Okay, so maybe I’m a little naive here. Maybe I’m just not getting something that should be obvious… but when Wittgenstein says:
Now, I suppose some philosophers figure they’re being clever or profound by making statements that seem rather paradoxical - and at times they are (namely when the statement is paradoxical only on the surface) - but Wittgenstein’s statement strikes me as paradoxical at every depth. He is essentially saying that his entire treatise is senseless. Why then do so many take the Logico-Philosophicus as the Bible of twentieth century philosophy? Why has no one ever cared to point out the seemingly obvious alternative: that if the LP is senseless, then… well, it’s senseless, and can be dismissed out of philosophy as meaningless drivel?
Is it just me??? Am I missing something???
Wittgenstein does offer us a substitute to the senselessness of metaphysics and other various branches of philosophy - he says that although one cannot speak on such matters, one can nevertheless show such matters to be true (or valid). Is this the sense in which he regards the LP? Has he ‘shown’ us something rather than speak it?
If this is the case - that he has shown us that various branches of philosophy, including his own, are senseless - then what’s the essential difference between showing and speaking? And what does it matter? If he can write his LP as a means of showing his point to be true as opposed to speaking it, then what difference does it make whether you call it ‘showing’ or ‘speaking’ - you’re basically doing the same thing: writing your thoughts as a means to establish ideas/beliefs in the mind of the reader.
The point is -you have to understand the book and understand why it is sensless. To someone who doesn’t understand the truths elucidated - the premises should be perfectly meaningful. There is supposed to be inhenrent value in the journey itself and the truth thats discovered- this is his Quietism.
It certainly isn’t proclaiming itself as ‘drivel’!
They are only senseless because all language is meaningless. His propositions may lack meaning - but no more so than anything you or anyone else has ever written.
The book is certainly no more senseless than any other piece of language you read. But like all language, they appear meaningful. At least, that’s Wittgenstein’s point (if you reject his conclusion, then the propositions aren’t meaningless so you’ve no problem).
There are a few nihilist authors writing fiction today, and while I enjoy their other themes, there is always this feeling that they a pitching the storyline like this: Nothing matters, so let me describe how nothing matters in all its rich detail.
I wonder why these people put forth the effort to communicate on a large scale. All I can come up with is this: they had no other choice. They couldn’t tie their shoe in the real world.
Its like they recognize the world as confusing buzzing blur, and by investigating it, they realize they can only add to the confusion. At the very least, it makes the investigation even more of a hurdle for future investigators to jump. “If I’m not going to figure it out, nobody will.” They throw themselves headlong into the practice of causing confusion, just keep the tradition alive.
Its one of the greatest arguments in philosophy ever. It looks like there should be an easy answer to the sceptic, something easy and obvious that will solve the problem. But there isn’t - and thats what makes it hollowing.
(I think your quite flippant in your remarks - how can you possibly dismiss the conclusion without having undertsood the argument? And don’t you think its bizarre that every modern philosopher of language’s work is shaped by something that is ‘trivial’?)
All right, BM, I’m in a better state of mind this morning (I was drunk last night when I wrote that), but I still stand by it.
It’s trivial because if that’s really what Wittgenstein meant then nothing comes of it. It has no consequences for anything we do or say. In fact, we’d be forced to go on exactly how we’ve always gone on, for language and the words we use are an intricate part of daily life, and the world would stop turning if we ceased to use language because we thought it was meaningless. Not that no philosopher has ever made trivial statements, but I’d think Witty deserves more credit than that.
It’s absurd for obvious reasons - there must be meaning in language for it to be useful. I know I have a meaning in mind when I express my thoughts - in this very writing for example - and I know you mean something too when you communicate to me. I don’t know what the impetus for speaking would be if I had no meaning in mind that I wished to communicate.
It’s wrong because I’ve studied Wittgenstein enough to know that’s not what he had in mind. Some things are ‘senseless’, as Witty puts it, and other things not. Witty was trying to mark out the boundaries of language, of what could be said meaningfully and what could not - he certainly thought there was plenty of content on both sides.
Whether or not Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s sceptic can be found in Wittgenstein’s own work is pretty contraversial, I doubt there’s even a single truth of the matter to be reached. I don’t have the knowledge to debate the subject - although I think its probably to be found in there somewhere. At any rate - I was offering it as an explantion of your original Wittgenstein quote (which is what you seemed to be asking for).
I’m not sure I agree that a meaningless language can’t have a function. It seems the whole of nature (outside of human thought) is functional, but lacks the sense of ‘meaning’ that we attribute to language . If Kripkenstein’s argument succeeds then language is nothing more than a function. There is no such thing as meaning.
Anyway, I’ve pretty much lost the sense of the argument here. We both seem to be agreeing now that Wittgenstein is worth studying.
I think this defeats the whole purpose of calling something a language. Meaning is essential to language - it’s what makes it ‘language’. If it were devoid of meaning, it would be nothing more than physical events having physical effects (which can pretty much describe anything).
I can only see this working for a materialist - even then, the bulk of them don’t dismiss meaning as non-existent just because it is traditionally defined in immaterial terms, but redefine it to fit their worldview.
oh if only the argument were that limited, or simple! As far as I know no philosopher has ever come up with a convincing response to Kripkenstein. I think the American dispositionalists have tried but I don’t think their attempts have succeeded. My old professor (a prolific name in the philosophy of language…) said he spent twenty years coming to understand the argument’s force fully.
anyway - enough of this singing of Kripke’s praises. Its a good argument, well worth the read.
(although to an extent I do agree with you and am playing the devil’s advocate - it isn’t going to cause us to stop speaking to one another)
If language is private (think Locke) then Wittgenstein cannot say what he was saying, because he cannot say anything to you. It would be like he was waving his hands in the dark. You have no means by which to interpret what he’s doing. You know he’s doing “something”, but cannot have the foggiest what it is or what it should mean, or even if it is supposed to mean anything at all. A lot of people interpret (early) Wittgenstein as being a solipsist. If that’s the case, then trying to understand him is pointless. You’ll never get access to his world. It’s just impossible. Thus, he’s (in part) saying that he can’t talk to you. And yeah, he was probably grinning when he wrote that.
It should be noted that even Wittgenstein didn’t agree with his Tractatus at the end. Most of modern philosophy of language owes more to Philosophical Investigations, but even then we mirror the difficulties Wittgenstein was facing. Is language pointing to some sort of logical structure, some sort of rules which lie within, and we simply aren’t sure what they are? Or is it more rough shod, and we should focus more on common language, and common usage? Truth-conditional is very limiting. There are all sorts of things we cannot say, which we do say, and which also seem to be meaningful. Speech-act is less limited, but rather messy. Verificationism is dead, and rightly so.
All we need are designators (rigid or flaccid) to show that there is meaning. Any sort of natural kind/family resemblance is meaningful. Kripke, Putnam, and Wittgenstein all have to (and do) accept meaning as meaningful. Following rules need only be a public practice.
That doesn’t mean we don’t have to deal with Kripkenstein. We do. It’s just not as damning as it might seem prima facie.
