Wittgenstein seeks to throw light on our concept of understanding by looking at how misunderstandings arise and what kinds of failure they involve. He discerns a peculiar sort of misunderstanding in the writings of the social anthropologist James Frazer. In Frazer’s hands, the anthropological project of enabling us to understand human behavior seems to yield the result that there are certain forms of human behavior that simply cannot be understood. The source of Frazer’s misunderstanding, according to Wittgenstein, is that he (...) places narrow requirements on what could count as meaningful, prior to and independently of his encounter with the subjects of his interpretation. Frazer, like some of the philosophers Wittgenstein addresses in his other works, succumbs to nonsense in his very attempt to draw the limits of sense. My aim in this chapter is to clarify the connections between Wittgenstein’s criticism of Frazer and his criticism of his fellow philosophers, in particular of Frege. The materials I draw on stem from various periods in Wittgenstein’s career, and they reveal, in my mind, an important continuity in Wittgenstein’s thought: addressing misunderstanding, in Wittgenstein’s view, is fundamentally an ethical problem, not a theoretical one. (shrink)

In this paper I criticize James Conant’s account of the ”austere conception of nonsense”. 1) Conant tells us that no distinctions are made within nonsense, according to the “austere conception of nonsense”. I argue that this is not the case. 2) Conant claims that there can be no fixed answers to whether a remark is nonsensical or not. He also provides a list of remarks that must be understood as meaningful. 3) I argue that it follows from Conant’s account that (...) the success of the philosophical project of the Tractatus depends on the reader undergoing a certain psychological process. It is however crucial for Wittgenstein, according to Conant, to follow Frege in the separation between philosophy and psychology. (shrink)

Central to a new, or 'resolute', reading of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico- Philosophicus is the idea that Wittgenstein held there an 'austere' view of nonsense: the view, that is, that nonsense is only ever a matter of our failure to give words a meaning, and so that there are no logically distinct kinds of nonsense. Resolute readers tend not only to ascribe such a view to Wittgenstein, but also to subscribe to it themselves; and it is also a feature of some (...) readings which in other respects are clearly not Resolute. This paper forms part of a reply to Hans-Johann Glock's work in which he argues (in part) that Wittgenstein in the Tractatus held a view of nonsense other than the austere view. Instead, Glock argues, Wittgenstein there held that there are many logically distinct kinds of nonsense. Here, I outline and defend the austere view, together with its attribution to the early Wittgenstein, against a number of Glock's criticisms, and focussing especially on Wittgenstein's reformulation in the Tractatus of Frege's context-principle. (shrink)

In this article I explore some implications of the correspondence that went on between Ludwig Wittgenstein and the logician and mathematician Gottlob Frege. Part of this exchange was focused on the envisaged publication of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, and on the philosophical or literary character of that work. The problem discussed concerned the question of whether the Tractatus should be seen not as a scientific but as an artistic achievement. My first goal is to present what, given Frege’s writings, his phrase (...) “an artistic rather than a scientific achievement” could be understood to mean in terms of the Tractatus itself. Secondly, I seek to determine the extent to which traces of Frege’s understanding of such terms as “mock thoughts,” “fiction,” “elucidation,” “paintings” and “colouring” are to be found in the language of the Tractatus. This should then make it possible to show how Wittgenstein’s work, viewed from a Fregean perspective, can be seen as furnishing a logic and semantics not only for the languages of logic and natural science, but also for something that is “an artistic rather than a scientific achievement”, while also indicating that the content of the Tractatus as a whole could not have been captured independently of the unified form Wittgenstein himself gave it. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn 1931 Wittgenstein wrote: ‘the limit of language manifests itself in the impossibility of describing the fact that corresponds to a sentence without simply repeating the sentence’. Here, Wittgenstein claims, ‘we are involved … with the Kantian solution of the problem of philosophy’. This paper shows how this remark fits with Wittgenstein's early account of the substance of the world, his account of logic, and ultimately his view of philosophy. By contrast to the currently influential resolute reading of the Tractatus, (...) the paper argues that the early Wittgenstein did not aim at destroying the idea of a limit of language, but that the notion lies at the very heart of Wittgenstein's early view. In doing so, the paper employs and defends the Kantian interpretation of Wittgenstein's early philosophy. (shrink)

In sections 18 and 73 of Carnap’s Logical Syntax of Language , Carnap famously presents what he understands to be decisive objections to Wittgenstein’s Tractarian distinction between saying and showing. However, Carnap has been criticized in recent literature for severely misinterpreting that distinction. Against this criticism it is argued that Carnap reads that distinction as applying to two distinct classes of expressions ( Unsinn and sinnlos ) that he holds to emerge from his reading of Tractatus 4.1212 and related Tractarian (...) theses. It is then argued that Carnap’s counterexamples to Wittgenstein’s theses are successful given his reading, and that our analysis of his counterexamples puts us in a unique position to reevaluate his conventionalism. (shrink)

Both Frege's Grundgesetze, and Lagrange's treatises on analytical functions pursue a foundational purpose. Still, the former's program is not only crucially different from the latter's. It also depends on a different idea of what foundation of mathematics should be like . Despite this contrast, the notion of function plays similar roles in their respective programs. The purpose of my paper is emphasising this similarity. In doing it, I hope to contribute to a better understanding of Frege's logicism, especially in relation (...) to its crucial differences with a set-theoretic foundational perspective. This should also spread some light on a question arisen by J. Hintikka and G. Sandu in a widely discussed paper, namely whether Frege should or should not be credited with the notion of arbitrary function underlying our standard interpretation of second-order logic. In section 1, I account for Lagrange's notion of function. In section 2, I advance some remarks on connected historical matters. This will provide an appropriate framework for discussing the role played by the notion of function in Frege's Grundgesetze. Section 3 is devoted to this. Some concluding remarks will close the paper. (shrink)

I argue that Ludwig Wittgenstein’s idea of the metaphysical subject sheds new light on subjective qualities of experience. In this article I draw first of all on the interpretations provided by Michael Kremer and James Conant. Subsequently, I conclude that “what is it like” means primarily “what is it like to see myself as the metaphysical subject”.

The main question addressed by this article is this: How should one understand the role of the sentences of the Tractatus, given Wittgenstein’s statement that they are nonsensical? I begin with a presentation of three general principles of interpretation in order to avoid answering the question in an inappropriate way. I then move on to a short presentation and commentary on a selection of readings – namely, the ineffabilist, resolute and elucidatory ones – and elaborate the answers given by advocates (...) of these to the question explored here. I agree on many points with resolute and elucidatory readings: the Tractatus presents an austere conception of nonsense, and is not a book that seeks to present ontological or semantic theories. I point out, however, that these readings cannot fully explain the nature of Tractarian elucidations. Then I discuss those parts of the Tractatus which refer to the sentences of the book itself. The main proposal of my own approach is this: Tractarian elucidations should be construed as rules of translation, in that they show how to substitute certain expressions for others. They enable us to construct a notation in which everything that is expressible in ordinary language can be said perspicuously. (shrink)

In Paradoxes of Delusion, Sass aims to use passages from Wittgenstein to characterize the feeling of “mute particularity” that forms a part of delusional atmosphere. I argue that Wittgenstein’s discussion provides no helpful positive account. But his remarks on more everyday cases of the uncanny and the feeling of unreality might seem to promise a better approach via the expressive use of words in secondary sense. I argue that this also is a false hope but that, interestingly, there can be (...) no interesting or substantial explanation of this failure. (shrink)

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (TLP) turns hundred years of its publication in the year 2021. The book has received several interpretations during this period of hundred years. However, in the last three decades, the interpretations of TLP have taken a very tenacious position with regard to the debates among scholars concerning whether there is any metaphysical significance in the text. The debates primarily offshoot in the rise of anti-metaphysical or often known as resolute reading that challenges the standard or metaphysical reading. The (...) present paper, however, goes beyond this debate between the resolute and standard reading of TLP. The paper aims at addressing various types of metaphysical reading(s) that has not been perhaps the centre of discussion because the resolute reading takes on only standard reading. Thus, the present paper attempts to show the variety of metaphysical interpretations of the text in some of the recent literatures. (shrink)

[A. W. Moore] There are criteria of ineffability whereby, even if the concept of ineffability can never serve to modify truth, it can sometimes serve to modify other things, specifically understanding. This allows for a reappraisal of the dispute between those who adopt a traditional reading of Wittgenstein's Tractatus and those who adopt the new reading recently championed by Diamond, Conant, and others. By maintaining that what the nonsense in the Tractatus is supposed to convey is ineffable understanding, rather than (...) ineffable truth, we can do considerable justice to each of these readings. We can also do considerable justice to the Tractatus. /// [Peter Sullivan] Moore proposes to cut between 'traditional' and 'new' approaches to the Tractatus, suggesting that Wittgenstein's intention is to convey, through the knowing use of nonsense, ineffable understanding. I argue, first, that there is indeed room for a proposal of Moore's general kind. Secondly, though, I question whether Moore's actual proposal is not more in tune with Wittgenstein's later thought than with the attitude of the Tractatus. (shrink)

The article argues for a contextualised reading of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. It analyses in detail the role that use and application play in the text and how that supports a conception of transcendentality of logic that allows for contextualisation. The article identifies a tension in the text, between the requirement that sense be determinate and the contextual nature of application, and suggests that it is this tension that is a major driver of Wittgenstein’s later ideas.

Bertrand Russell's 1903 masterpiece "The Principles of Mathematics" places great emphasis on the need to separate propositions from psychological items such as thoughts. In 1919 Russell explicitly retracts this view, however, and defines propositions as "psychological occurrences". These psychological occurrences are held by Russell to be mental images. In this paper, I seek to explain this radical change of heart. I argue that Russell's re-psychologising of the proposition in 1919 can only be understood against the background of his struggle with (...) the problem of the unity of the proposition in earlier work. Once this is recognized, and the solution to the problem offered by the 1919 theory is appreciated, new light is also shed on Russell's naturalism. I go on to compare Russell's psychological "picture theory" with the vehemently anti-psychological picture theory of Wittgenstein's "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" and suggest that, once the background of the dispute is brought into clearer focus, Russell's position can be seen to have many advantages over its more celebrated rival. (shrink)

This paper reconsiders the notion that Nagarjuna and Wittgenstein’s Tractatus may only be seen as comparable under a shared ineffability thesis, that is, the idea that reality is impossible to describe in sensible discourse. Historically, Nagarjuna and the early Wittgenstein have both been widely construed as offering either metaphysical theories or attempts to refute all such theories. Instead, by employing an interpretive framework based on a ‘resolute’ reading of the Tractatus, I suggest we see their philosophical affinity in terms of (...) a shared conception of philosophical method without proposing theses. In doing so, this offers us a new way to understand Nagarjuna’s characteristic claims both to have ‘no views’ and refusal to accept that things exist ‘inherently’ or with ‘essence’. Therefore, instead of either a view about the nature of a mind-independent ‘ultimate reality’ or a thesis concerning the rejection of such a domain, I propose that we understand Nagarjuna’s primary aim as ‘therapeutic’, that is, concerned with the dissolution of philosophical problems. However, this ‘therapy’ should neither be confined to the psychotherapeutic metaphor nor should it be taken to imply a private enlightenment only available to philosophers. Instead, for Nagarjuna and Wittgenstein, philosophical problems are cast as a source of disquiet for all of us; what their work offers is a soteriology, a means towards our salvation. (shrink)

In this paper I aim to elucidate Wittgenstein’s claim that the so-called dream argument is senseless. Unlike other interpreters, who understand the sentence “I am dreaming” as contradictory or self-defeating, I intend to elucidate in what sense one should understand it as senseless or, more precisely, as nonsensical. In this sense, I propose to understand the above-mentioned claim in light of Wittgenstein’s criticism of skepticism from the _Tractatus logico-philosophicus_ to his last writings. I intend to show that the words “I (...) am dreaming” are nonsensical in the same sense as the alleged proposition “There are physical objects” or the expression of doubt about the existence of external objects. (shrink)

Gillett argues that there are unexpected confluences between the tradition of Frege and Wittgenstein and that of Freud and Lacan. I counter that that the substance of the exegeses of Frege and Wittgenstein in Gillett's paper are flawed, and that these mistakes in turn tellingly point to unclarities in the Lacanian picture of language, unclarities left unresolved by Gillett. Lacan on language is simply a kind of enlarged/distorted mirror image of the Anglo-American psychosemanticists: where they emphasize information and representation, he (...) emphasizes evocation and connotation. Neither contrasting emphasis is remotely adequate to linguistic action-in-the-world. Is "the unconscious", as Lacan claims, a "network of signifiers"? Arguably, yes; but most ordinary / actual language does not involve such "signification". Words primarily "signify" concepts or things only in exceptional circumstances; normally, words are transparent, and nothing at all is meant by them except in an actual situation of use of a sentence. Second, is "the unconscious" structured like a language? Again, yes-- if we understand by "language" what Lacan asks us to. "The unconscious" arguably is structured like a language--as Lacan (inadequately) understands language. (shrink)

Alice Crary claims that “the standard view of the bearing of Wittgenstein's philosophy on ethics” is dominated by “inviolability interpretations”, which often underlie conservative readings of Wittgenstein. Crary says that such interpretations are “especially marked in connection with On Certainty”, where Wittgenstein is represented as holding that “our linguistic practices are immune to rational criticism, or inviolable”. Crary's own conception of the bearing of Wittgenstein's philosophy on ethics, which I call the “intrinsically-ethical reading”, derives from the influential New Wittgenstein school (...) of exegesis, and is also espoused by James Edwards, Cora Diamond, and Stephen Mulhall. To my eyes, intrinsically-ethical readings present a peculiar picture of ethics, which I endeavour to expose in Part I of the paper. In Part II I present a reading of On Certainty that Crary would call an “inviolability interpretation”, defend it against New Wittgensteinian critiques, and show that this kind of reading has nothing to do with ethical or political conservatism. I go on to show how Wittgenstein's observations on the manner in which we can neither question nor affirm certain states of affairs that are fundamental to our epistemic practices can be fruitfully extended to ethics. Doing so sheds light on the phenomenon that I call “basic moral certainty”, which constitutes the foundation of our ethical practices, and the scaffolding or framework of moral perception, inquiry, and judgement. The nature and significance of basic moral certainty will be illustrated through consideration of the strangeness of philosophers' attempts at explaining the wrongness of killing. (shrink)

Wittgenstein is often invoked in philosophical disputes over the ethical justifiability of our treatment of animals. Many protagonists believe that Wittgenstein's philosophy points to a quantum difference between human and animal nature that arises out of humans' linguistic capacity. For this reason - its alleged anthropocentrism - animal liberationists tend to dismiss Wittgenstein's philosophy, whereas, for the same reason, anti-liberationists tend to embrace it. I endorse liberationist moral claims, but think that many on both sides of the dispute fail to (...) grasp the import of Wittgenstein's philosophy. My argument proceeds through close engagement with Michael Leahy's Against Liberation, which makes extensive use of Wittgenstein's 'notion of language-games' as an 'essential methodological aid' in its defence and justification of the moral status quo. Leahy's understanding and application of that method exemplifies an entrenched interpretative stance in the wider Wittgensteinian scholarship which I seek to counter. This enables me to show that far from entailing conservatism, as some of his critics and followers contend, Wittgenstein's philosophical method is just as conducive to radical moral and political critique as it is to any other normative position. (shrink)

Using the later Levinas as a point of departure, this article tries to provide an account of the ethics of Wittgenstein's Tractatus . Although there has not been written much on this topic, there seems to be an increasing awareness among philosophers that there are interesting points of convergence between Levinas and the early Wittgenstein. In contrast to most (if not all) other accounts of the relation, however, this article argues that the truly significant convergence emerges only when one abandons (...) the received interpretation of the early Wittgenstein, and instead opts for something more akin to the ‘new Wittgenstein’ interpretation introduced by Cora Diamond and James Conant, among others. On the received interpretation, Wittgenstein places ethics in a realm of ineffable being and truth, and thus remains within what Levinas calls ontology. But on Conant's and Diamond's reading of Wittgenstein, there really are no profound ethical truths that we cannot state, but only ‘show’; all the sentences of the Tractatus that appear to claim otherwise are ultimately completely nonsensical. This article argues that the Tractatus has an ‘ethical point’ in a quite Levinasian sense, precisely because of the way it unveils its sentences as utterly nonsensical; for this can be seen as a Wittgensteinian attempt to ‘unsay’ the ‘said’, in order to let the ‘saying’ itself be heard. Key Words: ethics • Emmanuel Levinas • nonsense • the Other • said • saying • Ludwig Wittgenstein. (shrink)

I examine what I shall call meta-philosophy: a philosophical examination into what philosophy is, can be, should be, something of what it has been, what the point (if any) of it is and what, if anything, it can contribute to our understanding of and the making sense of our lives, including our lives individually and together, and of the social order in which we live.

In Morris I presented in outline a new interpretation of the famous ‘substance argument’ in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. The account I presented there gave a distinctive view of Wittgenstein’s main concerns in the argument, but did not explain in detail how the argument works: how its steps are to be found in the text, and how it concludes. I remain convinced that the interpretation I proposed correctly identifies the main concerns which lie behind the argument. I return to the argument here (...) in order to elaborate in fuller detail the relation between those concerns and the actual course of the text. (shrink)

After more than a century of its development, philosophers working in the analytic tradition have recently begun to consider its history as an object of philosophical investigation.1 This development, particularly significant in the context of a tradition of inquiry that has often conceived of its own problems as ahistorical, is salutary in that it offers to show what, within the tradition, remains rich and vital for philosophy today, as well as to extract the significant theoretical and doctrinal results that can (...) be considered to have been achieved in its itinerary so far. The appearance of a comprehensive, two-volume consideration of the history of analytic philosophy in the twentieth century, written by one of the tradition’s leading contemporary practitioners, is therefore cause for excitement. And Scott Soames’ two-volume Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century is, by any measure, an impressive work. Running to almost 900 pages, it assembles careful, meticulous and detailed expositions and analyses of the arguments and positions of a wide variety of thinkers within the analytic tradition, evaluating the extent of their insight and suggesting implications for philosophical thought today. The analysis is uniformly lucid and clearly written, offering the student of the analytic tradition an indispensable source of arguments she may want to consider in her own work, as well as, in its own argumentation, a suggestive model of at least one way of doing analytic philosophy. Over the course of his reconstructive and evaluative analysis, Soames considers the views and arguments of early analytic philosophers like Russell and Moore, logical positivists like Ayer and.. (shrink)

Frege ridiculed the formalist conception of mathematics by saying that the formalists confused the unimportant thing, the sign, with the important, the meaning. Surely, one wishes to say, mathematics does not treat of dashes on a bit of paper. Frege’s idea could be expressed thus: the propositions of mathematics, if they were just complexes of dashes, would be dead and utterly uninteresting, whereas they obviously have a kind of life. And the same, of course, could be said of any proposition: (...) Without a sense, or without the thought, a proposition would be an utterly dead and trivial thing. And further it seems clear that no adding of inorganic signs can make the proposition live. And the conclusion which one draws from this is that what must be added to the dead signs in order to make a live proposition is something immaterial, with properties different from all mere signs. But if we had to name anything which is the life of the sign, we should have to say that it was its use. (Blue Book, p. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the status of a symbol in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. It is claimed in the first section that a Tractarian symbol, whilst essentially a syntactic entity to be distinguished from the mark or sound that is its sign, bears its semantic significance only inessentially. In the second and third sections I pursue this point of exegesis through the Tractarian discussions of nonsense and the context principle respectively. The final section of the paper places the forgoing work in (...) a secondary context, addressing in particular a debate regarding the realism of the Tractatus. (shrink)

Our approach to the liar paradox is based on the Wittgensteinian approach to semantic and logical paradoxes. The main aim of this article is to point out that the liar sentence is only seemingly intelligible, and that it has not been given any sense. First, we will present the traditional solutions of the paradox, especially those which we call modificational. Then we will determine what the defects of these solutions are. Our main objection is that the modificational approaches assume that (...) we can express in languages certain senses which are improper. Next, we will explain why we think that the liar sentence is a mere nonsense. This sentence does not have any role in any language game – it is completely useless. We will also respond to several objections to our approach. 1. That it is not consistent with the principle of compositionality of sense. 2. According to the Quineian philosophy of logic, paradoxical sentences can be conceived as false assumptions leading to crises of logical paradigms. 3. The liar sentence seems to be, contrary to our approach, intelligible. (shrink)

It is possible to pursue philosophy with a clarificatory end in mind. Doing philosophy in this mode neither reduces to simply engaging in therapy or theorizing. This paper defends the possibility of this distinctive kind of philosophical activity and gives an account of its product—non-theoretical insights—in an attempt to show that there exists a third, ‘live’ option for understanding what philosophy has to offer. It responds to criticisms leveled at elucidatory philosophy by defenders of extreme therapeutic readings and clearly demonstrates (...) that in rejecting the latter one cannot assume Wittgenstein’s approach to philosophy was theoretically based by default. (shrink)

Much has been written on the relative merits of different readings of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The recent renewal of the debate has almost exclusively been concerned with variants of the ineffabilist (metaphysical) reading of TL-P - notable such readings have been advanced by Elizabeth Anscombe, P. M. S. Hacker and H. O. Mounce - and the recently advanced variants of therapeutic (resolute) readings - notable advocates of which are James Conant, Cora Diamond, Juliet Floyd and Michael Kremer. During this debate, (...) there have been a number of writers who have tried to develop a third way, incorporating what they see as insights and avoiding what they see as flaws in both the ineffabilist and resolute readings. The most prominent advocates of these elucidatory readings of TL-P are Dan Hutto (2003) and Marie McGinn (1999). In this paper we subject Hutto's and McGinn's readings of TL-P to critical scrutiny. We find that in seeking to occupy the middle ground they ultimately find themselves committed to (and in the process commit Wittgenstein to) the very ineffabilism they (and Wittgenstein) are seeking to overcome. (shrink)

“Resolute” readings of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus maintain that the book is divided into two parts: an intelligible “frame” and an unintelligible “body.” This article questions the validity of the “frame/body distinction” and, by extension, the resolute reading itself. It first establishes the tenability of the resolute programme as entirely dependent upon such a frame/body distinction. It then explores three possible ways the claim that the Tractatus contains such a distinction might be grounded, arguing in each case why it cannot do (...) so. It therefore concludes that the frame/body distinction is unjustified, and the resolute reading untenable. (shrink)

RESUMO O objetivo deste artigo é mostrar que as interpretações "tradicional" e "resoluta" não livraram o "Tractatus" da aparente autoderrota paradoxal. Argumento que essas leituras apresentam apenas uma nova roupagem ao paradoxo. A leitura "tradicional" de Hacker acaba atribuindo uma conspiração metafísica ao "Tractatus", o que é incompatível com os objetivos do livro. A leitura "resoluta" de Diamond e Conant atribui a Wittgenstein uma conspiração autoral, o que contradiz suas opiniões sobre autoria e método. Com base nas dificuldades encontradas em (...) ambos os lados do debate atual, concluo este artigo propondo vários requisitos que a correta interpretação do "Tractatus" deve preencher. (shrink)

This work addresses the critical discussion featured in the contemporary literature about two well-known paradoxes belonging to different philosophical traditions, namely Frege’s puzzling claim that “the concept horse is not a concept” and Gongsun Long’s “white horse is not horse”. We first present the source of Frege’s paradox and its different interpretations, which span from plain rejection to critical analysis, to conclude with a more general view of the role of philosophy as a fight against the misunderstandings that come from (...) the different uses of language (a point later developed by the “second” Wittgenstein). We then provide an overview of the ongoing discussions related to the Bai Ma Lun paradox, and we show that its major interpretations include—as in the case of Frege’s paradox—dismissive accounts that regard it as either useless or wrong, as well as attempts to interpret and repair the argument. Resting on our reading of Frege’s paradox as an example of the inescapability of language misunderstandings, we advance a similar line of interpretation for the paradox in the Bai Ma Lun: both the paradoxes, we suggest, can be regarded as different manifestations of similar concerns about language, and specifically about the difficulty of referring to concepts via language. (shrink)

This short note takes another look at the ideas proposed by the ‘New Wittgen steinians’, focusing on a feature of the discussion these ideas have generated that hitherto seems to have received comparatively little attention, viz., certain assumptions about the conception of philosophy as an intellectual enterprise, including its relation to the sciences, that seem to be adopted by both the New Wittgensteinians and (many of) their critics.

This chapter investigates how a reading of Wittgenstein along the lines laid out by Cora Diamond makes room for a novel approach to ethical truth. Following Diamond, I develop the connection between the kinds of elucidatory propositions by means of which we spell out and maintain the shape of our theoretical thinking, such as “‘someone’ is not the name of someone” and “five plus seven equals twelve,” and the kind of propositions by means of which we spell out and maintain (...) the shape of ethical thinking, such as “slavery is unjust.” As Diamond points out in connection with the last example, this is a proposition that we take to be an undeniable truth; for anyone who would attempt to negate it would become unintelligible to us. In this sense this ethical truth spells out the limits of ethical thinking. And yet what counts as coherent thought about such matters tends to shift over time. Indeed the great difficulty of overcoming ethical disagreements has to do with the fact that what is at stake in them is not just the content, but the form and limits of thought. Nonetheless, Diamond proposes that ethical propositions may count as genuine truths. For this to make sense, a middle path between realism and relativism must be found. In order to show how this is possible, and in order to defend Diamond’s view, I propose to approach ethical truth by means of a disjunctivist strategy. On this approach, while we, just as much as our interlocutor, may at times be misled in our ethical thinking, and while we may at times fail to shape our ethical thought in ways that prevent us from gaining clarity on ethical matters, this does not detract from the fact that we may at times be right, and that we may then genuinely possess ethical truth. (shrink)

This thesis investigates the continuity of Wittgenstein’s approach to, and conception of, philosophy. Part One examines the rule-following passages of the Philosophical Investigations. I argue that Wittgenstein’s remarks can only be read as interesting and coherent if we see him, as urged by prominent commentators, resisting the possibility of a certain ‘sideways-on’ perspective. There is real difficulty, however, in ascertaining what the resulting Wittgensteinian position is: whether it is position structurally analogous with Kant’s distinction between empirical realism and transcendental idealism, (...) or whether philosophical ‘therapy’ is meant to dissolve any drive towards such idealism. I argue that both of these readings of Wittgenstein are found in the work of McDowell. Part Two argues that related issues arise in respect to the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and the question of realism. In the Tractatus Wittgenstein rejects the possibility of a certain ‘sideways-on’ perspective. Again, I argue, it is unclear whether Wittgenstein embraces a form of transcendental idealism or, on the contrary, ultimately reveals the idealist position to be empty. Part Three connects ‘sideways-on’ glances with the threat of idealism by introducing a philosophical ‘measure’. I argue that the measure is a useful tool in assessment of the Tractatus, and shows that Wittgenstein was no idealist, but is less useful as an assessment of the Investigations. It yields the result that Wittgenstein succumbed to idealism, but in doing so may overlook the ‘therapeutic’ nature of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. (shrink)

The task of this paper is to exhibit Wittgenstein’s method of perspicuous presentation as aiming at a distinctive kind of self-knowledge. Three influential readings of Wittgenstein’s concept of perspicuous presentation – Hacker’s, Baker’s and Sluga’s – are examined. All of them present what Wittgenstein calls the “unsurveyablity of our grammar” as a result of the “complexity” of our language. Contrary to this, a fundamental difference between matter-of-factual complexity and the unsurveyability of grammar is pointed out. What perspicuous presentations are designed (...) to deal with, isn’t, accordingly, occasioned by the complexity of our language but by an unnoticed assimilation of our own activities as speaking beings to matter-of-factual affairs. In response to this, perspicuous presentations help us to fully appropriate our activities as speakers in virtue of achieving a transparent understanding of the use of “our words”. It thus provides us with a distinctive kind of grammatical self-knowledge. (shrink)

The paper examines the ethical standpoint of the Tractatus as it has been reconstructed by Cora Diamond (“the austere view”) and gives an account of some of the criticism this reconstruction has received in the work of P. M. S. Hacker and Meredith Williams (“the standard view”). The second half of the paper tries to argue that the austere and the standard views rather complement each other if we recognize “two I ’-s” in the Tractatus and if it is supposed (...) that there is a “3rd person” and “1st person” perspective which are both voiced on its pages. (shrink)

This thesis undertakes a systematic, tripartite analysis of the interactions between the fiction and essays of Thomas Pynchon and the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Michel Foucault and Theodor W. Adorno, resulting in a solid set of original reference-material for those undertaking work on Pynchon and philosophy, or more generally on philosophico-literary intersections. Premised upon the notion that Pynchon's literature harbours a fundamental hostility to much systematizing philosophical thought, this work avoids a dominating imposition of philosophy, or an application of philosophical (...) thought as a validating Other, by examining those aspects of Pynchon's work that seem ill at ease with, or aggressive towards, aspects of each philosopher's thought. This is explored through the concept of an intra-textual polyvocality and relational situation of philosophical intersection; when Wittgenstein is cited, for instance, who is speaking and what are the connotations of that placement? I do not propose, therefore, a Wittgensteinian / Foucauldian / Adornian Pynchon, but rather explicitly highlight excluded aspects of thought to instead develop a complementary reading; a form of intersubjective triangulation. This polyvocality is examined from a univocal perspective. The specific conclusions of this work re-situate Pynchon, in many cases against forty years of critical consensus, as a quasi-materialist or at least anti-idealist, a regulative utopist and a practitioner of an anti-synthetic style akin to Adorno's model of negative dialectics. In a broader sense, it answers the questions regarding hostility towards philosophical thought in Pynchon's work by demonstrating that no single philosophical standpoint has yet to totally resonate with even one of his novels. Simultaneously, it also shows that a profitable approach can be found in the spaces of philosophical overlap and divergence. (shrink)

This article analyses Wittgenstein’s conception of nonsense and, against resolute interpretations, defends that, perhaps influenced by Mauthner and Weininger, the Tractatus author conceived corrects ontological and ethical nonsenses like nearly to tautological senseless.

This thesis focuses on 'New' or 'Resolute' readings of Wittgenstein's work, early and later, as presented in the work of, for instance, Cora Diamond and James Conant. One of the principal claims of such readings is that, throughout his life, Wittgenstein held an 'austere' view of nonsense. That view has both a trivial and a non-trivial aspect. The trivial aspect is that any string of signs could, by appropriate assignment, be given a meaning, and hence that, if such a string (...) is nonsense, that will be because we have failed to make just such an assignment. The non-trivial aspect is this: that there is no further, non-trivial story to be told, and so nonsense is only ever a matter of our failure to give signs a meaning. Hence, too, logically speaking, all nonsense is on a par. That view, both of nonsense and of Wittgenstein, has attracted a great deal of controversy. It is particularly controversial in relation to Wittgenstein's 'Tractatus', where Wittgenstein famously declares, in the penultimate remark, that the reader is to recognise Wittgenstein's own elucidatory propositions there as nonsensical, and must eventually throw them away in coming to understand Wittgenstein himself. I defend the austere view and its attribution to Wittgenstein, early and later, against a number of exegetical and substantial criticisms put forward by, for instance, Peter Hacker, Hans-Johann Glock and Adrian Moore. (shrink)

This thesis sketches an interpretation of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus centering on his treatment of necessity and normativity. The purpose is to unite Wittgenstein’s account of logic and language with his brief remarks on ethics by stressing the transcendental nature of each. Wittgenstein believes that both logic and ethics give necessary preconditions for the existence of language and the world, and because these conditions are necessary, neither logic nor ethics can be normative. I conclude by erasing the standard line drawn between his (...) philosophy and his ethics, and redrawing it between the philosophical and artistic presentations of his thought, the latter being what remains after the nonsensical status of the work is recognized. (shrink)

In the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus we find Wittgenstein’s first and most substantial published investigation of ethics. I will argue that if the ethical sections of the Tractatus are seen in connection with a particular concept of showing, they then reveal a coherent and radical alternative to traditional conceptions of ethics; an alternative which sheds light on Wittgenstein’s claim that ethics cannot be expressed and the necessity of ethics. But I furthermore want to argue that the reasons leading Wittgenstein to a demand (...) for silence in ethics falls away if one looks at the later investigations of necessity which he makes in On Certainty. (shrink)

This essay takes up the significance of Wittgenstein's philosophy for our understanding of literature (and vice versa) through a comparative reading of the stakes and aims of Kafka's and Wittgenstein's respective circa 1922 puzzle texts “Von den Gleichnissen” (“On Parables”) and the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The essay builds upon the so-called resolute program of Wittgenstein interpretation developed by Cora Diamond, James Conant, and others, bringing its insights to bear on Kafka's perplexing work. The essay explores the ethical weight of these two (...) writers' investment in the philosophical depth of riddles, irony, and parabolic and nonsensical expression as unorthodox modes of indirect instruction about ordinary language and world, the yearning for transcendence, and the failure to achieve it. Both demanding works deal with the ethical difference between “getting” the philosophical import of a story or joke and not getting it in the context of an examination of the relationship (or lack thereof) between the activities and difficulties of everyday life, on the one hand, and those of literary expression and/or spiritual or philosophical teaching, on the other. Both strive to open readers to experience — as revealed through everyday language — by leading us beyond the dichotomy of facticity and transcendence, away from the urge to transcend the limits of language, and toward a recognition of the possibility of seeing our ordinary dealing with things as presenting a face of significance that is at once linguistically meaningful and ethically valuable. The central aim of this discussion of Wittgenstein's Tractatus and “Lecture on Ethics” alongside Kafka's parable is to examine the ways in which Wittgenstein's philosophical outlook, writing, and method (shaped by his general attraction to the Book and book writing as well as by his reading of certain works of literature) are deeply relevant to literary studies, and particularly to our understanding of literary modernism. (shrink)