Proposition 7

Wovon man nicht spechen kann, 

darüber muß man schweigen 

 

Many years ago, when I used to be harangued on a weekly basis at a pub in Chiswick by an ardent  Wittgensteinian, I used to believe that the aphoristic-sounding proposition 7 of the Tractatus was profoundly true. If any logical tautology came close to the beauty of poetry, this was surely it.

But now I feel very differently and I view proposition 7 as a religious prohibition which is no more subtle than a hand placed over the mouth. Wittgenstein attempted not only to close his own work with this line, but shut down any further philosophical investigation into the manifest 'mystery' of the world. 

In other words, like Kant before him, Wittgenstein sought to preserve a space for faith. As Ray Brassier argues, his attempt to identify and enforce the limits of language and knowledge is ultimately nothing more than a thinly veiled exaltation of mystico-religious illumination over conceptual rationality.

Like Heidegger, that other great crypto-theologian of twentieth century philosophy, Wittgenstein makes so much unthinkable, unspeakable, unquestionable, and hence unanswerable - except to those who receive divine inspiration in such matters - that we can read proposition 7 as no more than a succinct rephrasing of something found in an ancient Hebrew text, the Wisdom of Sirach:  

Do not seek knowledge of the sublime; do not look into things that are hidden from you and are not of your concern; pay heed only to that which is taught unto you by the law-givers.  

- Sirach 3: 21-2