in the larger unit in which they are embedded. The surface word order, of
course, will vary from language to language, according to the rules that lan-
guage prescribes for the relationship between parts of speech. But the basic
relationship of parts of speech—nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions—to
one another will remain the same. Thus, if we take the earlier example, “Why
can’t a dog simulate pain? Is he too honest?” the original German, Wa r u m
kann ein Hund nicht Schmerzen heucheln? Ist er zu ehrlich? has a slightly dif-
ferent word order in English, where the noun “pain” follows the transitive
verb whose object it is, and the negative (“can’t”) comes ¤rst in the sentence.
But the basic syntax of the question-and-answer structure is perfectly clear,
whichever the language. In fact, given the notion that “There are no gaps in
grammar;—grammar is always complete” (Lectures 1, 16), the meanings of
ordinary, everyday words become all the more tantalizing and a challenge to
the philosopher as poet.
Take the following entry from Culture and Value:
Die Philosophen, welche sagen: “nach dem Tod wird ein zeitloser Zustand
eintreten,” oder, “mit dem Tod tritt ein zeitloser Zustand ein,” und nicht
merken, daß sie im zeitlichen Sinne “nach” und “mit” und “tritt ein”
gesagt haben, und, daß die Zeitlichkeit in ihrer Grammatik liegt. (22)Philosophers who say: “after death a timeless state will begin,” or “at
death a timeless state begins,” and do not notice that they have used
the words “after” and “at” and “begins” in a temporal sense, and that
temporality is embedded in their grammar. (22)In its scrutiny of something as seemingly minor as a tense shift, a shift that
in English, as in German, requires such words as “after” (nach) and “at”
(mit), this little fragment—not even a complete sentence—embodies Witt-
genstein’s repeated insistence that “Language is not contiguous to any thing
else” (Lectures 1, 112). For it is only inside language that the basic paradox
in question reveals itself—the paradox that the so-called timeless state (zeit-
loser Zustand) after death can be talked about only within the language of
temporality that is ours, that is all that we have. Accordingly, as Wittgen-
stein had put it in the Tractatus, “Death is not an event in life. Death is not
lived through.” Indeed, “If by eternity is understood not endless temporal
duration but timelessness, then he lives eternally who lives in the present”
(§6.4311).
To take another, very different consideration of temporality, consider the
Wittgenstein on Translation 71