Two Kantian Issues within Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: Autonomy of the Will and Duty

Abstract

The aim of the article is to analyze Wittgenstein’s Tractatus starting from proposition 6.422, which deals with the question of moral duty in the form of the categorical imperative, “Thou shalt”, in the light of Kant’s doctrine of the autonomy of the will. It focuses especially on three Kantian assumptions: the idea of the will as the only foundation of obligation, the idea of a non-empirical subject of the will, and the inseparability between the idea of freedom and the concept of autonomy. These assumptions will be considered in comparison with Wittgenstein’s treatment of the problem of causality within the frame of the picture theory and the idea of a metaphysical subject as bearer of values.