Philosophia Vol. 6 Nos. 3-4 Pp.

409-425 September-December 1976

CAUSE AND EFFECT: INTUITIVE AWARENESS

L. WITTGENSTEIN
English translation by Peter Winch

24.9.37
If someone says: "I am frightened, because he looks so threat-
ening" - this looks as if it were a case of recognizing a cause
immediately without repeated experiments.
Russell said that before recognizing something as a cause
through repeated experience, we would have to recognize some-
thing as a cause by intuition. 1
Isn't that like saying: Before recognizing something as 2m
long by measuring it, we have to recognize something as l m long
by intuition?

For what if that intuition is contradicted by repeated experi-

ments? Who is right then?
And what does the intuition tell us about the experience
which we recognize as the cause? Is there anything more to it than
a reaction o f ours to the object: the cause?

Don't we recognize immediately that the pain is produced by

the blow we have received? Isn't this the cause and can there be
any doubt about it? - But isn't it quite possible to suppose that
in certain cases we are deceived about this? And later recognize
the deception? It seems as though something hits us and at the
same time we feel a pain. (Sometimes we think we are causing a
sound by making a certain movement and then realize that it is
quite independent o f us.)
Certainly there is in such cases a genuine experience which
can be called 'experience o f the cause'. But not because it infal-
libly shows us the cause; rather .because o n e root of the cause-
effect language-game is to be found here, in our looking out for a
cause.

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 LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN

We react to the cause.

Calling something 'the cause' is like pointing and saying: 'He's
to blame!'

We instinctively get rid of the cause if we don't want the

effect. We instinctively look from what has been hit to what has
hit it. (I am assuming that we do this.)

Now suppose I were to say that when we speak of cause and

effect we always have in mind a comparison with impact; that this
is the p r o t o t y p e o f cause and effect? Would this mean that we had
recognized impact as a cause? Imagine a language in which people
always said 'impact' instead o f 'cause'.

26.9.37
Think o f two different kinds of plant, A and B, both o f
which yield seeds; the seeds of both kinds look exactly the same
and even after the most careful investigation we can find no
difference between them. But the seeds o f an A-plant always
produce more A-plants, the seeds o f a B-plant, more B-plants. In
this situation we can predict what sort of plant will grow out of
such a seed only if we know which plant it has come from. - Are
we to be satisfied with this; or should we say: "There must be a
difference in the seeds themselves, otherwise they couldn't pro-
duce different plants; their previous histories on their own can't
cause their further development unless their histories have left
traces in the seeds themselves."?
But now what if we don't discover any difference between the
seeds? And the fact is: It wasn't from the peculiarities o f either
seed that we made the prediction but from its previous history. -
If I say: the history can't be the cause of the development, then
this doesn't mean that I can't predict the development from the
previous history, since that's what I do. It means rather that we
don't call that a 'causal connection', that this isn't a case of
predicting the effect from the cause.
And to protest: "There must be a difference in the seeds,
even if we don't discover it", doesn't alter the facts, it only shows
what a powerful urge we have to see everything in terms o f cause
and e f f e c t )
When people talk about graphology, physiognomics and such-
like they constantly say: " . . . clearly character must be expressed

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in handwriting s o m e h o w . . . " 'Must': that means we are going to

apply this picture come what may.

(One might even say that philosophy is the grammar o f the

words " m u s t " and "can", for that is how it shows what is a priori
and what a posteriori.)

And then you can imagine that the seed o f a plant A pro-
duces a plant B and that the seed o f this, which is exactly like
that of the first, produces an A-plant, and so on alternately -
although we don't know 'why', etc.

And now suppose that in the foregoing example someone had

at last succeeded in discovering a difference between the seed o f
an A-plant and the seed o f a B-plant: he would no doubt say:
"There, you see, it just isn't possible for one seed to grow into
two different plants." What if I were to retort: "How do you
know that the characteristic you have discovered is not completely
irrelevant? How do you know that has anything to do with which
o f the two plants grows out o f the seed?" -

12.10.(37)
On cause and effect, intuitive awareness:

A sound seems to come from over there, even before 1 have

investigated its (physical) source. In the cinema the sound o f
speech seems to come from the mouth of the figures on the
screen.
What does this experience consist in? Perhaps in the fact that
we involuntarily look towards a particular spot - the apparent
source of the sound - when we hear a sound. And in the cinema
no one looks towards where the microphone is.

The basic form o f our game must be one in which there is no

such thing as doubt. - What makes us sure of this? It can't surely
be a matter o f historical certainty.

'The basic form o f the game can't include doubt.' What we

are doing here above all is to lmagine a basic form: a possibility,
indeed a very important possibility. (We very often confuse what
is an important possibility with historical reality.)

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 LUDWIG WlTTGENSTEIN

13.10.(37)
"Doubting - I might say - has to come to an end some-
where. At some point we have to say - without doubting: that
results from this cause."

Similarly: we say: "Take this chair" and it doesn't occur to

us that we might be mistaken, that perhaps it isn't really a chair,
that later experience may show us something different. Here one
game is played that does not include the possibility of a mistake,
and another more complicated one which does include it.

Isn't this how it is: It is very fundamental to the game we

play that we utter certain words and regularly act according to
them.
Doubt is a moment of hesitation and is, essentially, an ex-
ception to the rule.
We might say: It is essential to street traffic that in the great
majority of cases a car, or a pedestrian, travels in a constant line
towards a destination and does not move about like somebody
who is changing his mind at every moment, going first from A
towards B, then turning round and taking a few steps back, then
turning round again, and so o n . . . - And to say "This is an
essential feature of street traffic" means: it is an important and
characteristic feature; if this were different, then a tremendous
amount would change.

So what does it mean to say: at first the game has to start

without including doubt; doubt can only come into it subsequent-
ly? Why shouMn't doubting be there right from the start? But
wait a minute - what does doubting look like? The point is -
whatever it feels like or however it 'is expressed, its surroundings
are quite different from those we are familiar with. (For, since
doubt is an exception, the rule is its environment.) (Do these eyes
have any expression if they are not part of a face?)
As things are, the reasons for doubting are reasons for leaving
a familiar track.

Our world looks quite different if we surround it with differ-

ent possibilities.

We teach a child: "That's a chair". Could we teach him right

at the start to doubt whether this is a chair? Someone will say:
"That's impossible. He must first know what a chair is if he is to

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be in a position to doubt whether this is one." But isn't it

conceivable that the child should learn right from the start to say:
"That looks like a chair - but is it really one? - " Or at any rate
that he should learn from the beginning to say in a doubting tone
of voice: "I think there's a chair here" and not in an affirmative
tone: "There's a chair here."

Now what about this remark: "We can't begin with doubt-
ing"? A 'can't' o f this sort is always fishy.

14.10.(37)
We may say: Doubting can't be a necessary element without
which the game is obviously incomplete and incorrect. For in your'
game the criteria for justifying a doubt aren't applied any differ-
ently than the criteria for the opposite. And the game which
includes doubt is simply a more complicated one than a game
which does not.

It is easy to think: only the game which includes doubt is

true to nature.
(If the same fare were charged for both long and short railway
journeys - would that be an obviously unjust, absurd arrange-
ment?)

"We can't know whether somebody is in pain? Oh yes we can,.

we can k n o w it!" - But that is not to say: "We have 'intuitive
knowledge' o f these pains". It is simply a - justified - objection
against those who say: "We can't k n o w . . ," But it isn't to claim
the existence o f a natural capacity which the others deny.

"The game can't start with doubting" - What we ought to

say is: the game doesn't start with doubting. - Or else: the "can"
has the same justification as it has in the assertion: "Street traffic
can't begin with everybody doubting whether to go in this, or
rather in that direction; in that case it would never amount to
what we call 'traffic' and then we shouldn't call their hesitation
'doubting' either."

A philosopher who protests, "We KNOW there's a chair over

there!" is simply describing a game. But he seems to be saying
that I am moved by feelings of unshakeable conviction if I say to
someone: " F e t c h me that chair."

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 LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN

The game doesn't begin with doubting whether someone has a

toothache, because that doesn't - as it were - fit the game's
biological function in our life. In its most primitive form it is a
reaction to somebody's cries and gestures, a reaction of sympathy
or something o f the sort. We comfort him, try to help him. We
may think that because doubt is a refinement, and in a certain
sense too an improvement o f the game, the correct thing would
surely be to start straight off with doubt. (Just as we may think
that, because it is often good to give the reasons for a judgement,
the complete justification of a judgement would have to extend
the chain o f reasons to infinity.)
Let us. imagine that doubt and conviction, instead of being
expressed in a language, are expressed rather through actions,
gestures, demeanour. It might be like this with very primitive
people, or with animals. So imagine a mother whose child is crying
and holding his cheek. One kind of reaction to this is for the
mother to try and comfort her child and to nurse him in some
way or other. In this case there is nothing corresponding to a
doubt whether the child is really in pain. Another case would be
this: The usual reaction to the child's complaints is as just de-
scribed, but under some circumstances the mother behaves sceptic-
ally. Perhaps she shakes her head suspiciously, stops comforting
and nursing her child - even expresses annoyance and lack of
sympathy. But now imagine a mother who is sceptical right from
the very beginning: If her child Cries, she shrugs her shoulders and
shakes her head; sometimes she looks at him inquiringly, examines
him; on exceptional occasions she also makes vague attempts to
comfort and nurse him. - Were we to encounter such behaviour,
we definitely wouldn't call it scepticism; it would strike us as
queer and crazy. - "The game can't begin with doubting" means:
we shouldn't call it 'doubting', if the game began with it.

Consider this question: "Can a match start with one of the

players winning (or losing) and the game going on from there?"
Why shouldn't a procedure that looks like a game start with what
usually happens when a game is won or lost? For instance, one of
the participants is paid money, congratulated on his success, and
so on. However, we won't call this "winning the game" and
perhaps we won't call the whole thing a "game". If we were to
meet such a practice, it would be 'incomprehensible' to us and we
should probably not say: "these people win and lose at the start
of the game".

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"Can that happen?! - Certainly. Just describe it in detail and

you will then see that the procedure you describe can perfectly
well be imagined, although you will clearly not apply such and
such expressions to it.

"Could the rhyme in a poem come at the beginning o f the

lines instead o f at the end?"

"All right, doubting doesn't have any place in your simple

game - but does that mean it is certain that he has toothache?"
That is the game, - And you can, if you want, gather from it how
the word "toothache" is being used: what it means.

"What if he is shamming?" But he can't be shamming if the

way he acts doesn't count as shamming in the game.

15.10.(37)
"So is it certain there's a chair here?" - Well, don't I have
two alternatives: to be certain or to doubt? Doesn't it depend on
whether I count something as justifying doubt?

If something doesn't happen as we expected we say: we have

made a mistake, a wrong assumption. The mistake is a fault; we
are reproached for it, reproach ourselves.
Compare that with the following: We determine the mid-point
between two places A and B, by making repeated estimates in this
way:
we say
A CC' B
X I11 X

"I assume it lies near C" and I make a mark more or less near the
centre. - Then we take the length AC starting at B and get point
C'. The procedure is then repeated, taking a point roughly halfway
between C and C'. - Was the first assumption a mistake? You can
call it that if you like - but here this 'mistake' is not treated as a
fault.

If we don't doubt, we regard this as a mistake, something

stupid - doubting is a deeper insight into the nature of the
matter: or so it seems.
Representing people (etc.) in 'perspective strikes us as correct
compared with the Egyptian way o f drawing them. Of course;

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after all, people don't really look like that! - But must this count
as an argument? Who says I want people on paper to look the way
they do in reality?

" A n y o n e who doesn't doubt is simply overlooking the possibi-

lity that things might be otherwise!" - Not in the least - if this
possibility doesn't exist in his language. (Just as someone who
gives or asks for the same wages for long and short periods of
work needn't be overlooking anything.) "But then he is just not
paying for the work performed!" - That's how it is. -

Why do we call what we recognize immediately by the same

name as the one we apply to what we learn from repeated
experience o f conjunctions? To what extent is it the same?
(Knowledge which flows from a different source is different know-
ledge.)
"There are two ways of becoming aware of the existence of a
mechanism: first, by s e e i n g it, secondly by seeing its effects."
Might we not say: the assertion 'there is a mechanism o f such and
such a sort here' is used in two different ways (a) if such a
mechanism can be seen - (b) if effects can be discerned o f a kind
which such a mechanism would produce.

There is reaction which can be called 'reacting to the cause'.

- We also speak of 'tracing' the cause; a simple case would be,
say, following a string to see who is pulling at it. If I then find
him - how do I know that he, his pulling, is the cause o f the
string's moving? Do I establish this by a series of experiments?

16.10.(37)

Someone has followed the string and has found who is pulling at
it: does he make a further step in concluding: so that was the cause
or did he not just want to discover i f someone, and i f so who, was
-

pulling at it? Let's imagine once more a language-game simpler than

the one we play with the word "cause".
Consider two procedures: in the first somebody who feels a tug
on a string, or has some similar sort o f experience, follows the string
the mechanism - in this sense finds the c a u s e , and perhaps
-

removes it. He may also ask: "Why is this string moving?", or

something o f the sort. - The second case is this: He has noticed
that, since his goats have been grazing on that slope, they give less

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milk. He shakes his head, asks "Why?" - and then makes some
experiments. He finds that such and such a fodder is the cause of the
phenomenon.
"But aren't these cases both o f the same kind: after all he could
have made some experiments to determine whether the man who is
pulling at the string is really the cause o f the movement, whether he
is not really being moved by the string and this in its turn by some
other cause!" - He could have made experiments - but I'm
assuming that he does not. This is the game he plays.

Now what is it I constantly do in such cases? Reason - I feel

like saying - presents itself to us as the gauge par excellence against
which everything that we do, all our language games, measure and
judge themselves. - We may say: we are so exclusively preoccupied
by contemplating a yardstick that we can't allow our gaze to rest on
certain phenomena or patterns. We are used, as it were, to 'dismiss-
ing' these as irrational, as corresponding to a low state of intelli-
gence, etc. The yardstick rivets our attention and keeps distracting
us from these phenomena, as it were making us look beyond. -
Suppose a certain style o f building or behaviour captivates us to
such an extent that we can't focus our attention directly on another
one, but can only glance at it obliquely. (Connected with this: a nice
remark of Eddington's about the demonstration o f the law of
inertia.)

In one case "He is the cause" simply means: he pulled the

string. In the other case it means roughly: those are the conditions
that I would have to change in order to get rid o f this phenomenon.
"But then how did he come by the idea - h o w was it even
possible to come by the idea - of altering a condition in order to get
rid o f such and such a phenomenon? Surely that presupposes that he
first of all senses there is some connection. Thinks there may be a
connection: where no connection is to be seen. So he must already
have got the idea o f such a causal connection." Yes, we can say it
presupposes that he looks round for a cause; that he doesn't attend
to this phenomenon - but to another one. -

17.10.(37)

Intuition. Knowing the cause by intuition. What game is being

played with the word "intuition"? What sort o f feat is it supposed to
achieve?

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The underlying idea is this: Knowing this state of affairs is a

state of mind; and how this state of mind has come about is
irrelevant if all that interests us is that somebody knows such and
such. Just as headaches can be caused in all sorts of ways, so too
with knowing. That such a state should interest us at all in a logical
investigation is certainly remarkable. Why should such states concern
us? - Remember the question "When does a man know that (e.g.)
someone is in the next room?" - While he is thinking the thought?
And if he does think it: throughout all the phases (words) of the
thought?
If I say: "I know there is someone in the room" and it turns out
that I have made a mistake, then I didn't know it - have I made a
mistake in introspecting my state of mind then? I looked inside and
took something to be a knowing, when it wasn't. - Or can't I really
know something like that, but only such facts as: "I see something
red", "I am in pain", and the like. That is, we are supposed to use
the word "know" only in situations where nobody does use it; in
other words, where "I know that p " means nothing, unless perhaps
it means the same as "p", and the expression "I don't know that p"
is nonsense.
Whatever you do, don't look at the actual use of the words "I
k n o w . . . " just look at the words and speculate what might be a
fitting use of them.
How does the language-game work then - when do we say we
'know'? Is it really when we ascertain that we are in a certain state
of mind? Isn't it when we have evidence of a certain sort? - And
then it's a matter of the evidence, without which it isn't knowing.
What is intuition then? Is it a way of experiencing things so as
to attain knowledge which we are familiar with in common life? Or
is it a chimera, which we make use o'f only in philosophy? - Is the
belief that intuition is involved in such and such circumstances
comparable to the belief that such and such an illness is produced by
an insect sting? (This belief may be true or false, but anyway we are
familiar with kinds of case produced like that). Or is this a case
where we can say:
" D e n n eben wo Begriffe fehlen,
Da steUt ein Wort zur rechten Zeit sich ein. ''3
(One could imagine a use of language in which people say: "Mr.
Unknown did it" instead of: "It isn't known who did this" - so that
they don't have to say there is something they don't know.)

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18.10.(37)

What do we know about intuition? What idea have we of it? It's

presumably supposed to be a sort o f seeing, recognition at a single
glance; I wouldn't know what more to say. - "So you do after all
know what an intuition is!" - Roughly in the same way as I know
what it means "to see a body from all sides at once". I don't want to
say that one cannot apply this expression to some process or other,
for some good reason or other - but do I therefore know what it
means?
'Knowing the cause intuitively' means: somehow or other
knowing the cause, (experiencing it in a way different from the usual
one). - All right, somebody knows it - but what's the good of that,
- if his knowing doesn't prove its worth in the usual way in the
course of time? But then he's no different from someone who has
somehow correctly guessed the cause. That is: We don't have any
concept of this special knowing of the cause. We can certainly
imagine someone saying, with signs of inspiration, that now he
knows the cause; but this doesn't prevent us from testing whether
what he claims to know is right.

Knowing interests us only within the game.

(It is just as if somebody claimed to have knowledge o f human

anatomy by intuition; and we say: "We don't doubt it; but if you
want to be a doctor, you must pass all the examinations like
anybody else.")

20.10.(37)
Why is it that ' d o u b t must come to an end somewhere'? - Is it
because the game would never get started if it were to begin with
doubt?
But suppose it began with someone's racking his brains about
what the cause is o f something or other. How should we have to
conceive this brain-racking, these reflections? Well, quite simply. It's
just a matter of searching for, and eventually finding some object
(the cause). So what's the point of saying that the game can't begin
with doubt?
Doubt has to have some physiognomy. If someone doubts, the
question is: what does his doubt look like? What, e.g., does the
inquiry that he initiates look like? - Do you merely want to say: the
game can't begin with someone's saying: "We can never know what

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the cause of something is"? - But why shouldn't he say that too; as
long as he confidently makes the next step? But in that case there's
no need to speak of the beginnings of the game, and we can say: The
game of 'looking for the cause' consists above all in a certain
practice, a certain method. Within it something that we call doubt
and uncertainty plays a role, but this is a second-order feature. In an
analogous way it is characteristic o f how a sewing machine functions
that its parts may wear out and get bent, and its axles may wobble in
their bearings, but still this is a second-order characteristic compared
with the normal working of the machine.

Imagine this strange possibility: up to now we have always made

a mistake in calculating 12 x 12. Yes, it's quite incomprehensible
how it could happen, but that's how it is. So everything that we've
calculated like that is wrong! - But what does it matter? It doesn't
matter at all! - So there must be something wrong here in the idea
we have of the truth and falsity o f arithmetical propositions.

21.10.(37)

The origin and the primitive form of the language game is a

reaction; only from this can more complicated forms develop.
Language - I want to say - is a refinement, 'ira Anfang war die
Tat'*.

First there must be firm, hard stone for building, and the blocks
are laid rough-hewn one on another. Afterwards it's certainly
important that the stone can be trimmed, that it's not too hard.

The primitive form o f the language game is certainty, not

uncertainty. For uncertainty could never, lead to action.

I want to say: it is characteristic of our language that the

foundation on which it grows consists in steady ways of living,
regular ways of acting.
Its function is determined above all by action, which it accom-
panies.
We have an idea o f which ways o f living are primitive, and which
could only have developed out o f these. We believe that the simplest
plough existed before the complicated one.

*'In the beginning was the deed.'

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The simple form (and that is the prototype) of the cause-effect

game is determining the cause, not doubting.

( " . . . At some point we have to say - without doubting - : that

happens because of this cause.") 4 As opposed to what for instance?
As opposed surely to never tightening the knot, but remaining
constantly uncertain what the cause of the phenomenon really is; as
if it made sense to say: strictly speaking no one could ever know the
cause with certainty. So that it would correspond most strictly to
the truth not to settle the question. This idea is based on a total
misunderstanding of the role played by exactitude and doubt.

22.10.(37)

The basic form of the game must be one in which we act.

"How could the concept of 'cause' be set up if we were always

doubting?"

"Originally the cause must be something palpable."

Isn't the real point this: we can't start with philosophical

speculation? -

If I never knew the cause of anything how would I ever have

arrived at this concept? - But that means: how could I ever have
wondered what was the cause of this or that event if I hadn't already
seen the cause of something? But, don't forget, this 'could' has to be
taken in a logical sense, - because otherwise one might start
thinking of all sorts of possible explanations. Whereas the point is
simply: When you give a description of this 'wondering', take care
that you really are describing something.

The essence of the language game is a practical method (a way

of acting) - not speculation, not chatter.

26.9.(37)

s The machine (its structure) as symbol of its mode of oper-

ating: The machine - I might start by saying - already seems to
have its mode o f operating within itself. What does this mean? -

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According to our knowledge o f the machine, all the rest, that is,
the movements it will make, seem already to be completely deter-
mined.
"We talk as though these parts could move only in this,~,vay, as
though they couldn't do anything different."
How is that - are we forgetting the possibility that they may
bend, break off, melt, etc.? Yes; in many cases we don't think of
that at all. We use a machine, or the picture o f a machine, as a
symbol for a particular mode of operation. For example, we give
someone this picture and assume he will conclude from it how the
parts will move. (Just as we can give someone a number by telling
him it's the twenty-fifth in the series 1, 4, 9, 1 6 . . . ) .
"The machine already seems to have its mode of operating
within it" means: You are inclined to compare the details o f the
machine's movements with objects which are already in a drawer and
which we then take out.
But we don't talk like that when what interests us is predicting
the actual behaviour o f a machine; then we don't usually forget that
it's possible for the parts to get deformed; etc.
On the other hand this is what we may do if we are wondering
how we can use the machine as a symbol of a way of moving - since
it may after all in fact move quite differently.
Well, we might say that the machine, or its picture, is the first
member o f a series of pictures which we've learnt to derive from it.

But if we reflect that the machine could have behaved differ-

ently, we easily get the impression that the machine as symbol
contains its own mode of operation much more determinately than
does the real machine. In that case we're not satisfied that the
movements should be those which experience has taught us to
expect; on the contrary we feel they must really - in a mysterious
sense - already be present in the machine. And it's quite true: the
operation of the machine symbol is predetermined in a different way
from that of some real machine.

But in all these cases the difficulty comes from confusing "is"
and "is called".

28.9.(37)

We say: " I t is hard to know whether this medicine helps or not,

because we don't know if the cold would have lasted longer or got

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worse if we hadn't taken it." If we really have no evidence

concerning this, is it simply hard to know?
Suppose I have invented a medicine and say: Every man who
takes this medicine for a few months will have his life extended by
one month. If he hadn't taken it, he would have died a month
earlier. "We can't know whether it was really the medicine; or
whether he wouldn't have lived just as long without it." Isn't this a
misleading way to speak? Wouldn't it be better to say: "It is
meaningless to say this medicine prolongs life, if testing the claim is
ruled out in this way." In other words, we are indeed dealing with a
correct English sentence constructed on the analogy o f sentences
which are in common use, but you are not clear about the
fundamental difference in the use o f these sentences. It isn't easy to
have a clear view o f this use. The sentence is there before your eyes,
but not a clear overall representation o f its use.
So to say " I t is meaningless..." is to point out that perhaps you
are being misled by these words, that they make y o u imagine a use
which they do not have. They do perhaps evoke an idea (the
prolongation of life, etc:), but the game with the sentence is so
arranged that it doesn't have the essential point which makes useful
the game with similarly constructed sentences. (As the 'race between
the hare and the hedgehog' looks like a race, but isn't one.)

You must ask yourself: what does one accept as a criterion for a
medicine's helping one? There are various cases. In which cases do
we say: "It is hard to say whether it has helped"? In what cases
should we reject as senseless the expression: " O f course we can never
be certain whether it was the medicine that helped"?

When do we say that two bodies weigh the same? If we have

weighed them or whilst we are weighing them?
Suppose weighing were our sole criterion o f something's weight;
- if a b o d y registers a greater weight at one weighing than at the
previous one, when did its weight change? It might be established
usage to say: the b o d y weighs so and so much until a new weighing
gives a different result. We answer the question: "When did its
weight change?", by giving the time o f this weighing. - Or: we say
it's impossible for us to know when it changes its weight, we only
know that it has one weight at the first weighing and another at the
second." Or: "It's senseless to ask when it changed its weight, we
can only ask when the change in weight was registered."

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 LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN

29.9.(37)

"Still, the body had some weight at any given time, so the right
answer was: we don't know when it changed." -
And what if we said that a body doesn't have any weight at all
except when it is being registered somehow, or that it doesn't have
any definite weight, except when it is being measured? Couldn't we
play this game too?
Imagine we sell some material 'by weight' and the custom is as
follows: We weigh the material every five minutes and then
calculate the price according to the result of the last weighing. Or
another custom: we calculate the price in this way only if the weight
is the same when the material is weighed after the sale; if it has
changed, we calculate the price according to the arithmetic mean of
the two weights. Which way of fixing the price is the more correct?
(If the price of a commodity has changed between yesterday
and today, when did it change? How much was it at midnight when
nobody was buying?)
Conclusion: The expressions "the body now has a weight
o f . . . " , "the body now weighs roughly...", "I don't know how
much it weighs now", aren't connected quite straightforwardly with
the results of the weighing, but this depends on a variety of
circumstances; we can easily imagine different roles which weighing
could play among the institutions within which we live and different
roles for the expressions which accompany the game of weighing.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

" T h e L i m i t s o f E m p i r i c i s m " by B e r t r a n d Russell, in Proceedings o f the

Aristotelian Society, 1 9 3 5 - 3 6 , p. 149:
" W h e n I a m h u r t a n d cry o u t , 1 can p e r c e i v e n o t o n l y t h e h u r t a n d t h e c r y ,
b u t the fact t h a t t h e o n e ' p r o d u c e s ' t h e o t h e r . W h e n I p e r c e i v e t h r e e e v e n t s
in a t i m e o r d e r , I can p e r c e i v e t h a t p r e c e d i n g is transitive - a general truth
o f w h i c h an i n s t a n c e is c o n t a i n e d in t h e p r e s e n t s e n s e - d a t u m . . . . I f w e c a n
s o m e t i m e s perceive r e l a t i o n s w h i c h are a n a l o g o u s to c a u s a t i o n , w e d o n o t
d e p e n d w h o l l y u p o n e n u m e r a t i o n s o f i n s t a n c e s in t h e p r o o f o f causal laws.
. . .

p. 13"1
" I f I say: 'I said " e a t " b e c a u s e 1 s a w a c a t ' , I a m s a y i n g m o r e t h a n is
w a r r a n t e d . O n e s h o u l d say: "I willed to say " c a t " b e c a u s e t h e r e w a s a visual
a p p e a r a n c e w h i c h I classified as feline.' This s t a t e m e n t , at a n y r a t e , isolates
the ' b e c a u s e ' as m u c h as possible. What I a m m a i n t a i n i n g is t h a t w e can

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 CAUSE AND EFFECT: INTUITIVE AWARENESS

k n o w t h i s s t a t e m e n t in t h e s a m e w a y in w h i c h w e k n o w t h a t t h e r e w a s a
f e l i n e a p p e a r a n c e , a n d t h a t , if w e c o u l d n o t , t h e r e w o u l d be n o v e r b a l
e m p i r i c a l k n o w l e d g e . I t h i n k t h a t t h e w o r d ' b e c a u s e ' in this s e n t e n c e m u s t
b e u n d e r s t o o d as e x p r e s s i n g a m o r e or less c a u s a l r e l a t i o n , a n d t h a t this
r e l a t i o n m u s t b e perceived, n o t m e r e l y i n f e r r e d f r o m f r e q u e n t c o n c o m i -
tance."
V a r i a t i o n : h o w p o w e r f u l t h e c a u s e - e f f e c t s c h e m a is in us.
" F o r w h e r e c o n c e p t s are l a c k i n g , w e shall a l w a y s f i n d a w o r d in g o o d
time."
See a b o v e , p . 4 1 2 .
Cf. Remarks on the Foundations o f Mathematics, P a r t I, w 1 2 2 .

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