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I think Wittgenstein makes an important point in emphasizing the fact that willing is not a separate action that itself must be willed. He says: "I can't will willing; that is, it makes no sense to speak of willing willing. 'Willing' is not the name of an action; and so not the name of any voluntary action either" (137). He continues: "When I raise my arm 'voluntarily( I do not use any instrument to bring the movement about. My wish is not such an instrument either" (137). It seems that Wittgenstein breaks down the problem of will into a question of voluntary vs. involuntary actions--those actions that are voluntary are willed, those that are involuntary aren't willed. The will, then, isn't some sort of other mental process that precedes an action such as raising one's arm. The will, or willing, is merely doing something voluntarily. And for Wittgenstein the normal things we do are voluntary and thus willed. It's when they aren't voluntary, when we do them without our knowledge, that they aren't voluntary and willed, such as sleep walking. Wittgenstein says:Involuntary walking, going for a walk, eating, speaking, singing, would be walking, eating, speaking etc. in an abnormal surrounding. E.g. when one is unconscious...(143).
I wonder, though, about instances where it seems one can't clearly define whether one wills something or not, whether one does something completely voluntarily or if part if done involuntarily. It seems that a lot of our actions are only partially willed, done voluntarily only in part, even if it may seem we do them voluntarily. But maybe this is what Wittgenstein's getting at--that will as a force doesn't exist, that maybe we can't control our actions in that sense but that we can be conscious of them (and then are what he calls voluntary). I' m still having problems with the voluntary/involuntary issue, since it seems they often overlap in real life. Maybe it's wrong to classify things as stricly voluntary or involuntary and strictly willed or unwilled; it's perhaps the case that they always overlap to some degree.
I've been thinking about how ethics and aesthetics fit (or don't fit) into Wittengenstein's philosophy, especially since we ended class last Wednesday by briefly opening up this topic. It seems that, according to Wittgenstein, ethics cannot be discussed philosophically. I suppose this is because ethical propositions and statements of judgment have no place in Wittgenstein's analysis of language as made up of logical propositions that can be confirmed as true or false when compared with reality.
But I feel that ethical propositions could be meaningful, and can have a place in philosophical discussion, if we consider them as referring to abstract concepts that are for the most part universally understood. I'll attempt to explain what I'm trying to get at (and maybe if I can't I'm just demonstrating that Wittgenstein was actually correct in denying the possibility of discussing such matters) :
The language we use to discuss ethics and aesthetics refers to a concept, a notion that has no physical reality. Just because it isn't a concrete object doesn't exclude it from reality (and I think Wittgenstein would agree that not all logical propositions have to refer to concrete objects in reality). In this way, such a statement as "murder is wrong" has meaning and can even be deemed true as long as there is a understanding of what one means when one uses the word "wrong."
If Wittgenstein excludes aesthetic and ethical propositions, then it seems he must also exclude emotional propositions--which I suppose may fall under the aesthetics category. Thus such statements as "I am happy" would have no meaning. But clearly emotions are part of reality, it's just that their meaning, what they refer to, is harder to pick out.
To get back to the assertion that ethical propositions can be discussed, we should consider what Ishiguro says on Wittgenstein:
...his belief in the inseparability of the grasp of the public, conventional use of signs and their meaning or reference, and in the equally intimate connection between the understanding of what a proposition says, which is the understanding of what will be the case if the proposition is true, and the kind of objects the proposition is about (43-42).
I guess what I'm trying to get at is that Wittgenstein clearly believes that the meaning of signs (i.e. words in language) depends on the way people understand and use them--and it seems to me that people use and understand such words as beauty, and right and wrong with an understanding of what concept they're referring to when using them, even if this concept has no reality separate from that which is in the minds and bodies of language-speakers.
