If, e.g., I call some rod "A", and a ball "B", I can say that A is leaning against the wall, but not B. Here the internal nature of A and B comes into view.
[...]
"The watch is sitting on the table" is senseless [sinnlos]! (Notebooks, p. 70; entry on June 22, 1915)
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
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About Me
- N. N.
- I am a doctoral student in philosophy writing a dissertation on Wittgenstein.
3 comments:
Do you have an idea why the statement about the watch is senseless? I have no idea what Wittgenstein is getting at there.
Shawn,
If you're asking why, according to Wittgenstein, it's senseless to say that the watch is "sitting" on the table, I think the answer is: because a watch isn't the kind of thing that can sit. That is, "sitting" is a certain posture that only things with a rear and legs can have. At least, that's how I understand it.
If you're asking why, according to Wittgenstein, the statement is sinnlos instead of unsinnig, I'm a bit puzzled about that myself. Carruthers (and Wahl following him) claim that this is a slip of the pen, i.e., that Wittgenstein meant to say "nonsense." The thinking is, the statement can't be analyzed as a formal contradiction. I havn't looked into it, but I wonder whether Wittgenstein had yet to distinguish between "senselessness" and "nonsense." Unfortunately, Wittgenstein doesn't elaborate, and there's nothing else in the Notebooks along these lines.
I was asking the first although I like the second question more. I've never gone through the Notebooks looking for a differentiation of sinnlos and unsinnig. In a way I was wondering if there was some context of surrounding passages that would shed light on why he said what he did.
Your answer to the first question seems like the sort of thing Wittgenstein might say, although I don't find it satisfying. That sort of analysis, more convincing instances of which are in some of the later stuff, would depend on the notion of sitting originally being only applied, as you say, to things with legs and rears, and then being broadened to all physical things. Even if the story about usage is true (doubtful), it doesn't seem like there is any puzzlement that arises from saying that a watch sits on the table. If that use was metaphorical, it doesn't seem like it should be problematic, but the Wittgenstein of the Notebooks was a bit mysterious.
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