teaching us how not to use concepts when we are confronted with the limit of language , and instead we learn to operate within the limits and create clarity through sense . Moore ( 2003 ) claims that knowing how not to use concepts imparts upon us a richer and fuller knowledge of the concepts at hand . This may seem like a stretch to claim that Wittgenstein would go so far as to embrace transcendental idealism rather than a sympathy , but instead Sullivan directly confronts Moore ’ s theoretical claim : “ there seems vanishingly little to be said for the idea that , in knowing that the concept prime number is not to be applied to Roman emperors , we achieve any richer or more reflective understanding of any limitation of ours ” ( Sullivan , 2003 , p . 220 ). In practice what we learn appears just as ephemeral as the situation we experience when we are frustrated with the limit of language , there is nothing necessarily insightful when we misuse concepts and employ signs in a transcendental way . It therefore seems decreasingly likely that this is any advantage of transcendental idealism that Wittgenstein is acknowledging . If we develop Moore ’ s argument in a more general sense , we can perhaps say that we acquire knowledge of how to notice the use of signs in a nonsensical way . Perhaps what is learnt is not a fuller and richer knowledge of concepts , but a way to avoid succumbing to the transcendent illusion , which requires some engagement with that illusion to be able to dispel it . Moore believes that Wittgenstein must embrace a kind of transcendental idealism to not only state how things are but “ how their limits are ” ( 2013 , p . 245 ). To discuss the limits of language , Moore considers it necessary that Wittgenstein begins by attempting to overcome them and show that there is only nonsense . There then may be some purpose of transcendental idealism for Wittgenstein , though I believe it tenuous to suggest this reflects any personal sensibilities . It would seem more appropriate that transcendental idealism is a ‘ necessary evil ’ ( to indulge in hyperbole ) that Wittgenstein and ourselves must accept at first , if we are to be able to get rid of it in our final analysis . This theory is rather speculative though , and as Sullivan ( 2003 ) points out , there is no indication in the Tractatus that Wittgenstein advocates transcendental idealism in order to dispel it , not does it appear likely that he is embracing it as a starting position rather than something “ we must pass over in silence ” ( TLP 7 ).
A far more conjectural advocacy that Moore ( 2013 ) presents is an apparent isomorphism between Kant ( the most notable transcendental idealist ) and Wittgenstein . Moore considers Kant ’ s construal of limits as limitations is contrastive , with something transcendent beyond the limit ; whilst until the TLP 5.6s Wittgenstein considers limits to be the essential nature of what is limited . The difference at first appears rather stark , but there remains a contrastive aspect to Wittgenstein between propositions with a sense and those that lack or appear to have sense ; and the Kantian contrast is between thoughts with content and thoughts without content , the latter of which is incapable of being knowledge ( Moore , 2013 ). It is necessary for Kant to leave room for faith by denying knowledge and accepting something transcendent of empirical reality — this is the moral character of reason — and Moore believes Wittgenstein is doing something similar with the TLP 5.6s and TLP 6.4s when ethics is being introduced . We therefore have immanence for Kant and Wittgenstein to be “ thoughts with content ” and “ propositions with sense ” respectively ; and the transcendental to be “ thoughts without content ” and “ certain nonsensical pseudo-propositions ” respectively ( Moore , 2013 , p . 251 ). Ethics is considered a transcendent aspect of the Tractatus and Sullivan ( 2013 ) does not wish to contest this : there certainly what appears to be a construal of limits as limitations at the TLP 6.4s , but admitting
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