Wittgenstein and Symbolic Mathematics
Wittgenstein and Symbolic Mathematics
Wittgenstein and Symbolic Mathematics
Sören Stenlund*
Resumo
A noção de matemática simbólica está enraizada na invenção da álgebra e dos
métodos algébricos do século XVII. Franciscus Vieta (1540–1603), que contribuiu
de maneira decisiva para esse desenvolvimento, usa a palavra ‘símbolo’ (lat. sym-
bolum) em um sentido aqui relevante. A matemática simbólica se contrapõe à ma-
temática enquanto ciência ontológica como, por exemplo, a ciência da quantidade
e da magnitude, que era a concepção prevalecente na matemática grega antiga e
na versão do Renascimento proveniente da herança aristotélica e euclidiana. As
técnicas e o simbolismo algébricos foram decisivos tanto para a invenção do cálculo
diferencial e integral, como para boa parte da matemática moderna. Entretanto,
a concepção ontológica sobreviveu entre fortes tensões com a concepção simbólica,
notadamente mediante influência da lógica formal e da lógica matemática moder-
na. O propósito do presente artigo é mostrar que a concepção de matemática de
Wittgenstein tem muito em comum com a concepção simbólica (não ontológica)
da matemática. Em particular, argumenta-se que a concepção simbólica de mate-
mática de Wittgenstein é o pano de fundo apropriado para entender sua crítica à
matemática lógica e seu impacto filosófico.
Abstract
The notion of symbolic mathematics has its roots in the invention of algebra and the
algebraic methods in the 17th century. Franciscus Vieta (1540–1603), who made
decisive contributions to this development, uses the word ‘symbol’ (lat. symbolum)
in the sense that is relevant here. Symbolic mathematics is to be contrasted with
mathematics as an ontological science, for instance as the science of quantity and
* Uppsala University
8 Sölen Stenlund
magnitude, which was the prevailing view in ancient Greek mathematics and in
particular in the renaissance version of the Aristotelian and Euclidian heritage. The
algebraic symbolism and techniques were decisive for the invention of the differen-
tial and integral calculus and of much of modern mathematics, but the ontological
conception has still survived, in great tension with the symbolic conception. It has
survived in particular through the influence of formal logic and modern mathemati-
cal logic. The purpose of this paper is to show that Wittgenstein’s view of mathemat-
ics has much in common with the symbolic (non-ontological) view of mathematics.
In particular, it is argued that Wittgenstein’s symbolic conception of mathematics
is the appropriate background for understanding Wittgenstein’s critique of math-
ematical logic and its philosophical impact.
And a few lines earlier, he has already stated why he takes mathematical logic
to give a ‘superficial interpretation’ of the forms of our everyday language.
He writes:
2 By the “translation of vague ordinary prose” Wittgenstein means the reading of logical
formulas that is based on the translation of “¬ A” as “not A” or “it is not the case that A”, of “A
& B” as “A and B”, of “ E x.A(x)” as “there is an x such that A(x)”, etc.
Analytics.4 Euclid’s Elements was one of the most influential classical works, its
authority having been compared to that of the Bible. Newton’s Principia follows
the format of Euclid’s Elements, and its precepts were fundamental to Kant’s
Critique of Pure Reason, to mention only two examples. It is not until the latter
half of the 19th century that Euclid’s (and thereby also Aristotle’s) authority
regarding logic is questioned. But what modern logicians (such as Frege, for
instance) called into question in Aristotle’s logical doctrine were a number of
specific features, such as the subject-predicate form of all propositions. The
very idea that there is a logical doctrine with a foundational status was not
questioned; rather, it was asserted anew in the name of mathematical logic.
What then is involved in the foundational status of formal logic? I would
suggest the following things. First, formal logic is concerned with judgments
or propositions originally connected with the episteme (scientific knowledge)
of the Aristotelian ontological concept of a science. In this sense, a science and
its propositions are always about a certain already given subject-matter. The
subject-matter of a theory does not originate with the theory and its proposi-
tions; the theory is a representation (a sort of copy) of the subject matter that
already exists in physical nature. Since logic is taken to be basic to all scien-
tific discourse, this ontological (or descriptive) conception of propositions
applies to mathematics as much as to physics.
In modern mathematical logic, ‘the already given subject matter’ are the
objects or entities in the domain over which the bound variables range, and
to which names in propositions refer. This is of course intimately connected
to the view of all simple propositions as having the form of a function applied
to one or more arguments, given the modern concept of function according
to which the objects in the argument domain of a function are given logically
prior to and independently of the function defined for that domain. (Remem-
ber that in Frege’s ontology there are two categories: functions and objects
(Gegenstände); numbers, for instance, are objects that numerals denote.)
To the foundational status of formal logic belongs also the idea that logic
is a universal system that displays the form of propositions essential for their
being true or false as well as for the form of the deductive relationships be-
tween propositions. This has been taken to mean in particular that a logically
well-articulated proposition carries its meaning or logical content in and of
4 See Mancuso (1996, Ch. 1 and 4.) Mancuso argues convincingly that “the Aristotelian epis-
temological framework was pervasive in the seventeenth century and very influential indeed
in later centuries” (Mancuso 1996, p. 92). By the “Aristotelian epistemological framework”
Mancuso means primarily what we find in Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics.
Wittgenstein and Symbolic Mathematics 11
5 In his Cambridge lectures of 1939, especially lecture XVII (Diamond 1976, p. 161), Witt-
genstein develops in great detail a critique of Frege’s and Russell’s concept of number based
on their failure to distinguish between a form and a property of a substrate.
A Philosophical Vocabulary
What Wittgenstein has in mind here is obviously the critique of Brouwer and
(the early) Hermann Weyl, who wanted to drop large parts of classical math-
ematics. In this particular controversy, Wittgenstein sides more with Hilbert.
Wittgenstein continues this reflection by contrasting the revisionist attitude
with his own critical approach:
And in fact, what are caused to disappear by such a critique are names
and allusions that occur in the calculus, hence what I wish to call
‘prose’. It is very important to distinguish as strictly as possible be-
tween the calculus and this kind of prose.
were written in the years 1942-1944, and thus by the late Wittgenstein. And
in the last part of RFM, written in 1944, we find him referring to the “curse
of prose” (RFM VII, § 41).
There is one general remark in the Stanford Encyclopedia article which I
want to mention, and it is the following:
I think that there is some truth, a trifle, in this remark, but it is misleading
since this use of the words ‘formalism’, ‘syntactical’, ‘reference’ and ‘semanti-
cal’ belong to the philosophical vocabulary which, as I noted earlier, is strong-
ly conditioned by the foundational status of mathematical logic. (More about
the problems with this use of philosophical terminology later.) As a matter
of fact, I don’t think that it is possible to articulate a fair account of Witt-
genstein’s philosophy of mathematics within this vocabulary. Wittgenstein’s
conception of mathematics is incompatible with the foundational status of
mathematical logic. I think that this is the key to understanding Wittgen-
stein’s remarks cited at the beginning of the article.
7 Here I am using the word ‘authentic’ in more or less the same sense as when we say that
chemistry is an authentic natural science today, which alchemy is not.
Wittgenstein and Symbolic Mathematics 15
9 This view seems to be presupposed when Hilary Putnam discusses scientific principles
undergoing change and speculates as follows: ”But are we not in the same position with re-
spect to a sentence like ‘In the year 2010 scientists discovered that 7 electrons and 5 electrons
sometimes make 13 electrons’? Or with respect to ‘In the year 2010 scientists discovered that
there are exceptions to 5 + 7 = 12 in quantum mechanics?’ If this is right, and I think it is,
[…]” Putnam (1990, p. 254).
11 Quoted from Kastanis and Thomaidis ”The term ‘Geomtrical Algebra’, target of a contem-
porary epistemological debate.”
12 Unguru (1075). See Kastanis, N. and Thomaidis, Y. ”The term “Geometrical Algebra”,
target of a contemporary epistemological debate”, for a survey of this debate. http://users.auth.
gr/~nioka/Files/GEOMALGE.pdf
The notion of symbolic mathematics has its origin in the seventeenth century
with Fransiscus Vieta’s work Isagoge or Introduction to the Analytical Art. A pen-
etrating account of the origin and nature of symbolic mathematics is found
in the phenomenologist Jacob Klein’s book Greek Mathematical Thought and
the Origin of Algebra.13 As Klein explains, it is difficult to understand symbolic
mathematics without a historically sensitive perspective on the transforma-
tion of ancient Greek mathematics that took place in the seventeenth century.
What Klein means by a ‘historically sensitive’ perspective is primarily that we
cannot read classical mathematical texts with modern mathematics in mind.
He expresses this feature of his historical approach as follows:
That we have to do with a transformation and not just with what is usually
called a historical development is important. Klein argues convincingly that
it is only against the background of an understanding of crucial features of
Greek mathematics that this transformation of mathematics becomes clearly
visible. This is so because the influence of the viewpoint of modern math-
ematics in well-established accounts of Greek mathematics has blocked our
understanding of Greek mathematical thinking. We tend to see the modern
concept of number or magnitude, for instance, as the result of an almost
continuous historical development of the Greek notions of number and mag-
nitude up to the modern ones. But this idea of a ‘continuous development’ is
highly questionable.
14 Klein (1968, p. 5)
Wittgenstein and Symbolic Mathematics 19
15 Klein claims that the term “symbolum,” used for letter signs as well as for connective signs,
originated with Vieta himself (Klein 1968, p. 276).
[…] the “being” of the species in Vieta, i.e. the “being” of the objects
of “general analytic,” is to be understood neither as independent in
the Pythagorean or Platonic sense nor as attained “by abstraction”
[…] in the Aristotelian sense, but as symbolic. The species are in them-
selves symbolic formations – […]. They are, therefore, comprehensible
only within the language of symbolic formalism. […] Therewith the most
important tool of mathematical natural science, the “formula,” first
becomes possible, but above all, a new way of “understanding,” inac-
cessible to ancient episteme is thus opened up.16
This new understanding is the symbolic point of view. The core of the con-
ceptual transformation achieved by Vieta is the replacement of the concern
with determinate numbers (of ancient non-symbolic arithmetic) with the
identification of a number represented by the possibility of making it deter-
minate in accordance with its form. In a certain sense, one might say that in
the symbolic conception, form becomes the content. But ‘form’ in this sense
is not ‘syntactical form’ in the modern meta-mathematical sense. ‘Form’ in
Vieta’s sense is displayed in the operational practices.
It is important to understand that the new arithmetic-algebraic system of
Vieta (as well as the mathesis universalis of Simon Stevin, Rene Descartes and
John Wallis, who continued and completed Vieta’s work) are not new theories
of arithmetic or new sciences of number (in the Aristotelian sense of ‘theory’ and
‘science’). They are primarily new arts, new practices, new methods and new
techniques for dealing with problems: problems not only in ‘pure mathemat-
ics’ but also in physics and astronomy. Vieta ends his work Isagoge by saying
“Analytic art appropriates to itself by right the proud problem of problems,
which is: to leave no problem unsolved.” Klein points out that Vieta, “ in con-
centrating his reflections on procedure […] no longer differentiates between
“theorems” and “problems”, […] because he sees all theorems as problems”.
(Klein, p., 166)
In the fourth chapter of the Isagoge, Vieta lays down the rules for the op-
eration with species or forms, as well as rules for the transformation of equa-
tions. These rules create, as Klein puts it, the systematic context which “defines”
the object to which they apply. Klein calls this system of rules “the first modern
axiom system”, alluding to Hilbert’s axiomatic method. There is no talk here
about logical demonstrations from postulates or first principles as in Aristotle
and Euclid. The analytic art of Vieta is not seen primarily as a representation
of a body of truths, or a body of knowledge of some subject-matter, but in
the first instance as a system of methods and techniques for solving problems,
which later develops into the analytic geometry of Descartes and the infini-
tesimal calculus of Newton and Leibnitz.
We can see striking similarities between Vieta’s analytic art and essential fea-
tures of Wittgenstein’s views of mathematics, such as Wittgenstein’s frequent
emphasis on mathematics as activity and as calculus. (In the PR he makes the
somewhat excessive claims that, “in mathematics, the signs themselves do
mathematics, they don’t describe it”, and “You can’t write mathematics [as
you can write history]. You can only do it.” PR, p. 186.) When Wittgenstein is
working on the notion of proof in mathematics, his examples are often arith-
metical or algebraic calculations, which many logicians and mathematicians
would not want to call real proofs at all, since they require that a proof should
be dressed up in prose. Wittgenstein is interested only in the mathematical
core of proofs. Regarding Euclid’s proofs, Wittgenstein would say that the
core of the proof is often what is shown in the diagram, and that the verbal
proof-rhetoric surrounding it can be disregarded.
I don’t want to say that Wittgenstein was inspired by 17th-century math-
ematicians. He had surely become aware of the deep difference between an-
cient Greek mathematical thinking and modern mathematics through his
reading of Spengler in the early 1930’s. But the symbolic point of view is
present already in the Tractarian conception of arithmetic and logic.17 I think
that the main source of inspiration for Wittgenstein were certain ideas issuing
from the struggle for rigor in mathematics and theoretical physics in the latter
half of the 19th century, in which the symbolic point of view was prominent.
He was particularly influenced in this respect by Heinrich Hertz. Hertz’ work
on the mathematics of classical mechanics, in which Hertz showed how to
deal with conceptual problems connected, for instance, with the notion of
force of classical mechanics, was an important and influential contribution
17 E.g. “My fundamental thought is that the ‘logical constants’ do not represent. That the
logic of the facts does not represent.” (TLP 4.0312).
to the symbolic point of view. I believe that Ernst Cassirer was right when
he said: “Heinrich Hertz is the first modern scientist to have effected a deci-
sive turn from the copy theory of physical knowledge to a purely symbolic
theory.”18 Hertz saw the scientific theory as the application of a symbolic
system, which is an autonomous system, in its formal aspects, independent
of the empirical phenomena it is used to explain.19
This feature of Hertz’ work deeply influenced Wittgenstein, not only the
author of the Tractatus, but also the later Wittgenstein.20 In the Big Typescript,
Wittgenstein writes:
19 Hertz (1956, p. 8)
20 This is argued in more detail in Stenlund (2012b). See also Kjaergaard (2002) for an argu-
ment for the importance of Hertz’ ideas for Wittgenstein’s philosophy of science as a whole.
22 In a letter to Russell dated August 19, 1919 Wittgenstein wrote: “The theory of types, in
my view, is a theory of correct symbolism: a simple symbol must not be used to express any-
thing complex: more generally, a symbol must have the same structure as its meaning. That’s
exactly what one can’t say. You cannot prescribe to a symbol what it may be used to express.
All that a symbol can express, it may express.” (App. III in Wittgenstein 1998, p. 130.) Here
we see how Wittgenstein’s notion of correct symbolism is connected with the showing/saying
distinction and the distinction between a form and a property of a substrate.
Wittgenstein and Symbolic Mathematics 23
Mathematics as Activity
25 Formalism in this sense will also be a kind of finitism, and it is’finitism’ in this sense Witt-
genstein has in mind when he says,”Finitism and behaviorism are quite similar trends. Both
say, but surely, all we have here is.... Both deny the existence of something, both with a view
to escaping from a confusion.” (RFM II, § 61.) Wittgenstein was no more a formalist or finitist
in this sense than he was a behaviorist.
26 The source of this confusion in the notion of syntax of formal languages is a similar confu-
sion in Hilbert’s finitism. See Stenlund (2012a).
Wittgenstein and Symbolic Mathematics 25
This difference between sign and symbol becomes quite clear in the game-of-
chess analogy. A sign corresponds to a chess piece as physical or perceptual
object with a certain shape, size, colour, etc., while a symbol corresponds to
a chess piece as ‘a piece you play with’, determined by the conventions which
govern its moves and its relations to other pieces in the game.
In Wittgenstein’s view of mathematics since the 1930’s, as I understand it,
it is the operational aspect of a symbol, its function in the calculus, its role in
the manipulation and transformation of expressions, which constitutes it as a
symbol. A symbolism is not just a system of notation in some typographical
or combinatorial sense.
Accordingly, Wittgenstein’s view means that new mathematical concepts
(such as, for instance, the concept of a number) necessarily emerged together
with the new algebraic symbolism and the place-value notation for numbers.
They could come into existence as new precise notions only when the opera-
tional practices of the new symbolism were in place. Or rather, the invention
of new notions was the invention of the new operational practices of the
27 The original German version of this remark is “Um das symbol am Zeichen zu erkennen,
muss man auf den sinnvollen Gebrauch achten.” I prefer Ogden’s translation of this remark.
Vieta’s analytic art draws on the works of Pappus and Diophantus, which are
primarily geometrical. As a consequence, Vieta presents algebraic operations
geometrically, which manifests itself in his algebraic notation. Powers such as
a2, a3 are expressed by Vieta as a plane and a cube, respectively. An algebraic
expression which we would write as
x3 – 3b cy2
would be expressed in Vieta’s notation as:
A cubus – B solido 3C in E
quadratum
with the reading: "A cubed minus 3 times B solid divided by C times E
squared”. Vieta also adopted a principle of homogeneity according to which
only magnitudes of the same dimension can be compared, for instance, be
added to one another. Thus, the expression we would write a2 + a was not
permitted. Descartes greatly simplified the algebraic symbolism when he
showed how to represent any magnitude (including a power) as the length
of a line segment, given an arbitrary stipulated unit of length. The expression
a2 + a is then interpreted as a length added to a length and is permitted.
By viewing all numbers as ratios, John Wallis arrived at a notion of num-
ber according to which all numbers are homogenous. Their homogeneity is
Wittgenstein and Symbolic Mathematics 27
31 In 1947, when Wittgenstein was working in the philosophy of psychology, he wrote in his
diary: “Weierstrass introduces a string of new concepts to bring about order in the thinking
about the differential calculus. And in that way on the whole, it seems to me, I must bring
about order in psychological thinking through new concepts. (That it concerns a calculus
in the first case, but not in the second, is not important.)”. (The Bergen electronic edition of
Wittgenstein’s works, MS 135, p. 115-116, my translation)
I find this to be quite a good formulation of the idea of the symbolic view of
mathematics as it was embraced by this time, and I would say that the germ
of this view of mathematics was present already in Vieta.
about how to go on. The moves and features of the calculus at this level tend
to be dismissed as ‘trivialities’ by mathematicians. But such trivialities are
often precisely the topic of many of Wittgenstein’s investigations. I would say
that this is why it is so difficult in many cases to understand what he is do-
ing, what he is up to, in his writings on the foundations of mathematics. On
this level of ‘trivialities’, the topic of ‘the nature of mathematical symbolism’
is a non-issue for the mathematician. No mathematician would get the idea
of problematizing the following of a simple rule such as “Add 2” (i.e. iterating
the operation of adding the number 2) as Wittgenstein does in his investiga-
tion of rule-following in the PI (§ 184). With respect to this difference be-
tween a mathematician’s concerns and Wittgenstein’s philosophical concerns,
he remarks: “The philosopher only marks what the mathematician casually
throws off about his activities.” (PG, p. 369). A higher degree of conceptual
sensitivity is a characteristic trait of Wittgenstein’s symbolic approach. From
the end of the 1930’s onward, this sensitivity also involves mathematics as a
human activity, as an anthropological phenomenon.
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