A Ladder and a Cave

Wittgenstein's Tractatus does, at a first glance, employ a Platonic strategy, dividing the universe of discourse into two realms, with an atemporal, rationally transparent order determining a lower stratum. On closer inspection the Tractatus' „prototypes“ (Urbilder) come surprisingly close to Platonic ideas. The Wittgensteinian metaphor of a ladder may therefore profitably be compared to Plato's parable of ascent from a cave, the crucial difference being that Wittgenstein's image does not provide a return option. Feedback between the ideal and the real is, on the other hand, an essential ingredient of the success of Plato-style progress. The later Wittgenstein, consequently, rejects the metaphor of a ladder in favor of what might be called the trouble-free plateau of the ordinary. Yet, this is not his only lesson. He also considers a kind of reverse Platonism with the philosopher, confused about the way things are, in need of redemption.