Language as a Twofaced Phenomenon: Wittgenstein's Doctrine of Showing in the light of Heraclitus' concept of Logos

The aim of this essay is to illuminate Wittgenstein's 'showing doctrine', which is manifested in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus  via the notion of 'logical space'. This doctrine presents a sharp dichotomy between what we can say or express ( sagen ), and what we can only show or manifest ( zeigen ). The tension between showing and saying is salient already in the motto of the Tractatus , where Wittgenstein quotes Kurnberger's dictum: "...and whatever a man knows, whatever is not a mere rumbling and roaring that he has heard, can be said in three words." Here the tension liesbetween the multiple content of knowledge and the severely limited amount of meaningful words that can express it, so that these three words must manifest much more than they can express; hence singularity encloses generality. Such tension between what is particular and what is general underlies Wittgenstein's 'showing doctrine' as will be demonstrated hereby via the concept of 'logical space' which is one of the key notions of the Tractatus . The investigation of the Tractatus will be preceded by an outline of Heraclitus' philosophy of language in which names manifest both a particular object and the cosmic principle or Logos .