Keith Begley

This article investigates the clothing metaphor in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus at remark 4.002. I consider the antecedents and origins of 4.002, in particular, of the fourth paragraph that contains the metaphor, and also suggest and argue for potential source texts for the third and fourth paragraphs. In particular, early sources for the Tractatus, such as the Notes on Logic and the Notebooks 1914–1916, letters, and other manuscripts and early drafts are considered, especially MS104 and the Prototractatus where the metaphor appears at remarks 4.0014 & 4.00141. The place of the metaphor among the context of the elucidations of these early manuscripts is discussed. I also consider similar uses of the metaphor that are present in the work of Hertz, Boltzmann, Frege, Kraus, and others. Some of these texts and potential influences are more compelling than those previously adduced or recognised in the literature. The appearances of the metaphor in the work of these authors and their potential influence upon Wittgenstein’s work is discussed.

In this article, I shed new light on a misunderstood aspect of Heraclitus’ style. The opposites employed by Heraclitus are often of equal status except that one member of each pair may also appear as a designation for the encompassing whole. I begin by discussing two interpretations of this phenomenon, which were put forward by Roman Dilcher and Alexander Mourelatos. The phenomenon is, I suggest, better understood as being an example of what is known as markedness neutralisation. I argue that this phenomenon should be interpreted as further undermining what Mourelatos identified as a naïve paratactic metaphysics of mere things (NMT), to which Heraclitus was reacting by beginning to develop a hypotactic metaphysics of hierarchies and dependencies as part of a view of the world as being logos-textured. Further, I consider a series of three problems that were put forward by Dilcher, which he thinks must be addressed by anyone who claims that Heraclitus held a unity of opposites thesis. I also consider some related issues, and provide some responses.

This chapter discusses the nature of software maintenance in light of software’s ontological status. A realist view of software need not commit us to the otiose position that software maintenance is impossible. Many philosophers and computer scientists have been concerned with drawing attention to software’s dual nature, its being both symbolic and physical, abstract and concrete. There are strong connections to be found between this topic and recent investigations in the philosophy of linguistics, particularly the metaphysics of words. It is shown, contra Irmak, that software can be best understood through a realist type-token distinction employing an ontology of composite objects that was put forward by Katz. This approach employs both non-spatiotemporal abstract types and tokens of those types. Further developing Katz’s realist approach can help to make better sense of the dual nature of computational artefacts and their maintenance than the alternatives outlined. Young claims that a prevalent imbalanced view of maintenance as solely conservative is due to a misunderstanding of the nature of artefacts as being realisations of their producers’ intentions. This is a problem for theories of artefacts that employ intentions, such as the one involved with the realist view of software and software maintenance. Software maintenance on this view is not solely conservative but also adaptive and enhancive, constituting a source of counterexamples to Young’s claim. An alternative explanation of the imbalanced view is provided, based on observations by software engineers, especially Sommerville.