Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T05:37:43.229Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Wittgenstein on Sense and Grammar

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2022

Silver Bronzo
Affiliation:
National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow

Summary

The distinction between sense and nonsense is central to Wittgenstein's philosophy. It is at the basis of his conception of philosophy as a struggle against illusions of sense generated by misunderstandings of the logic of our language. Moreover, it informs the notions of “grammar” (in the later work) and “logical syntax” (in the early work), whose investigation serves to clear up those misunderstandings. This Element contrasts two exegetical approaches: one grounding charges of nonsensicality in a theory of sense specifying criteria that are external to the linguistic performance under indictment; and one rejecting any such theory. The former pursues the idea of a nonsensicality test; the latter holds that illusions of sense can only be overcome from within, through the very capacity of which they constitute defective exercises. The Element connects the two approaches to opposite understandings of Wittgenstein's conception of language, and defends a version of the second approach.
Get access
Type
Element
Information
Online ISBN: 9781108973359
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 23 June 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Primary Sources

Secondary Sources

Anscombe, G. E. M. (1963). An Introduction to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. London: Hutchinson’s University Library.Google Scholar
Baker, G. P. and Hacker, P. M. S. (2005). Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning. Part I: Essays. Vol. I of An Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations. 2nd ed., extensively revised by Hacker, P. M. S.. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Baker, G. P. and Hacker, P. M. S. (2009). Rules, Grammar, and Necessity. Vol. II of An Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations. 2nd ed., extensively revised by Hacker, P. M. S.. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bromberger, S. and Halle, M. (1986). On the Relationship of Phonology and Phonetics. In Perkell, J. S. and Klatt, D. H., eds., Invariance and Variability in Speech Process, pp. 493510. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Bronzo, S. (2011). Context, Compositionality, and Nonsense in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. In Read, R. and Lavery, M., eds., Beyond the Tractatus Wars: The New Wittgenstein Debate, pp. 84111. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bronzo, S. (2012). The Resolute Reading and Its Critics: An Introduction to the Literature. Wittgenstein-Studien, 3, 4580.Google Scholar
Bronzo, S. (2017). Wittgenstein, Theories of Meaning, and Linguistic Disjunctivism. European Journal of Philosophy, 25(4), 13401363.Google Scholar
Bronzo, S. (2019). Truth-bearers in Frege and the Tractatus. Analiza i Egzystencja 47, 3153.Google Scholar
Bronzo, S. and Conant, J. (2017). Resolute Readings of the Tractatus. In Glock, H.-J. and Hyman, J., eds., A Companion to Wittgenstein, pp. 175194. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Cavell, S. (1999). The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cavell, S. (2015). Must We Mean What We Say? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conant, J. (2000). Elucidation and Nonsense in Frege and Wittgenstein. In Crary, A. and Read, R., eds., The New Wittgenstein, pp. 174217. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Conant, J. (2001). Two Conceptions of Die Überwindung der Metaphysik. In McCarthy, T. G. and Stidd, S. C., eds., Wittgenstein in America, pp. 1361. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conant, J. (2002). The Method of the Tractatus. In Reck, E. G., ed., From Frege to Wittgenstein. Perspectives on Early Analytic Philosophy, pp. 374462. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conant, J. (2020a). Replies. In Miguens, S., ed., The Logical Alien: Conant and His Critics, pp. 3211028. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Conant, J. (2020b). Wittgenstein’s Critique of the Additive Conception of Language. Nordic Wittgenstein Review, 9, 736.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conant, J. and Diamond, C. (2004). On Reading the Tractatus Resolutely: Reply to Meredith Williams and Peter Sullivan. In Kölbel, M. and Weiss, B., eds., Wittgenstein’s Lasting Significance, pp. 4499. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Diamond, C. (1991). The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and the Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Diamond, C. (2000). Ethics, Imagination, and the Method of the Tractatus. In Crary, A. and Read, R., eds., The New Wittgenstein, pp. 149173. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Diamond, C. (2005). Logical Syntax in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. The Philosophical Quarterly, 55(218), 7889.Google Scholar
Diamond, C. (2006). Peter Winch on the Tractatus and the Unity of Wittgenstein’s Philosophy. In Pichler, A. and Säätelä, S., eds., Wittgenstein: The Philosopher and his Works, pp. 141170. Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag.Google Scholar
Diamond, C. (2011). The Tractatus and the Limits of Sense. In Kuusela, O. and McGinn, M., eds., The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein, pp. 240276. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Diamond, C. (2019). Reading Wittgenstein with Anscombe, Going on to Ethics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Dobler, T. (2013). What Is Wrong with Hacker’s Wittgenstein? On Grammar, Context, and Sense-Determination. Philosophical Investigations, 36(3): 231250.Google Scholar
Engelmann, J. M. (2011). What Wittgenstein’s “Grammar” Is Not (On Garver, Baker and Hacker, and Hacker on Wittgenstein on “Grammar”). Wittgenstein-Studien, 2, 71102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frege, G. (1980). The Foundations of Arithmetic. 2nd ed. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Glock, H.-J. (1996). A Wittgenstein Dictionary. Oxford: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glock, H.-J. (2004). All Kinds of Nonsense. In Ammereller, E. and Fisher, E., eds., Wittgenstein at Work: Method in the Philosophical Investigations, pp. 221245. AbingdonLondon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Glock, H.-J. (2015). Nonsense Made Intelligible. Erkenntnis, 80, 111136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldfarb, W. (1997). Metaphysics and Nonsense: On Cora Diamond’s The Realistic Spirit. Journal of Philosophical Research, 22, 5773.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gustafsson, M. (2020). Wittgenstein on Using Language and Playing Chess: The Breakdown of an Analogy and Its Consequences. In Miguens, S., ed., The Logical Alien: Conant and His Critics, pp. 202221. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Haase, M. (2012). Three Forms of the First Person Plural. In Conant, J. and Abel, G., eds., Rethinking Epistemology, Vol. 2, pp. 229256. Berlin: De Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacker, P. M. S. (1986). Insight and Illusion. Themes in the Philosophy of Wittgenstein. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hacker, P. M. S. (2000a). Wittgenstein Mind and Will, Part I, Essays. Vol. IV of An Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hacker, P. M. S. (2000b). Was He Trying to Whistle It? In Crary, A. and Read, R., The New Wittgenstein, pp. 353388. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hacker, P. M. S. (2001). Naming, Thinking and Meaning in the Tractatus. In Hacker, P. M. S., Wittgenstein: Connections and Controversies, pp. 170190. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hacker, P. M. S. (2003). Wittgenstein, Carnap, and the New American Wittgensteinians. The Philosophical Quarterly, 53(210), 123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacker, P. M. S. (2013). What Is Wrong Indeed? Philosophical Investigations, 36(3): 251268.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacker, P. M. S. (2017). Metaphysics: From Ineffability to Normativity. In Glock, H.-J. and Hyman, J., eds., A Companion to Wittgenstein, pp. 209227. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hylton, P. (1990). Russell, Idealism and the Emergence of Analytic Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jakobson, R. (1978). Six Lectures on Sound and Meaning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Johnston, C. (2007). Symbols in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. European Journal of Philosophy, 15(3), 367394.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kern, A. (2017). Sources of Knowledge. On the Concept of a Rational Capacity for Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kimhi, I. (2018). Thinking and Being. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kremer, M. (2002). Mathematics and Meaning in the Tractatus. Philosophical Investigations, 25(3), 272303.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. (1998). Criteria, Defeasibility, and Knowledge. In McDowell, J., Meaning, Knowledge and Reality, pp. 369394. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. (2010). Tyler Burge on Disjunctivism. Philosophical Explorations, 13(3), 243255.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. (2011). Perception as a Capacity for Knowledge. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. (2013). Tyler Burge on Disjunctivism (II). Philosophical Explorations, 16(3), 259279.Google Scholar
McGinn, M. (2006). Elucidating the Tractatus: Wittgenstein’s Early Philosophy of Language and Logic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Moore, A. W. (2003). Ineffability and Nonsense. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, 77, 169193.Google Scholar
Morris, M. (2008). Wittgenstein and the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Moyal-Sharrock, D. (2007). The Good Sense of Nonsense. Philosophia, 82, 147177.Google Scholar
Nunez, T. (2019). Logical Mistakes, Logical Aliens, and the Laws of Kant’s Pure General Logic. Mind, 128(512), 11491180.Google Scholar
Pears, D. (1987). The False Prison: A Study of the Development of Wittgenstein’s Philosophy, Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pears, D. (2007). Paradox and Platitude in Wittgenstein’s Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rödl, S. (2010). The Self-Conscious Power of Sensory Knowledge. Grazer Philosophische Studien, 81, 135151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shieh, S. (2015). How Rare is Chairman Mao? Dummett, Frege, and the Austere Conception of Nonsense. In Weiss, B., ed., Dummett on Analytical Philosophy, pp. 84121. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Schönbaumsfeld, G. (2007). A Confusion of the Spheres. Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein on Philosophy and Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schroeder, S. (2017). Grammar and Grammatical Statements. In Glock, H.-J. and Hyman, J., eds., A Companion to Wittgenstein, pp. 252268. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sullivan, P. (2003). Ineffability and Nonsense. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, 77, 195223.Google Scholar
Vanrie, W. (2017). Logical Syntax and Nonsense in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. BPhil Dissertation, University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Williams, M. (2004). Nonsense and Cosmic Exile: The Austere Reading of the Tractatus. In Kölbel, M. and Weiss, B., eds., Wittgenstein’s Lasting Significance, pp. 631. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar

Save element to Kindle

To save this element to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Wittgenstein on Sense and Grammar
  • Silver Bronzo, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow
  • Online ISBN: 9781108973359
Available formats
×

Save element to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Wittgenstein on Sense and Grammar
  • Silver Bronzo, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow
  • Online ISBN: 9781108973359
Available formats
×

Save element to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Wittgenstein on Sense and Grammar
  • Silver Bronzo, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow
  • Online ISBN: 9781108973359
Available formats
×