In the first two sections of the present chapter I shall discuss two of these Platonic themes and the ways in which Wittgenstein deals with them. These discussions will show that in neither of these cases would it be justified to speak of a specific philosophical debt that Wittgenstein owed to Plato. The question discussed in my third section, however, may give us reasons for speaking of such indebtedness. This is the question of Platonic dialogue and its relation to Wittgensteinian dialogue. The debt, though, is not incurred by following in Plato’s footsteps but by learning through criticizing his technique of writing dialogue.

As Klagge points out, there is a striking similarity between Wittgenstein’s comment on Schlick and certain things said by the Platonic Socrates when, in the Euthyphro, he asks whether the pious is loved by the gods because it is pious or whether it is pious because it is loved by the gods (10a). Euthyphro, to whom the question is addressed, fails to understand it. After a few more or less illuminating explanations Socrates returns to his original question, but now he asks it in a somewhat different form: ‘Is it [the pious] being loved then because it is pious, or for some other reason?’⁴ Euthypro’s answer (‘For no other reason’) allows Socrates to introduce a contrast between piety and being loved by the gods that enables him to develop his argument.

It is not this argument, however, which is of interest in this context, but the move made by Socrates in reformulating his question in a way that makes Euthyphro end up in his dilemma. As Klagge observes, this reformulation is ‘clearly a trick question, for it builds in the presupposition that it [the pious] is being loved for some reason or other’. Had Euthyphro noticed the cunning behind the question, he might have replied in Wittgensteinian style and said, ‘For no reason at all, Socrates’. In this case, Socrates would have found it more difficult to exploit his concealed presupposition. This is, as Klagge notes, ‘the hidden assumption that many of us would accept – that the gods act for reasons, that commands can be justified’.

There is, as Klagge also underlines, an interesting connection here with Wittgenstein’s view that explanations must come to an end, which in its early form recommends the idea held by the ‘ancients’, who according to Wittgenstein were more clear-headed than the ‘modern conception’ in acknowledging a terminus and did not pretend that everything is, or can be, explained.⁵ But before saying something about this connection, I want to look more closely at the specifically Platonic, or Socratic, ‘trick question’ identified by Klagge.

In the Euthyphro, the ‘trick’ consists in smuggling in an unwarranted assumption about reasons. There is nothing exactly corresponding to this in the passage quoted from Waismann’s account of conversations with Wittgenstein, who (as Klagge says) there expresses a view strikingly similar to that articulated by Euthyphro when he claims that ‘the pious is what all the gods love’ (9e): ‘If there is any proposition expressing precisely what I think, it is the proposition “What God commands, that is good”’.⁶

Wittgenstein does not smuggle in any concealed presuppositions, but he plays a trick on his audience nonetheless. This does not involve a trick question; it involves a trick answer. The first point to remember is this, that the whole passage is qualified by the opening remark, which states that what follows is a comment on Schlick’s presentation of a view in theological ethics. In point of fact, this is a double qualification which serves to remove Wittgenstein’s own words from their ostensible target. And if we consider (as we ought to) that in spite of the undoubted authenticity of Waismann’s report the words used by him are words that were not written down by Wittgenstein, we cannot help concluding that there is no clear answer to the question of whether Wittgenstein is simply expressing his own view or a view he might hold if he were Schlick or someone interested in defending views in theological ethics.

This qualification, or double qualification, tends to be forgotten by readers who find the end of our quotation particularly instructive or appealing. But even if we ignore this point, the last sentence remains tricky. For it does not say that the good is what God commands; it says that words to this effect would express what Wittgenstein has in mind if there were words suited to expressing his ideas. In view of the explicit Tractatus-style warning⁷ contained in the sentence preceding the last one (‘ ... nothing to do with facts ... cannot be explained by any proposition’) we should presumably conclude that there are no words that could express what he has in mind, and hence that the dictum ‘What God commands, that is good’ does not serve to state a view held by Wittgenstein. Maybe one might wish to claim that these words gesture at something that cannot be expressed meaningfully, but that seems to be a reading which risks coming too close to a misunderstanding of the drift of Wittgenstein’s actual words.

All we can affirm, I suppose, is that the attitude of a person who says things along the lines sketched by Schlick in specifying the ‘shallower’ view is more to Wittgenstein’s taste than the attitude of someone who talks like a representative of the ‘profounder’ interpretation. His preference, however, may well be connected with the other point mentioned by Klagge, viz. Wittgenstein’s approval of the outlook of the ancients, who recognized a clear terminus, in contrast to the modern scientistic view, according to which everything is explained through laws of nature. That is, the divine-command view would be more agreeable to Wittgenstein because it shares certain features with the terminus-of-explanation view of the ancients.⁸

What features would those be? There seems to be a difficulty here. After all, the moderns seem to recognize a clear terminus as well: only in their opinion the terminus would not be God or Fate but the laws of nature. These laws look like a sufficiently respectable terminus, but Wittgenstein does not accept this for the reason that ‘the modern system tries to make it look as if everything were explained’. Evidently, by Wittgenstein’s lights an adequate ‘terminus’ would be one that does not suggest this. It would be an endpoint which does not pretend to explain everything, and perhaps it would not purport to explain anything at all.

So, the decisive point seems to be this. A position that pretends to be able to explain everything is objectionable because it upholds a view which is bound to involve illusion: it deludes itself or hoodwinks others into expecting results that will never be forthcoming. A variant of this position would be one which claims to be able to explain, not everything, but everything worth explaining. This would be objectionable for the reason that it is characterized by arrogance, by having an exaggerated opinion of its own powers and a disdainful attitude towards the achievements of others. It would err through purporting to be able to lay down the law on what is worth explaining and what is not.

This stands in contrast to an attitude of the kind attributed to the ancients and, by extension, to holders of the divine-command view, who do not claim to be able to explain everything, nor to have the right or the power to decide what is worth explaining. This renunciation of arrogance need not have anything to do with bashfulness or self-effacing modesty. As a matter of fact, even certain forms of regarding the gods as the ultimate repository of explanatory power are not necessarily free from arrogance. And the arrogance can come in various ways – for instance by way of regarding oneself as destined to be in cahoots with the gods or by suggesting that one is more qualified than others are to divine where the powers of man must remain ineffective and the exclusive area of divine competence and authority begins.

These considerations are surely not sufficient as an exhaustive account of what Wittgenstein wishes to express in Tractatus 6.371–2 and other passages on the limits of explanation. In particular, what has not been mentioned is the idea that there may be conceptual reasons for thinking that something should count as an explanation only if a terminus of explanation is somehow provided for or envisaged. But enough may have been said to indicate that there tends to be a certain similarity of attitude between those who approve⁹ of the divine-command view (as opposed to the notion that the good is given independently of divine grace and a possible object of unaided human knowledge) and those who make explicit gestures towards acknowledging the limits of our powers of explanation.

The following quotation is the central part of the passage I have in mind: