be a matter of speculation.¹ In what follows, I shall add a new piece to the puzzle: an unpublished document that is among the Sraffa papers at Trinity College Library, Cambridge.

This document consists of a series of notes on Wittgenstein’s “Blue Book”, dictated in 1933-34, written by Sraffa on the back of two diary sheets dated “October 1941” and on the front and back of an envelope. Included in the folder (Sraffa/I21) is a letter from Sraffa to von Wright dated 27 August 1958, which reads:

On comparing my copy of the Blue Book with the recently published edition I find that it contains a number of small corrections in Wittgenstein’s handwriting which have not been taken into account in the printed version. I suppose that he made these corrections when he gave me the book which was shortly after the death of Skinner, to whom it had originally belonged.²

According to the 1960 “Note on the Second Impression” of The Blue and Brown Books. Preliminary Studies for the “Philosophical Investigations”, first published by Rush Rhees in 1958, “[t]here are a few alterations, taken from a text of the Blue Book in the possession of Mr. P. Sraffa”, but “[w]ith the exception of changes on pp. 1 and 17 they make no difference in the sense, being mostly improvements in punctuation and grammar” (BBB 1960). This means that if Sraffa’s notes played any role, it must be found in what Wittgenstein wrote after October 1941 – the month of Francis Skinner’s death. Let us then look at the notes.

2. Text

Among Sraffa’s notes, we find two different types of text: comments and quotations. The comments are found on the back of the diary sheets. They are written in pencil and there are no entries on the front pages. The dates are from 12 to 18 October and from 5 to 11 October 1941, respectively.³ The quotations appear on the front and back of the envelope (from Trinity College to Sraffa).

3. Commentary

It is strange that Sraffa had commented on the “Blue Book” so late and even more that these comments might have been important for Wittgenstein, whose thought was in continuous evolution. But it is noteworthy that, for example, in MS 165, which von Wright (1993: 488) tentatively dates to “1941-44”, Wittgenstein takes up the issue of solipsism such as is presented in the “Blue Book” (see MS 165: 101-103 and 150-152; BBB 1960, esp. 48-49, 57-61, 63-65 and 71). Here Wittgenstein was of the opinion that the solipsist could always resist common sense even if the language-game at stake involved a clear contradiction in terms of action. According to the author of the “Blue Book”, “[o]ne can defend common sense against the attacks of philosophers only by solving their puzzles, i.e., by curing them of the temptation to attack common sense, not by restating the views of common sense” (BBB 1960: 58-59). The way Wittgenstein exposes the question in MS 165 is exactly the same. He does not seem to accept Sraffa’s suggestion that common sense can make the solipsist see that there is no point in it. The reason for that is simple. If a philosopher gets “cured” of solipsism by common sense, he or she must have first realized that there was an incompatibility between his or her language-games and the practice associated to them. Does the solipsist really believe that he or she is the only being in the world in everyday life? Of course not, but this is not enough to repudiate solipsism. It could be an ingredient of this solipsistic form of life that other selves take part in it. As Wittgenstein points out in the “Blue Book”, there is no disagreement in solipsism “about any question of fact” (ibid.: 59). The result would be a compromise between what common sense teaches and a metaphysical position. This is what Wittgenstein wants to eliminate and that is why he insists we must solve “these puzzles”. Wittgenstein’s second discussion of solipsism in MS 165 illuminates this and works like a reply to Sraffa. Here is the most relevant part of it, which I quote in the original:

The nonsense against which I fight is the semi-solipsism that always says I know the sensation intimately since I have it and I now generalize on the basis of this knowledge. this ^my case.

You learned the concept “pains” in learning language.

James’ psychology shows how necessary the work of philosophy is. Psychology, he says, is a science but it discusses nearly no scientific questions. His movements are nothing but /^{so many}/ attempts to liberate himself from the spider’s web of metaphysics, in which he is trapped. He cannot yet walk, or fly at all he only wiggles.⁵ Not that this is not interesting,^. i^It is simply not scie a scientific activity. (MS 165: 150-151)⁶

The “nonsense” of “semi-solipsism” is far from that of the “metaphysical subject” in the Tractatus, that is to say, it is not something that can be encapsulated in a “mystical feeling” (cf. TLP 1933: 5.633, 5.641 and 6.45). It corresponds instead to manoeuvres made in language which the very praxis of language rules out. The purpose of philosophy is then psychotherapeutic in a certain way. Philosophical therapy helps to recognize that, for instance, it is not false but nonsensical to believe that only I know my pain when I am going to see a doctor. Certainly no one can tell exactly what my experience is, but it belongs to the use of “to know” that others can realize what is happening to me. The fact is that “to know” is used in many different ways, each involving different degrees of belief. If I were to say that only I know my pain, what could these words mean? What degree of belief should be assigned to them? They could make some sense if I were an outstanding doctor who had discovered a new pathology. But they do not make sense if I mean literally that the others cannot know my pain. To be sure, what would it be like to know exactly someone else’s pains? Do we have a clear picture of that? This is excluded by our form of life and language can only mistakenly suggest such a possibility. When we notice the multifaceted character of knowing something, we understand the confusion involved in a sentence like “Only I know my pain”. This cannot be resolved by common sense, as Sraffa believed, because it is not a factual but a metaphysical matter, with the role of philosophy being just one of clarification.

However, Sraffa’s notes seem to have been acute in regard to another question. His first quotation comes from a sentence in which Wittgenstein claims that “[w]e shall ... try to construct new notations, in order to break the spell of those which we are accustomed to” (BBB 1960: 23). Later in the text he affirms:

... we sometimes wish for a notation which stresses a difference more strongly, makes it more obvious, than ordinary language does, or one which in a particular case uses more closely similar forms of expression than our ordinary language. Our mental cramp is loosened when we are shown the notations which fulfil these needs. (Ibid.: 59)

Interestingly enough, with the exception of §403 and §562, the term “notation” is not employed in theInvestigations. As a matter of fact, §403 states:

If I were to reserve the word “pain” solely for what I had previously called “my pain”, and others “L.W.’s pain”, I’d do other people no injustice, so long as a notation were provided in which the loss of the word “pain” in other contexts were somehow made good. ...

But what would I gain from this new mode of representation? Nothing. But then the solipsist does not want any practical advantage when he advances his view either! (PI 2009: §403)⁷

This is a puzzling remark. As David Stern recently noted, “[t]here is no defence of the controversial claim that reforming our language in this way would do other people no injustice and no discussion of what kind of ‘notation’ would be needed to provide for the loss of the word ‘pain’”. He goes on: “Indeed, the very nature of the new notation is left unspecified.” (Stern 2010: 185) Sraffa’s comments are also vague, but the reason why Wittgenstein does not specify this alternative notation seems to be his realization that we should not want “to break the spell of those which we are accustomed to”, as claimed in the “Blue Book”. On his way to the Investigations he realizes that what we need is to look at our ordinary language-games and understand how language is used. The fundamental question of the “Blue Book”, “What is the meaning of a word?”, which for Wittgenstein should be answered in connection with the question about the “explanation of the meaning of a word” (cf. BBB 1960: 1), gives room in the Investigations to a much more flexible conception of grammar. Wittgenstein takes issue, for example, with “words ‘without meaning’” and what interests him is not their explanation but the effect they produce (see PI 2009: §13 and §282). Sraffa did certainly play a decisive role in this new approach through his “anthropological way” of considering philosophical matters, which Sen emphasizes (cf. Sen 2003: 1242, 1245-1247 and 1252; Sen 2009: 120-121). Although Sen himself tries to de-mystify Sraffa’s famous Neapolitan gesture (cf. Sen 2003: 1242; Sen 2009: 120-121, note), von Wright’s version of the episode is telling. According to this version, which differs from Norman Malcolm’s, “the question at issue ... was whether every proposition must have a ‘grammar’, and Sraffa asked Wittgenstein what the ‘grammar’ of that gesture was” (Malcolm 2001: 58, note 3). This is something Wittgenstein will only come to grips with late in his work.⁸

Biographical note

Nuno Venturinha is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Philosophy of Language and Lecturer in Philosophy at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, New University of Lisbon. He has also taught Literary Theory at the Faculty of Letters at the University of Lisbon and has been a visiting researcher variously at the universities of Bergen, Innsbruck, Oxford, Cambridge and Helsinki. His research interests concentrate on the philosophy of language and Wittgenstein. He is the author of Lógica, Ética, Gramática. Wittgenstein e o Método da Filosofia (Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 2010) and the editor of Wittgenstein After His Nachlass (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).