Contextualism and Nonsense in Wittgenstein’s<i>Tractatus</i>

Dain, Edmund

doi:10.4314/sajpem.v25i2.31436

South African Journal of Philosophy

2006

DOI: 10.4314/sajpem.v25i2.31436

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Contextualism and Nonsense in Wittgenstein’sTractatus

Edmund Dain¹

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“…In contrast to the standard view of nonsense, it says that the nonsensicality of ( 2) is not the result of a violation of the rules of logical syntax. For a discussion, see (Conant 2001, Dain 2006, 2008, Diamond 1978, 2005. For a recent defence, see my (Bogucki 2023).…”

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The Riddle of Understanding Nonsense

Bogucki

2023

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Typically, if I understand a sentence, then it expresses a proposition that I entertain. Nonsensical sentences don't express propositions, but there are contexts in which we talk about understanding nonsensical sentences. For example, we accept various kinds of semantically defective sentences in fiction, philosophy, and everyday life. Furthermore, it is a standard assumption that if a sentence is nonsensical, then it makes no sense to say that it implies anything or is implied by other sentences. Semantically uninterpreted sentences don't have logical characteristics. Hence, the riddle of understanding nonsense arises. We seem to use nonsensical sentences in reasoning, thinking, judging, and drawing conclusions, but they convey no propositions, which are the vehicles of their semantic properties. In this article, I propose the pretence theory of understanding nonsense to explain the riddle of understanding nonsense, and discuss alternative frameworks that are insufficient to solve it.

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The Riddle of Understanding Nonsense

Bogucki

2023

OrgF

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“…Apart from the works from the previous footnote, seeBronzo (2011Bronzo ( , 2013,Dain (2006).3 See especiallyConant (2004),Diamond (2006).4 I indicate all important works for this topic in the part "Forms of Holism in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus", but see in particularConant (2002) andDiamond (2000).…”

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Holism and Atomism in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Bogucki

2021

Analiza I Egzystencja

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A defence of the austere view of nonsense

Bogucki

2023

Synthese

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The austere view of nonsense says that the source of nonsense is not a violation of the rules of logical syntax, but nonsense is always due to a lack of meaning in one of the components of a sentence. In other words, the necessary and sufficient condition for nonsensicality is that no meaning has been assigned to a constituent in a sentence. The austere conception is the key ingredient of the resolute reading of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus that presents a therapeutical interpretation of the work, and rejects a possibility of conveying some ineffable truths by means of nonsensical sentences. In this paper, I defend the austere view against the most important objections. Firstly, I discuss textual sources for ascribing to Wittgenstein the austere view that have not been sufficiently thoroughly discussed yet. Next, I indicate that the apparent occurrence of words out of the context of a sentence on lists of verbs and in definitions is not in conflict with the version of the context principle recommended by austere theorists, since this argument does not sufficiently take into account the distinction between sign and symbol. Furthermore, I argue that the austere conception and the principle of compositionality are jointly tenable, for the former view does not exclude the existence of syntactic and semantic rules, but only shows that they are recognizable conditionally. Finally, I indicate that the austere view of nonsense should be seen as a viable option by a contemporary theorist of nonsense, for it helps us to avoid making controversial assumptions about the nature of meaning and content.

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Contextualism and Nonsense in Wittgenstein’sTractatus

Cited by 4 publications

References 4 publications

The Riddle of Understanding Nonsense

The Riddle of Understanding Nonsense

Holism and Atomism in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

A defence of the austere view of nonsense

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