The question I should and want to address is, "What is language?" I am to talk about this through Wittgenstein's Tractatus logico-philosophicus, so that I can shed light on how the question is answered in this text. There is an immediate obstacle in the way. The last sentence of the Tractatus, its most famous, reads: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." Now the preceding sentences seem to show that what Wittgenstein is talking about in the seventh sentence, what he says we must be silent about, is language. Which brings my lecture to an end before it has even begun.
However, the seventh sentence is confusing.
The phrase does not impose a general commandment of silence. Rather, it specifies what is to be kept silent about. It does not demand that one remain silent at all, but that one should
remain silent. He thus distinguishes between what one must remain silent about and what one can speak about. One should keep silent about this, about this; about other things, it is obvious to say, one can say something. For the seventh sentence to say something, it must therefore be clear what it refers to; it must be clear what Wittgenstein means when he says: "about this".
That also seems clear. Immediately before the seventh proposition it says: 6.54: "My propositions are explained by the fact that he who understands me recognises them in the end as nonsensical." It is obvious that the one who recognises the propositions as nonsensical understands precisely what the seventh proposition says: it is not possible to speak of what these propositions - which are to be recognised as nonsensical - seek to speak of. So that is what one must remain silent about.
According to the seventh sentence, what we must remain silent about is what the preceding sentences are about. They deal with language, more specifically with the proposition, with truth, with what is the case. Sentence 4.022 summarises all three as follows: "The sentence shows how it behaves if it is true, and it says that it is so." What we have to be silent about is thus broken down as follows: language is proposition, and the proposition is that in which what is is shown as such. When we talk about what language is, we are therefore talking about what is as such. Furthermore, a sentence that shows what is is true in it. Therefore, since we are talking about what language is, we are talking about truth. That which cannot be spoken of is: sentence, truth, being.
And this is where we get confused. The sentences of the Tractatus that precede the seventh are about what one must remain silent about - proposition, truth, being. They have the task of making it clear that and why one must remain silent about them. Now they fulfil this task, so it seems, by speaking of it: of the proposition, of truth, of being. They explain - are supposed to explain, pretend to explain - what it means to speak of something. They do it like this: To speak is to say it is such-and-such, which is true if it is such-and-such. The preceding sentences therefore speak about language, they say something about what language is, and they do so in such a way that it becomes clear that this is something that cannot be spoken about and about which we must therefore remain silent. So the Tractatus seems to say what it is that you can't talk about, precisely because it, the Tractatus, talks about it. Confusing.
Resolute reading
It has been said that Wittgenstein resolves this tension in the Tractatus in such a way that he describes his sentences as a passage to a consciousness liberated from them, these sentences. The Tractatus is an exercise that the student undergoes and which he has mastered when the supposed meaning of his sentences dissolves. At the beginning of the exercise, it seems to the student as if his teacher is saying something, as if he is thinking about something together with his teacher, understanding something through what the teacher is telling him. For example, he thinks he understands that a sentence says that the case is what the case is if it is true, and it is as if he is using concepts, such as the concept of the object or that of the sign. The exercise reaches its goal when this appearance falls away and the pupil realises that his teacher says nothing, that he considers nothing with him and understands nothing through him. As this happens, his awareness of the propositions of the Tractatus is transformed: he no longer encounters them as living speech, but as a dead thing. He has thus become free of them, they no longer have any power over him. This interpretation of the Tractatus has become known as the resolute reading.
The resolute reading does not make the seventh sentence comprehensible. It runs counter to it. For it is especially and above all the seventh sentence whose meaning dissolves and thus which dissolves for the determined reader. It says: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." And according to the determined reading, it is not the case that those who understand Wittgenstein know what one must remain silent about. Nor does he know what one must remain silent about. Rather, the idea of something about which one must remain silent has disintegrated. He can no longer do anything with the sentence, it no longer says anything to him. He works in his garden.
The seventh sentence is confusing. It says something only when it is clear what cannot be spoken of, and it seems as if the preceding sentences indicate what that is precisely by speaking of it. So it seems that the sentence can only say something if it is false. The determined reading seeks to disentangle this by explaining that the propositions of the Tractatus seem to speak of something but in fact say nothing and so are not even propositions, from which it follows that they do not indicate what one must be silent about, and so further that in particular the proposition that seems to say one must be silent about it says nothing and is not even a proposition. This means that the determined reader does not realise that one must remain silent about it. It may be that he is silent, but if he is silent, then not about something. The determined reader does not have the insight, indeed, in his determination the insight that the seventh sentence expresses falls apart.
Liberated reading
Perhaps this reading is determined. It is not liberated. The determined reader is imprisoned in the sentences of natural science (which he will continue to use); he has chained himself so firmly in the cave that he even thinks he realises that there is not even the idea that one could get out of it. I want to unravel the seventh sentence differently, with a reading that I call the liberated reading. According to the liberated reading, we understand the Tractatus when we recognise that it is silent: silent about language, i.e. about the proposition, truth, being. From the first to the last sentence, the Tractatus is silent, and silent about it. For one must be silent about it.
A theological parallel, which may not be meaningless from a factual point of view, can indicate what is at stake. According to Knud Logstrup, a Protestant theologian, the core of Jesus' preaching is the demand to love one's neighbour. Løgstrup calls it the ethical demand. He says that this demand is silent. By this he means that what it demands cannot be specified by a rule, a law, or even a concept, which is because the demand arises from the relationship with the neighbour, indeed, is this relationship itself. And now Logstrup says that Jesus, precisely by making this demand in everything he says and does, never breaks its silence. In everything he says, he does not break the silence of the ethical demand. So it may be that in the entire text of the Tractatus Wittgenstein never breaks the silence that the seventh sentence demands, that he has never broken this silence. Wittgenstein would speak in such a way that he preserves the silence.
Another theological parallel, perhaps not without objective reason. The Abrahamic religions are characterised by the prohibition of images: Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. Now the Tractatus explains that the sentence - the primal element of language - is an image, a logical image. So the seventh sentence imposes a prohibition of images: Thou shalt not make for thyself any image of language, of truth, of being. Then it may be that the Tractatus does not transgress the prohibition of images in any of its sentences. It may be that in these sentences we are not bowing the knee to an idol, but celebrating the true service of God. We would not first indulge in the sin of the image in order to finally recognise this sin in the seventh sentence and flagellate ourselves for it. Rather, we would be redeemed from the beginning, from the first sentence of the Tractatus to its end, redeemed from the image.
I would like to exemplify this reading, the liberated reading, with a few sentences. At the end, I will return to the parallels between this reading and the ethical demand and the prohibition of images.
Circular truth
I begin with these sentences: 4.022 "The proposition shows how it behaves if it is true. And it says that it is so." 4.024 "To understand a proposition is to know what is the case when it is true." 4.062 "For a proposition is true if it behaves as we say it does through it." - What I say, since I say that things are like this, can be indicated by stating how things are if what I say is true. What I say is indicated by indicating how things are if I am telling the truth. Therefore, when I say it is so, I say that things are as they are if what I say is true. That what I say can be stated by stating how things must be in order for what I say to be true is because - it shows - what I say is precisely this: that it is the way it is when what I say is true. What I say is: that what I say is true.
What I am saying is that this - what I am saying - is true. What I say returns to itself, to its own truth. This is an inner, or formal, determination of what is true and what is truth: what is true is its own truth.
This determination is misjudged in so-called theories of truth. I am referring to theories that specify which conditions a sentence or statement must fulfil in order for the sentence or what it says to be true. Such theories treat "is true" as a predicative determination that is expressed by a statement. When I say, "This is true", I am talking about something - "this" - and saying something about it - it is true. "That is true" is therefore understood as having the same form as "That is elastic". Here I can present a theory of elasticity and state the conditions under which something is elastic. The theory explains what it means or what it means that something is elastic. Such a theory of truth cannot exist if what is true returns to itself.
In a passage of his text Der Gedanke, Frege explains that a theory of truth of this kind would be circular. "You would be going round in circles," he says. I declare that something is true exactly when it is such and such. In other words, I specify conditions under which something - a statement, a proposition - is true: something - the proposition, the statement - is true exactly when it is such and such. Now, in order to decide whether something is true in a given case, I have to decide whether it is such-and-such. But in this case, Frege explains, I have to decide whether it is true that it is such-and-such. And here I use the very determination that I wanted to define. So I go round in circles.
However, we need to take a closer look at the circle. In general, only a term that is not fundamental can be defined. This is because its definition uses terms that must be understood if the definition is to be understood. These terms must therefore precede the term that is defined by them in the order of understanding. A concept that is a first concept in the order of understanding and that is fundamental in this sense cannot be defined or can only be defined in such a way that, by defining it, one goes round in circles by returning to it. It seems that Frege declares that "is true" is a fundamental concept. That would not be surprising.
Frege's insight, however, is a different one; the circle he is talking about is an entirely separate one. This can be seen from the fact that Frege declares that the definition of "is true" is circular, no matter which term is used to define "is true", no matter what is substituted for "such-and-such" in: something is true precisely when it is such-and-such. Whether a definition is circular usually depends on what terms it uses to define the concept in question: It is circular if these very terms contain the concept to be defined. Frege's circle, however, exists regardless of which terms the definition uses. This can only be correct if all terms, all terms that could ever be used to define "is true", contain the concept of being true within them, i.e. if all terms, all concepts in general, every concept as a concept, contain this concept: "is true". Frege's circle is not one that connects one concept with another. It is a circle that connects one concept with all concepts. A strange circle.
Let us see again how Frege's objection that we are going round in circles arises. Let us consider the following explanation: a statement is true precisely when it agrees with what is. Here we are not talking about truth in what is defined. Rather, we are talking about something agreeing with something. No circle to be seen. Frege explains, however, that we are nevertheless talking about truth, namely because by saying that something is such and such, I am saying that it is true that it is such and such. This applies completely generally: by saying that it is so, I am saying that this, that it is so, is true. That is why we are talking about truth in what defines, and always talking about it, because we are talking about truth, no matter what we are talking about. That is why Frege can say that it does not matter how "is true" is defined, in any case truth is already being spoken of in what is defined.
Frege's circle is not that of a definition in which the term that is to be defined is used to define it. It is the circle that is the statement, every statement, every statement as such. St Thomas says that in its truth the statement returns to itself. This is Frege's circle: the return of the statement to itself in the statement of its truth. As I formulated it above: What I am saying is that precisely this - what I am saying - is true.
Frege concludes the paragraph with the following question: "Should we be dealing here [with truth] with something that cannot be called a property in the usual sense?" He does not answer the question. But it is clear what the answer must be: yes. For if, on the one hand, we hold that what I say is nothing other than this, that this is true, and, on the other hand, we think that "this is true" is a predicative statement, one that speaks of something and says something about it, then this pretended statement collapses.
Let's watch it collapse. The statement "This is true" is supposed to be a predicative statement, a statement that speaks of something and says something about it. Let us further note: What I am saying is that what I am saying is true. What we are talking about by saying that it is true - the statement - is therefore not already indicated by "this", but only by "this is true". We therefore not only say "This is true", but also "That this is true is true". Again, what we are talking about and what we say is true is precisely that it is true. So in order to state what we say is true, we must not only say "This is true", but "That this is true is true". And so, in saying that it is true, we say this: "That this, that this is true, is true". And so on. So we constantly fall short of what we want to talk about and what we want to say is true: whenever we have stated it, we have not yet stated it.
The fact that this progression cannot be finalised shows that we do not understand its first step. We want to hold fast: What I say is that precisely this - what I say - is true. If "what I say" is an expression that refers to something about which something else is then said, then what we wanted to hold is no longer comprehensible. For if "That is true" is a predicative sentence, then it is only determined what this sentence says if it is determined what the expression "that" refers to. But this, let us note, is indicated by "This is true". What the expression "that" refers to is therefore only determined if it is determined what the expression "that is true" says. There is no way round this circle.
Back to 4.022: "The proposition shows how it behaves if it is true. And it says that it is so." What becomes clear when we read this sentence and understand Wittgenstein is this: Since we say this and that is true - this sentence, this statement, is true - it looks as if we are talking about something - about this sentence, this statement - and saying something about it, namely that it is true. But that is an illusion. Proposition 4.022 dissolves this appearance. In particular, therefore, proposition 4.022 does not speak of propositions and says nothing about propositions. Proposition 4.022 explains that those who understand Wittgenstein recognise that this proposition does not break the silence that the seventh proposition demands.
One might think that the above consideration has only a limited meaning. It shows, one might like to admit, that while "this is true" does not speak of something about which it says it is true, it does not show that we cannot speak of sentences, of language, at all; it does not show that we must be silent about what language, what the sentence, is. It is not difficult to see, however, that the scope of our consideration cannot be limited. If we always wanted to say something about a sentence, we would have to say it about it as one that, or through which, we say this and that. But what a proposition says is that what it says is true. And therein lies, we have seen, that it, or what it says, is nothing to speak of or say anything about. So it is not only that "this is true" does not speak of something and say that it is true. In general, what is true - the sentence, the statement - is not something that can be spoken of and said about.
Negation
The Tractatus goes through this in a few basic contexts. I want to discuss one more, the negation: "It is not the case that things behave in such and such a way." It can seem like this is talking about something and saying something about it: What it is talking about would be that things behave in such and such a way, and what it says about it would be this, that it is not so. And indeed, Frege defines negation as a predicate that is stated by a proposition - by a truth-value name. Wittgenstein explains that his basic idea is that this is false. ("My basic idea is that the logical constants do not represent.")
If "It is not the case that things behave in this way" were a predicative sentence that says something about something, then this sentence would say something different from the sentence "Things behave in this way". "Things behave in this way" would say one thing, "It is not the case that things behave in this way" would say something else. For this sentence would speak of something that the other does not: "It is not the case that things behave in this way" would speak of a statement, whereas "Things behave in this way" would not speak of a statement, but of the things in question. Furthermore, this sentence would say something about it, it would state a determination of it that does not occur in that one, namely that which the alleged predicate "it is not" denotes.
But that is not the case. Then the sentences "It is not the case that things behave in this way" and "Things behave in this way" would not contradict each other. Since they contradict each other, they speak of the same thing and say the same thing about it. Wittgenstein expresses this in such a way that negation is not a characteristic of the meaning of a proposition - not a characteristic of what it says - that nothing corresponds to the sign of negation in reality and therefore one and the same reality corresponds to a proposition and its negation - not this one, that one another.
A proposition - writes Wittgenstein - shows what is the case when it is true, and it says that it is the case. So the sentence says: "It is the case that things behave in this way." It is only because it does this that you can say "Yes" to a sentence. Only because a sentence says, "This is the way it is" can you affirm it. If the sentence did not say that the case is what the case is if it is true, then the sentence would be neutral to the question of whether or not that is the case. If you said, "Yes", it would be open whether you say yes to it being the case or yes to it not being the case. So there would be nothing to say "yes" to. Nor would there be anything you could say "no" to.
The sentence, every sentence as a sentence, says, "It is like this". But the sentence, every sentence as a sentence, says "It is not so". For to affirm a proposition is to deny its negation. 4.0621 "The fact that the negation occurs in a proposition is not yet a characteristic of its sense (~~p = p)." The proposition that says that things behave in this way is the same as the one that says that it is not the case that things do not behave in this way. Therefore, it is not a characteristic of the meaning of a sentence that the negation occurs in it. It is not a characteristic of the meaning of a sentence because the negation occurs in every sentence.
The statement, every statement as a statement, contains within itself the opposition of "It is so" and "It is not so". This opposition is the circle that is the statement as such. Negation is not a characteristic of the meaning of any sentence, because meaning, the meaning of a sentence in general, is negation. When I say, "It is not the case that things are like this", I am therefore not speaking of a statement, a proposition, a fact, and saying something about it. In particular, the sentences that make this clear do not speak of sentences, statements and facts. The Tractatus is also silent in these sentences, silent about them.
"A proposition says that the case is what the case is if it is true." "A proposition and its negation have opposite meanings. They correspond to one and the same reality". These sentences of the Tractatus explain that and why "It is true that things are so" and "It is not so that things are so" do not speak about a proposition, and do not say something about it: that it is true or that it is not as it says. The Tractatus discusses yet another case in which it seems that a proposition speaks of a sentence and says something about it: "I think that things are like this." It can seem that this sentence speaks of a sentence and says something about this sentence, namely that I think what it says. Wittgenstein also notes here that Frege understood this sentence in this way, and explains that this is wrong. Without going through this, we know that Wittgenstein is right. We know it because what I think is precisely what is true when what I think is true. And as we have seen, what is true is not something that a sentence talks about and says something about. Incidentally, it is easy to see that "I think" expresses the return of the statement to itself and therefore does not signify a characteristic of the meaning of a statement, but meaning in general.
Truth and context
The Tractatus does not break the silence. It is silent about what cannot be spoken about: Proposition, truth, being. One cannot speak of them because the proposition returns to itself in truth and in being. But by returning to itself, the sentence does not encapsulate itself. On the contrary. By returning to itself, the sentence is the opening into the unlimited whole. That is the reason why the sentence is nothing to speak of. That is the reason why language is subject to a ban on images.
We see this opening in "is true" in the following way. A sentence is true under certain conditions. These conditions are specified by the proposition itself; by specifying the conditions, I say what the proposition says. Conversely, I state the conditions under which a proposition is true, since I say what it says. When I say that what you say is true, I am not saying anything about what you say. I am saying what you are saying. The statement of the truth of a statement is its repetition. This can lead to the idea that I am included in my statement: Since I seek to compare it with what is, in order to convince myself that what I say is true, I am only repeating my statement. I get stuck in my statement, I return to it, because I wanted to get to something beyond it. Like Krabat, whose path from the mill always leads back to the mill.
If it seems as if I cannot get out of my statement, as if I cannot get from it to that which is, to that by virtue of which it is true, it can still seem as if I must remain in it. This gives rise to the idea that statements are true precisely because they agree. I do not compare what I say with what is, but I compare a statement with other statements. Here I stay within the boundaries of the mill. That is the best, that is all I can do to convince myself that what I say is true, and so this, that it is true, for me at any rate, cannot amount to anything more.
Now there is a connection between truth and agreement, namely this: A true statement agrees with all true statements. A false statement can agree with certain other, with an indefinite number of false statements. However, it is not the case that a false statement agrees with all false statements. The connection between truth and coherence is that of a truth with all truth, something true with the truth. That to which what I say returns is, in that it is its truth, the truth, the truth in general and as a whole.
The same opening takes place in the "not".
That things are like this is true if and only if they are like this. Therein lies the truth: It is only true then. If not, then not. If things are not that way, it is not true to say so. Then it is false. So by saying that what I say is true, I am saying that it is as I say it is and not otherwise.
Since I say that snow is white, I exclude the possibility that it is different from what I say, namely that snow is not white. But what do I exclude, since I exclude that it is different from what I say? Well, I exclude that snow is black. But that's not all. I also exclude that snow is red. Maybe I exclude that snow is a different colour than white? But that doesn't exhaust it either, because I also exclude that snow is colourless when I say snow is white. Are we at the end? Have we succeeded in stating what I exclude? Suppose we are at the end, suppose we have succeeded in stating exhaustively what it is that I exclude when I exclude that it is different from what I say, since I say snow is white. If we summarise all this in a disjunctive statement - like this or like this or like this ... - and finally append our sentence as the last link, then we would have exhaustively indicated how things can actually be: like this or like this or like this, up to the conclusion that we are currently imagining. If we then say: It is like this or like this or like this, and so on to the conclusion, then we would have said something of which it can no longer be said: it is true if and only if .... For we postulate that the idea that it could be otherwise is empty, precisely by saying that we have exhausted what I exclude, since I exclude that it is other than I say, since I say snow is white.
What I say is that it is as I say it is and not otherwise. Thus, in what I say, I refer to everything that can be. The Tractatus brings this totality into the image of logical space. A statement stands, it places itself in this space. The logical space is spanned and thus internally limited by what the Tractatus calls the substance of the world: the totality of objects, in an idiosyncratic use of the term "object", according to which everything that constitutes the definiteness of a statement is called an object. The "not", which is not a characteristic of the sense of a proposition, but sense in general, thus means definiteness, definiteness in general and as a whole.
Language of encounter
According to the resolute reading, the Tractatus silences itself, for what at first appeared to be meaningful speech finally emerges as what it truly is: nonsensical babbling. The Tractatus is an exercise completed by those who no longer succumb to the suggestion that their sentences are meaningful, that they no longer concern them like an inanimate thing.
The liberated reading, on the other hand, says that the Tractatus does not break silence anywhere and never has. From the first to the last sentence, the Tractatus is silent about what cannot be spoken about. It fulfils the requirement of the seventh sentence at every point. This does not mean that nothing is discussed in the Tractatus. On the contrary, what is discussed in the Tractatus is the only thing that has unconditional meaning: truth, certainty. That is the whole - the whole, not a whole. A word like this, "the whole", is poor. The same applies to "the truth". The Tractatus is an exercise, a linguistic exercise that seeks a language that is less poor than talking about "the truth" and "the whole", words with which one can feel a pleasantly sublime feeling but think little. What the Tractatus is after, in which it would be redeemed, is not a silencing in which philosophy has extinguished itself. On the contrary, it is a language that does not break the silence that the Tractatus demands.
I myself think, and I think Wittgenstein thinks - as his further philosophical path shows - that Wittgenstein got stuck in the Tractatus with his attempt to remain silent about what cannot be spoken about. This is because in the Tractatus he never even comes close to what can truly be said about what cannot be said. We see this when we return to our starting point. Løgstrup speaks of the demand that is silent and whose silence Jesus never breaks in everything he says and does. This demand arises from, indeed, it is the awareness of the reality of the other person. I have linked the silent demand with the prohibition of images. Løgstrup relates the prohibition of images to the other person. More precisely, he says that I can form an image of another person. That is, I can say and think: he is like this. In Wittgenstein's words, this is an image, a logical image. I can do that, but when I meet the other person, the image is destroyed. Image and encounter cannot exist together. The other person is what I have to keep quiet about when I meet them. Does this mean that language is banished from the encounter with the other person? That the encounter makes you mute? Nothing could be further from the truth. On the contrary, language is originally nothing other than the encounter with the other person. That in which language is language - and not, for example, the passing on of information - is where it is an encounter with the other person. Wittgenstein could not find the language that does not break the silence, not in the Tractatus. For this language is the
Language of encounter. 
