Is There Room for a Transcendental Aesthetic in Wittgenstein’s Early Thought?

In “Notes Dictated to G. E. Moore in Norway”, Wittgenstein makes the following remark: From the fact that I that one spot is to the left of another, or that one colour is darker than another, it seems to follow that it so; and if so, this can only be if there is an relation between the two; and we might express this by saying that the of the latter is part of the of the former. We might thus give a sense to the assertion that logical forms are of thought and space and time of intuition. (NB, p. 118) The final sentence makes an unmistakable reference to Kant’s distinction between transcendental logic and transcendental aesthetic. While the transcendentality of logic in Wittgenstein’s early thought has been widely discussed in light of Kant’s First Critique, little has been said about the possibility of there being room for a transcendental aesthetic in Wittgenstein’s early thought. This chapter examines Wittgenstein’s pre-Tractatus notes in order to fill this gap in previous research.