This essay constitutes an attempt to probe the very idea of a saying/showing distinction of the kind that Wittgenstein advances in the Tractatus—to say what such a distinction consists in, to say what philosophical work it has to do, and to say how we might be justified in drawing such a distinction. Towards the end of the essay the discussion is related to Wittgenstein’s later work. It is argued that we can profitably see this work in such a way that (...) a saying/showing distinction arises there too. In particular, in the final sub-section of the essay, it is suggested that we can see in Wittgenstein’s later work an inducement to say what we are shown. (shrink)

This essay was written for a special issue of Philosophical Topics on the links between Kant and analytic philosophy. It explores these links through consideration of: Wittgenstein’s Tractatus; the logical positivism endorsed by Ayer; and the (very different) variation on that theme endorsed by Quine. It is argued that in all three cases we see analytic philosophers trying to attain and express a general philosophical understanding of why the bounds of sense should be drawn where they should—but thereby confronting the (...) aporia, which Kant too confronted, that it is impossible to do this without transgressing those very bounds. It is suggested in conclusion that the problem is in trying to attain and express such an understanding; in other words, that such an understanding is attainable, but not expressible. (shrink)

In 1929 Heidegger gave his Freiburg inaugural lecture entitled ‘What is Metaphysics?’ In it he announced: Das Nichts selbst nichtet, ‘The Nothing itself noths . This soon earned Heidegger fame as a purveyor of metaphysical nonsense. In his 1931 paper, ‘Overcoming of Metaphysics through Logical Analysis of Language’ Rudolf Carnap charged Heidegger with the offences of the whole metaphysical genre. His sentence has the same grammatical form as the sentence ‘The rain rains’ – a sentence which Carnap, or at least (...) his translator, regarded as a ‘meaningful sentence of ordinary language’. But this harmless guise conceals severe logical blemishes. Heidegger treats the indefinite pronoun ‘nothing’ as a noun, as the ‘name or description of an entity’. He introduces the meaningless word ’to noth‘. He implies, and later affirms, the existence of the nothing, when the ‘existence of this entity would be denied in its very definition’. If all this were not enough, the sentence is meaningless, since it is neither analytic, nor contradictory, nor empirical. It is metaphysics, and metaphysics seriously damages our spiritual health. (shrink)

The Beiträge zur Philosophie mandates a paradigm shift in Heidegger scholarship. In the face of (1) widespread disarray in the current model, the new paradigm (2) abandons Sein as a name for die Sache selbst, (3) understands Welt/Lichtung/Da as that which gives being, (4) interprets Dasein as apriori openedness rather than as being-there, (5) understands the Kehre as the interface of Geworfenheit and Entwurf, not as a shift in Heidegger's thinking, (6) interprets Ereignis as the opening of the Da rather (...) than as appropriation, and (7) understands human finitude as what gives all forms of being and all epochs in the history of being. The conclusion alludes to the function of Mitdasein (co-openness) as die Sache selbst. (shrink)

Biographical note: Tim Mehigan and Barry Empson, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.