Editing Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (section)

===Propositions 2 and 3===
These sections concern Wittgenstein's view that the sensible, changing world we perceive does not consist of substance but of facts. Proposition two begins with a discussion of objects, form and substance.

{{quote|{{ubl|item_style=margin-left: 1.5em; text-indent:-1.5em
|2 What is the case—a fact—is the existence of states of affairs.
|2.01 A state of affairs (a state of things) is a combination of objects (things).}}}}

This [[Epistemology|epistemic]] notion is further clarified by a discussion of objects or things as metaphysical substances.

{{quote|{{ubl|item_style=margin-left: 1.5em; text-indent:-1.5em
|2.0141 The possibility of its occurrence in atomic facts is the form of an object.
|2.02 Objects are simple.
|...
|2.021 Objects make up the substance of the world. That is why they cannot be composite.}}}}

His use of the word "composite" in 2.021 can be taken to mean a combination of form and matter, in the [[Platonic realism|Platonic sense]].

The notion of a static unchanging [[Platonic form|Form]] and its identity with Substance represents the metaphysical view that has come to be held as an assumption by the vast majority of the Western philosophical tradition since [[Plato]] and [[Aristotle]], as it was something they agreed on. {{nowrap|"[W]hat}} is called a form or a substance is not generated."<ref name="AM">{{cite book |url=http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metaphysics.7.vii.html |via=The Internet Classics Archive |title=Metaphysics |author=Aristotle |translator-first=W. D. |translator-last=Ross |location=Des Moines, Iowa |year=1979 |publisher=Peripatetic Press |access-date=2023-01-14 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110106134238/http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metaphysics.7.vii.html |archive-date=2011-01-06 }}</ref> (Z.8 1033b13)
The opposing view states that unalterable Form does not exist, or at least if there is such a thing, it contains an ever changing, relative substance in a constant state of flux.  Although this view was held by Greeks like [[Heraclitus]], it has existed only on the fringe of the Western tradition since then. It is commonly known now only in "Eastern" metaphysical views where the primary concept of substance is [[Qi]], or something similar, which persists through and beyond any given Form. The former view is shown to be held by Wittgenstein in what follows:
{{quote|{{ubl|item_style=margin-left: 1.5em; text-indent:-1.5em
|2.024 The substance is what subsists independently of what is the case.
|2.025 It is form and content.
|...
|2.026 There must be objects, if the world is to have unalterable form.
|2.027 Objects, the unalterable, and the substantial are one and the same.
|2.0271 Objects are what is unalterable and substantial; their configuration is what is changing and unstable.}}}}

Although Wittgenstein largely disregarded Aristotle (Ray Monk's biography suggests that he never read Aristotle at all) it seems that they shared some anti-Platonist views on the universal/particular issue regarding primary substances. He attacks universals explicitly in his Blue Book.
"The idea of a general concept being a common property of its particular instances connects up with other primitive, too simple, ideas of the structure of language. It is comparable to the idea that properties are ingredients of the things which have the properties; e.g. that beauty is an ingredient of all beautiful things as alcohol is of beer and wine, and that we therefore could have pure beauty, unadulterated by anything that is beautiful."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.blacksacademy.net/content/2975.html |title=Blue Book on Universals citation |publisher=Blacksacademy.net |access-date=2011-12-10 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111005174215/http://www.blacksacademy.net/content/2975.html |archive-date=2011-10-05 }}</ref>

And Aristotle agrees: "The universal cannot be a substance in the manner in which an essence is",<ref name="AM" /> (Z.13 1038b17) as he begins to draw the line and drift away from the concepts of universal Forms held by his teacher Plato.

The concept of Essence, taken alone is a potentiality, and its combination with matter is its actuality. "First, the substance of a thing is peculiar to it and does not belong to any other thing"<ref name="AM" /> (Z.13 1038b10), i.e. not universal and we know this is essence. This concept of form/substance/essence, which we have now collapsed into one, being presented as potential is also, apparently, held by Wittgenstein:
{{quote|{{ubl|item_style=margin-left: 1.5em; text-indent:-1.5em
|2.033 Form is the possibility of structure.
|2.034 The structure of a fact consists of the structures of states of affairs.
|2.04 The totality of existing states of affairs is the world.
|...
|2.063 The sum-total of reality is the world.}}}}

Here ends what Wittgenstein deems to be the relevant points of his metaphysical view and he begins in 2.1 to use said view to support his Picture Theory of Language. "The Tractatus's notion of substance is the modal analogue of [[Immanuel Kant]]'s temporal notion. Whereas for Kant, substance is that which 'persists' (i.e., exists at all times), for Wittgenstein it is that which, figuratively speaking, 'persists' through a 'space' of possible worlds."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein-atomism/#1 |title=Wittgenstein's Logical Atomism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) |publisher=Plato.stanford.edu |access-date=2011-12-10}}</ref> Whether the Aristotelian notions of substance came to Wittgenstein via Kant, or via [[Bertrand Russell]], or even whether Wittgenstein arrived at his notions intuitively, one cannot but see them.

The further thesis of 2. and 3. and their subsidiary propositions is Wittgenstein's ''[[Picture theory of language|picture theory]]'' of language. This can be summed up as follows:
* The world consists of a totality of interconnected [[atomic fact]]s, and propositions make "pictures" of the world.
* In order for a picture to represent a certain fact it must, in some way, possess the same [[logical]] structure as the fact. The picture is a standard of reality. In this way, linguistic expression can be seen as a form of [[geometric]] [[projection (mathematics)|projection]], where language is the changing form of projection but the logical structure of the expression is the unchanging geometric relationship.
* We cannot ''say'' with language what is common in the structures, rather it must be ''shown'', because any language we use will also rely on this relationship, and so we cannot step out of our language ''with'' language.