What is the picture theory of language?

Ludwig Wittgenstein, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

Ludwig Wittgenstein answers

The picture theory begins with a deceptively simple observation: a proposition is a picture of reality.1 Not a picture in the crude sense of a drawing — written notes do not look like music, and the alphabet does not look like speech — and yet these sign-languages prove to be pictures, even in the ordinary sense, of what they represent.2 What makes something a picture is not visual resemblance but logical structure.

A gramophone record, the musical idea, the written notes, and the sound-waves all stand to one another in the same internal relation of depicting that holds between language and the world — they are all constructed according to a common logical pattern.3 The rule of projection is what does the work: the musician derives the symphony from the score by a law of projection, just as the score can be derived again from the groove on the gramophone record.4

Language and world are related in precisely this way. The proposition is not a mere label attached to a fact. In the proposition, a world is as it were put together experimentally — as when in a Paris law-court a motor-car accident is represented by means of dolls.5 The right-hand figure represents one man, the left-hand another, and their relative position can itself be a representation of a relation between them.6

It is the logical articulation that carries the sense: a simple, non-articulated sign can be neither true nor false, and the name is not a picture of the thing named — the proposition only says something in so far as it is a picture.7 This is what makes truth and falsehood possible at all. A proposition can only agree or disagree with reality by being a picture of a situation.8

And here is the crucial point about the agreement of thought and reality: if I say falsely that something is red, then, for all that, it isn't red — and when I want to explain the word "red" to someone in the sentence "That is not red," I do it by pointing to something red.9 The proposition reaches out to reality, and can be false, precisely because it pictures a possible state of affairs rather than merely naming an existing one.

Now — what I came to see, returning to philosophy in 1929, is that "to say that a proposition is a picture gives prominence to certain features of the grammar of the word 'proposition'." No more than that.10 What looks like a profound metaphysical discovery about the essence of language turns out to be a comparison that illuminates some cases and darkens others.

Comparing a proposition to a picture, one must think whether one is comparing it to a portrait or to a genre-picture — and both comparisons have point, which already tells you that the comparison is not a theory but a tool.11 A sentence in a story gives us the same satisfaction as a picture, and yet no one supposes it depicts an actual state of affairs.12

There is no such thing as an isolated proposition: what I call a proposition is a position in the game of language.13 That is the thought that undoes the picture theory from within — not by refuting it, but by showing that the picture-comparison was always one comparison among possible others, never the essence it claimed to be.

Sources

  1. A proposition is a picture of reality. A proposition is a model of reality as we imagine it.
    Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, pp. 50–51
  2. At first sight a proposition—one set out on the printed page, for example—does not seem to be a picture of the reality with which it is concerned. But neither do written notes seem at first sight to be a picture of a piece of music, nor our phonetic notation (the alphabet) to be a picture of our speech. And yet these sign-languages prove to be pictures, even in the ordinary sense, of what they represent.
    Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, pp. 50–51
  3. A gramophone record, the musical idea, the written notes, and the sound-waves, all stand to one another in the same internal relation of depicting that holds between language and the world. They are all constructed according to a common logical pattern.
    Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, pp. 50–51
  4. There is a general rule by means of which the musician can obtain the symphony from the score, and which makes it possible to derive the symphony from the groove on the gramophone record, and, using the first rule, to derive the score again. That is what constitutes the inner similarity between these things which seem to be constructed in such entirely different ways. And that rule is the law of projection which projects the symphony into the language of musical notation.
    Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, pp. 50–51
  5. In the proposition a world is as it were put together experimentally. (As when in the law-court in Paris a motor-car accident is represented by means of dolls, etc.)
    Notebooks 1914-1916, pp. 9–10
  6. A picture can present relations that do not exist!... even if this were not the case, their relative position could be a representation of something. (Namely a relation.)
    Notebooks 1914-1916, pp. 9–10
  7. The proposition is a picture of a situation only in so far as it is logically articulated. (A simple—non-articulated—sign can be neither true nor false.) The name is not a picture of the thing named! The proposition only says something in so far as it is a picture.
    Notebooks 1914-1916, pp. 9–10
  8. It can only agree or disagree with reality by being a picture of a situation.
    Notebooks 1914-1916, pp. 9–10
  9. The agreement of thought and reality consists in this: if I say falsely that something is red, then, for all that, it isn't red. And when I want to explain the word 'red' to someone, in the sentence 'That is not red', I do it by pointing to something red.
    Philosophical Grammar, pp. 164–165
  10. To say that a proposition is a picture gives prominence to certain features of the grammar of the word 'proposition'.
    Philosophical Grammar, pp. 164–165
  11. If we compare a proposition with a picture, we must think whether we are comparing it to a portrait (a historical representation) or to a genre-picture. And both comparisons have point.
    Philosophical Grammar, pp. 164–165
  12. A sentence in a story gives us the same satisfaction as a picture.
    Philosophical Grammar, pp. 172–173
  13. 'There is no such thing as an isolated proposition.' For what I call a 'proposition' is a position in the game of language.
    Philosophical Grammar, pp. 172–173