Sinnlosigkeit und Unsinn

In the last "Quote of the Week," I quoted the following line from the Notebooks:

"The watch is sitting on the table" is senseless [sinnlos]! (p. 70)

In the comments to that post, I wondered whether, in the Notebooks, Wittgenstein had yet to distinguish between Sinnlosigkeit and Unsinn. After taking a look, I'm not quite sure what conclusion to draw.

In addition to the line quoted above, the word 'sinnlos' occurs only twice in the pre-Tractatus notebooks:

Vormittag bei der "Marodenvisite" wegen meines Fußes: Muskelzerrung. Nicht viel gearbeitet. Nietzsche Band 8 gekauft und darin gelesen. Bin stark berührt von seiner Feindschaft gegen das Christentum. Denn auch in seinen Schriften ist etwas Wahrheit enthalten. Gewiß, das Christentum ist der einzige sichere Weg zum Glück; aber wie wenn einer dies Glück verschmähte?! Könnte es nicht besser sein, unglücklich, im hoffnungslosen Kampf gegen die äußere Welt zugrunde zu gehen? Aber ein solches Leben ist sinnlos. Aber warum nicht ein sinnloses Leben führen? Ist es unwürdig? — Wie verträgt es sich mit dem streng solipsistischen Standpunkt? Was muß ich aber tun daß mein Leben mir nicht verloren geht? Ich muß mir seiner immer — des Geistes immer — bewußt sein. —. (December 8, 1914)

A proposition of physics is obviously senseless [sinnlos] if its application is not given. What sort of sense would it make to say: "k = m.p"? (p. 67; June 20, 1915)

The first passage does not appear in the published version of the notebooks. That use of 'sinnlos' (viz., "such a life is senseless") is not the technical use in the Tractatus (as an aside, this is the first evidence I've seen that Wittgenstein read Nietzsche; by the way, does anyone know what 'Marodenvisite' means; it's not in my dictionary). And the use of 'sinnlos' in the second passage appears to be closer to the 'unsinnig' of the Tractatus.

However, Wittgenstein's lone use of 'senseless' in the "Notes on Logic" does look like the 'sinnlos' of the Tractatus:

Signs of the form "p v ~p" are senseless, but not the proposition "(p).p v ~p". If I know that this rose is either red or not red, I know nothing. The same holds of all ab-functions. (Notebooks, p. 104)

Wittgenstein's use of 'Unsinn' (pp. 57, 84) and 'unsinnig' (pp. 2, 11, 16, 39, 44, 45, 48, 50) is much more frequent. He also uses 'nonsense' and 'nonsensical' quite a few times in the "Notes on Logic" and "Notes Dictated to Moore." Two are of particular interest:

But though a particular proposition "p or not-p" has no meaning, a general proposition "for all p's, p or not-p" has a meaning because this does not contain the nonsensical function "p or not-p" but the function "p or not-q" just as "for all x's xRx" contains the function "xRy". (Notebooks, pp. 94-5)

A tautology (not a logical proposition) is not nonsense in the same sense in which, e.g., a proposition in which words which have no meaning occur is nonsense. What happens in it is that all its simple parts have meaning, but it is such that the connexions between these paralyse or destroy one another, so that they are all connected only in some irrelevant manner. (Notebooks, p. 118)

In these, Wittgenstein is using 'nonsensical' and 'nonsense' where, on the distinction the Tractatus draws between senselessness and nonsense, 'senseless' and 'senselessness' would be appropriate.

McGinn Article Online

Marie McGinn, "Saying and Showing and the Continuity of Wittgenstein's Thought" (Harvard Review of Philosophy, 2001).

Quote of the Week

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)

Quote of the Week

A name designating [bezeichnet] an object stands in a relation to it which is wholly determined by the logical kind of the object and which signalises that logical kind. (Notebooks, p. 70; entry on June 22, 1915)

A Missing Version of the Philosophical Investigations?

While comparing different versions of the Investigations, I noticed something interesting. TS 226 in von Wright's catalogue is a translation by Rush Rhees of a version of the Investigations. According to von Wright, it is "a translation into English by R. Rhees with corrections by Wittgenstein, of the beginning of the prewar version of the Investigations. 1939." But that is not correct. What von Wright calls the 'prewar version' of the Investigations is TS 220 (1937 or 1938). Most of the sections of TS 220 and Rhees's translation are different (e.g., the language-game of the builders is presented in §3 of TS 220 and in §4 of Rhees's translation).

I thought this was curious, so I checked Rhees's translation against the only other 'complete' version of the Investigations that was written prior to the final version, namely, TS 239 (von Wright describes TS 239 as a revision of TS 220 from 1942 or 1943). As with TS 220, the sections do not match (e.g., the language-game of the builders is presented in §3 of TS 239).

Obviously, Rhees's translation isn't of the final version of the Investigations (TS 227, 1944 or 1945). As we all know, the final version presents the language-game of the builders in §2. So what did Rhees translate? It must have been another version of the Investigations which is now missing.

(There is an entry in von Wright's catalogue for a "typescript of pages between pp. 149-195 of the so-called Intermediate Version of the Investigations. 1944-45." That typescript, TS 242, begins with a section numbered 211. Rhees's translation ends with a section numbered 116. If the former is a fragment of a 'complete' version of the Investigations, it's possible that Rhees's translation is of the first part of that version.)

Bryan Magee Interviews Antony Quinton on Wittgenstein

On YouTube there is also video of Antony Quinton discussing the philosophy of Wittgenstein with Bryan Magee. The discussion is approximately 45 minutes long, so it's posted as five clips:

Clip 1
Clip 2
Clip 3
Clip 4
Clip 5

There are several other videos of interest here.

Conference Update – "Wittgenstein and the 'Mental'"

The French-Norwegian Wittgenstein Seminar in Skjolden (June 19-21) is titled "Wittgenstein and the 'Mental.'" Here's the preliminary program:

Valérie Aucouterier (Paris)
"Wittgenstein and Anscombe on the natural expressions of emotions"

Elise Marrou (Paris)
"Intentionality and interiority in the 'middle' Wittgenstein"

Jean-Phillippe Narboux (Bourdaux)
"Wittgenstein and Frege on the Laws of Thought"

Maia Ponsonnet (Paris)
"Grammatical confusions and linguistic relativity: an anthropological perspective on the semantics of mind"

Sabine Plaud (Paris)
"Mental symbols, propositional pictures and synoptic views: Wittgenstein and Mach on thought"

Plinio Prado (Paris)
"Wittgenstein and the transference question: Art, philosophy and therapy"

Ludovic Soutif (Paris)
"Wittgenstein and Folk Psychology"

Nuno Venturinha (Lisbonne)
"Wittgenstein's 'Philosophy of Psychology'"

Harald Johannessen (Bergen)
"On what nonsense in the Tractatus is, or the nature of the proposition"

Arild Utaker (Bergen)
"'A picture held us captive' (P.U. §115): Philosophy as (mental) projection or how to cope with a philosophical picture"

For more information, contact Arild Utaker: Arild.Utaker@fof.uib.no

'Meaning is Use'

The latest issue of Philosophical Investigations contains an article by Phil Hutchinson and Rupert Read titled "Toward a Perspicuous Presentation of "Perspicuous Presentation'" (the article can also be found here under "Papers 2005 +"). Read and Hutchinson open with a brief discussion of PI §43:

The history of Wittgenstein scholarship can be mapped in various ways. One profitable way would track the attention paid and emphasis accorded to Wittgenstein's use of modal terms. So, for example, while some take him to have propounded a use-theory of meaning, others point to the actual wording of PI §43: "For, a large class of cases – though not for all – in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language." What is at stake here? First, Wittgenstein limits the scope: a definition in terms of use will not apply to all cases in which we employ the word "meaning." Indeed, we are not, it seems, obliged to define meaning in terms of use even in a "large class of cases," we merely "can" for our purposes. The remark is better heard as an orientation to an aspect, or a suggestion of how to act, than as a definition, let alone a statement of fact.

That much Wittgenstein scholarship glosses the wording of PI §43 and thereby ignores the elementary points we have made earlier, is, we think, telling; it suggests the (strength of the) impulse towards the extracting of theories, or at the least some positive philosophical project (non-occasion sensitive, non-contextual, non-person-relative), from Wittgenstein’s PI, despite his explicit protestations to the contrary. While some are candid regarding such an endeavour, many others are less forthcoming and less explicit in their willingness to saddle Wittgenstein with a theory. (pp. 141-2)

Similar comments are found in Eugene Fischer and Erich Ammereller's introduction to Wittgenstein at Work: Method in the Philosophical Investigations:

Consider, e.g. a sentence frequently read as advancing a 'use theory of meaning', the claim that an expression's meaning consists in its use: 'For a large class of cases of the use of the word "meaning" – though not for all cases of its use – one can explain the word thus: the meaning of a word is its use in language' (43, our translation). This formulation is not only remarkably cautious (the italics are Wittgenstein's), but also stops noticeably short of advancing any claim about 'what the meaning of a word is'. It is not 'about word meaning' but about one of the different actual uses of the word 'meaning': it contents itself with the claim that in many (though not all) cases in which we speak of a word's 'meaning', one can explain what we are saying by paraphrasing it as a statement about the word's use in language. When the idea that 'the meaning of a word is its use' does crop up, it does so not as an assertion but in the antecedent of a conditional employed in setting up an objection Wittgenstein proceeds to attack (in 138, taken up again in 197). If that idea was one that Wittgenstein wished to advance as a philosophical claim, then it would seem rather puzzling why he should have done this in so offhand a manner. Indeed, as the general philosophical claim would certainly be far from uncontroversial (even if anyone thought it should be), it would seem downright startling that Wittgenstein did not bother to explicitly defend it. (p. xii)

Here are sections 138 and 197 of the Investigations:

138. But can't the meaning of a word that I understand fit the sense of a sentence that I understand? Or the meaning of one word fit the meaning of another? – Of course, if the meaning is the use we make of the word, it makes no sense to speak of such 'fitting.' But we understand the meaning of a word when we hear or say it; we grasp it in a flash, and what we grasp in this way is surely something different from the 'use' which is extended in time!

197. "It's as if we could grasp the whole use of a word in a flash." – And that is just what we say we do. That is to say: we sometimes describe what we do in these words. But there is nothing astonishing, nothing queer, about what happens. It becomes queer when we are led to think that the future development must in some way already be present in the act of grasping the use and yet isn't present. – For we say that there isn't any doubt that we understand the word, and on the other hand its meaning lies in its use. [...]

I think that §197, together with §30, suggest that the above interpretation of §43 is mistaken. Contrary to what Fischer and Ammereller claim, §197 does not involve a conditional formulation. Wittgenstein says, "For we say that ... its meaning lies in its use." And in §30, Wittgenstein writes,

So one might say: the ostensive definition explains the use – the meaning – of the word when the overall role of the word in language is clear.

The apposition of 'use' and 'meaning' here is a clear indication that Wittgenstein understood the meaning of a word to be its use.

This view is supported by the Philosophical Grammar:

But I might also say: the meaning of a word is what the explanation of its meaning explains.
[...]
The explanation of the meaning explains the use of the word.
The use of a word in the language is its meaning. (pp. 59-60)

And the Blue Book (these passages are quoted by Hacker; see below):

The meaning of a phrase for us is characterized by the use we make of it. [...] We ask: "What do you mean?", i.e., "How do you use this expression?" (p. 65)

We are inclined to forget that it is the particular use of a word only which gives the word its meaning. Let us think of the old example for the use of words: Someone is sent to the grocer with a slip of paper with the words "five apples" written on it. The use of the word in practice is its meaning. (p. 69)

In his exegesis of §43 (online here; cf. here), Peter Hacker gives a different account of Wittgenstein's "cautious" formulation. According to Hacker,

An alternative, more plausible possibility is to look for exceptions to this explanation of 'the meaning of a word' (cf. AWL 48 (see 2.1 below)). For the phrases 'the meaning of a word' and 'the use of a word' are not everywhere interchangeable. W. speaks of experiencing the meaning of a word, but one would surely not call that 'experiencing the use of a word'. He speaks of meaning blindness, but one could not speak of this phenomenon as 'use blindness'. This interpretation is reinforced by PLP 175f., where Waismann notes that 'the meaning of a word is the way it is used' is not quite correct, for their are cases where it seems forced. To remedy this defect, he continues, we need a detailed account of the grammar of 'meaning' as it appears in various linguistic contexts: i.e. an account of what it is to understand the meaning of a word, to explain the meaning of a word, for two words to have the same meaning, etc. W. emphasized that not every use is a meaning, and not every difference in use is tantamount to a difference in meaning. (Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning, Part II, p. 120)

Bryan Magee Interviews John Searle on Wittgenstein

On YouTube there is video of (a very young looking) John Searle discussing the philosophy of Wittgenstein with Bryan Magee. The discussion is approximately 45 minutes long, so it's posted as five clips:

Clip 1
Clip 2
Clip 3
Clip 4
Clip 5

I've watched the first clip, and Searle isn't bad. He does confuse picturing and mirroring, and he holds that in the TLP the basic unit of meaning (broadly understood) is the sentence (this is Ryle's view, and Searle was Ryle's student; of course, it's also Diamond and Conant's view). But his explanation of the Tractarian view of negation is pretty good.

HT to Simon.

Quote of the Week

In my reasearch I come across Wittgenstein quotes that (I think) are interesting. Beginning with this post, I'll be sharing some of them on a weekly basis.

Logic is interested only in reality [Wirklichkeit]. And thus in sentences ONLY in so far as they are pictures of reality. (Notebooks, p. 9; entry on October 5, 1914)

Conference Update – "Interpreting Wittgenstein"

The preliminary program for the NNWR Workshop, "Interpreting Wittgenstein" (at the University of Bergen, June 6-7), has been released.

Friday the 6th

14.00-15.15 – Marie McGinn (York)
"Internal Relations"

15.30-16.30 – Elinor Hållén (Uppsala)
"Wittgenstein, Freud, and Unconscious Intentions"

17.00-18.15 – Jean-Philippe Narboux (Bordeaux)
"An Externalist Reading of Wittgenstein's On Certainty"

Saturday the 7th

10.00-11.15 – Kevin Cahill (Bergen)
"Wittgenstein and the Fate of Metaphysics"

11.30-12.30 – Karin Tan (Oslo)
TBA

13.45-15.00 – Ed Minar (Arkansas)
"The Life of the Sign: Rule-Following, Practice, and Agreement"

15.15-16.15 – Kim-Erik Berts (Åbo)
"The Mathematical Proof as a Picture of an Experiment"

16.45-18.00 – Jim Conant (Chicago)
"From the Method to Methods"

For more information, contact Richard Sørli: richard.sorli@fof.uib.no or Simo Säätelä: simo.saatela@fof.uib.no

Hopefully, audio of some of these (say, the McGinn and the Conant) will be posted on the Wittgenstein Archives' Fragments page.

Another Wittgenstein Conference in Paris

Wittgenstein: Images of the Mind.
April 10-11 at the Collège de France in Paris

Thursday the 10th

9:30-10:45 – Denis Perrin (Université Pierre-Mendès-France, Grenoble)
"Ressemblance et synopsis: l'aveugle à la signification comme objet de comparaison"

11:00-12:15 – Wolfgang Kienzler (Friedrich Schiller Universität, Iéna)
"The psychological concepts from the Philosophical Grammar to the Investigations."

14:00-15:15 – Jean-Philippe Narboux (Université Bordeaux III)
"La pensée aux dimensions de l'image"

15:15-16:30 – Élise Marrou (Université Paris X, EXeCO–Paris I)
"'L'essentiel dans l'intention, c'est l'image'. La figurativité à l'épreuve de l'intentionnalité"

16:45-18:00 – Céline Vautrin (Collège de France, EXeCO–Paris I)
"'Être une image': question de forme et question d'usage"

Friday the 11th

9:30-10:45 – Sandra Laugier (Université de Picardie-Jules-Verne, Amiens)
"La voix est-elle une image de l'esprit?"

11:00-12:45 – Edoardo Zamuner (University of Edinburgh, University of Melbourne)
"Wittgenstein on Perception, Emotion, and Expression"

14:00-15:15 – Joachim Schulte (Universität Zurich)
"The Life of a Picture"

15:15-16:30 – Jean-Jacques Rosat (Collège de France)
"Les paraphrases, images du langage et images de l'esprit"

16:45-18:00 – Ludovic Soutif (EXeCO–Paris I)

For more information, contact Jean-Jacques Rosat: jean-jacques.rosat@college-de-france.fr.

(If we count the sessions at the APA and the graduate student conference at UEA, that brings the number of Wittgenstein conferences in 2008 to twelve.)

Call for Papers: "Understanding Wittgenstein"

From UEA Philosophy:

Understanding Wittgenstein
(September 12-13, at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK)

Keynote Speakers:
Marie McGinn (York)
Phil Hutchinson (MMU)

"We are looking for papers from postgraduate students interested in the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Taking place at the U.K.'s leading Wittgenstein research institution and featuring keynote papers from two leading scholars in the field, this conference represents a great opportunity for postgraduates who wish to explore the ideas of the twentieth century's greatest and most misunderstood philosopher. Papers from postdoctoral staff are also welcome. Please send 250 word proposals for 45 minute papers to: simon.summers@uea.ac.uk."

Context & Compositionality in the Tractatus

I just finished Silver Bronzo's "Context, Compositionality and Nonsense in Wittgenstein's Tractatus" (which, again, is being presented on Friday at the Wittgenstein Workshop), and it's a very interesting read.

Bronzo develops a comment of Conant's from a footnote in "The Method of the Tractatus" (which is available on Conant's webpage):

Frege does, of course, speak of a thought's having "parts" out of which it is "built up" (see, e.g., Frege, 1979), and of how we can "distinguish parts in the thought corresponding to parts of a sentence, so that the structure of the sentence can serve as a picture of the structure of the thought" (Frege, 1984, p. 390). But Frege immediately follows this latter remark with the observation: "To be sure, we really talk figuratively when we transfer the relation of whole and part to thoughts; yet the analogy is so ready to hand and so generally appropriate that we are hardly bothered by the hitches that occur from time to time" (Frege, 1984, p. 390). What kinds of hitches? Hitches, for example, of the sort that Kerry fails to notice when he imagines that he can get hold of a concept merely by employing an expression that elsewhere, in its usual employment, is able to symbolize a concept. Frege thus worries that the all but unavoidable (and in itself potentially innocent) locution of a thought's having "parts" or "components" will mislead one into attributing a false independence to the parts of a thought—so that we can imagine that the parts could retain their identity apart from their participation in a whole of the appropriate structure: "But the words 'made up of,' 'consist of,' 'component,' 'part,' may lead to our looking at it the wrong way. If we choose to speak of parts in this connection, all the same these parts are not mutually independent in the way that we are elsewhere used to find when we have parts of a whole" (Frege, 1984, p. 386). Frege's context principle—and the correlative doctrine of the primacy of judgment (which refuses to allow that the parts of the whole are "mutually independent in the way that we are elsewhere used to find when we have parts of a whole")—in thus insisting upon the unity of a thought or a proposition, in no way denies the compositionality of either thought or language. It insists only upon the mutual interdependence of compositionality and contextuality (Diego Marconi [unpublished] nicely summarizes the position in the slogan "Understanding without contextuality is blind; understanding without compositionality is empty.") Frege’s view of natural language—upon which the Tractatus builds its "understanding of the logic of language"—affirms both (1) that it is in virtue of their contributions to the senses of the whole that we identify the logical "parts" of propositions, and (2) that it is in virtue of an identification of each "part" as that which occurs in other propositional wholes that we segment the whole into its constituent parts (see note 37). [p. "The Method of the Tractatus," p. 432, n. 34]

Bronzo holds that, according to the Tractatus, the context principle and the principle of compositionality are "compatible with one another and indeed positively interdependent." He argues for this by criticizing the common understanding of those principles ("Contextualism" and "Compositionalism," respectively), and sketching an alternative understanding.

Bronzo defines "Contextualism" and "Compositionalism" as follows:

Contextualism. The meaning and the understanding of a sentence are prior to the meaning and the understanding of the parts of the sentence. First we understand the whole sentence, and then we segment it to obtain the meanings of its parts. The meaning of a word is obtained from the segmentation of the meaningful proposition, the content of which must be given in advance.

Compositionalism. The meaning and the understanding of the parts of the sentence (of words) is prior to the meaning and the understanding of the whole sentence. First we grasp the meanings of each word, and then, by looking at the way they are put together, we grasp the sense of the whole sentence. The meaning of a sentence is constructed out of the meanings of its words, as a wall is constructed out of building blocks.

These principles are incompatible with each other. Therefore, the Tractatus (assuming it is coherent) cannot advocate both principles. Which principle must go? According to Bronzo, both. Both principles are absurd, and both are contrary to the Tractarian understanding of contextuality and compositionality.

The Tractatus, I am suggesting, rejects Compositionalism by acknowledging the conceptual dependence of the meanings of words on the meanings of sentences. It does so, by adopting a strong version of the context principle entailing the austere view of nonsense: words have meaning only in the context of significant propositions. Moreover, as I argued in previous sections, the Tractatus is also characterized by a simultaneous and symmetrical rejection of Contextualism: it acknowledges the conceptual dependence of the meanings of sentences on their logical articulation. For the Tractatus, the exercise of the capacity to understand and form complete sentences is, at one and the same time, the exercise of our capacity to use sub-sentential elements in the expression of thoughts. The dependence goes both ways, and is therefore an interdependence. The two capacities (of making sense, and of using sub-sentential words for making sense) come in one single package. Instead of speaking of two necessarily interconnected capacities it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of two aspects of a single capacity—the capacity to speak and understand a language.

For the most part, I agree with this conclusion (Bronzo allows for a version of the context principle (e.g., Glock's) that fits in with his view concerning the interdependence of contextuality and compositionality but nevertheless supports a substantial view of nonsense). I also think that Bronzo's criticisms of Contextualism and Compositionalism are correct (not to mention, illuminating; I found his account of the conceptual failing of Contextualism to be particularly instructive). That said, I want to explore a possible quibble with his criticism of Compositionalism just to see where it leads (more than likely, it doesn't lead anywhere).

Bronzo's criticism of Compositionalism is "brusque." Here it is:

Compositionalism appears therefore to be committed to the conceivability of the following scenario:

The crude compositionalistic scenario: We can have a list of words to which a meaning has been assigned; but such words are not part of a language—i.e., of a system of signs for the expression of complete thoughts. Equivalently, we can encounter a creature to which we attribute knowledge of the lexicon of a language, even if it clearly is not a speaker of the language—it lacks the capacity to combine words to say something, to perform complete linguistic acts.

It doesn't seem very difficult to show that such a scenario is only apparently coherent. Suppose an archeologist claims to have discovered a find containing the lexicon of an ancient language, of which she purports to give a translation. To each symbol contained in the find, the archeologist associates an English word or an English turn of phrase. But—here comes the curious part of the story—she denies to have gathered evidence that the symbols she claims to have translated were ever used to form complete sentences. But this is outrageous. On what basis does she translate a given symbol with, say, the English word "fish", if she has no evidence that such a symbol was ever used to express thoughts about fishes—e.g. the thought that eating a fish makes you no longer hungry, or that there are many fishes in such-and-such a lake, or that the theft of a fish is punished in such-and-such a way?

If some competent speaker of English translates a given ancient symbol with the English word "fish," it seems that she cannot coherently claim that the symbol was never combined with others to form sentences. But does this show that the crude compositionalist scenario is incoherent?

What about this sort of case: there is a stage in the learning of a first language at which the speaker can be said to know the meaning of a word (i.e., she is able to satisfy some criteria for knowing the meaning of a word) but cannot combine the word with others to form sentences. A young child can utter the word "dog" in appropriate circumstances, but cannot combine the word with others to form sentences. Is it possible to imagine a people whose language skills never surpass this sort of knowledge? It's not obvious to me that the answer is negative.

Returning to the archeologist, suppose she were to ostensively define each ancient symbol, but deny that the ancients combined them to form sentences? Is this outrageous?

Finally, we ostensively teach the meanings of English words to our children. When a young child is ostensively taught the meaning of the English word "fish," presumably it isn't able to think such thoughts as "eating a fish makes you no longer hungry," "there are many fishes in such-and-such a lake," or "the theft of a fish is punished in such-and-such a way." Nevertheless, I would hesitate to deny that the child knows the meaning of "fish," at least in an attenuated sense.

British Wittgenstein Society

The British Wittgenstein Society's website is up and running. Here's the updated program schedule for the Society's inaugural conference, "The Third Wittgenstein" (being held at the University of Hertfordshire, June 7-8):

Saturday the 7th

10:00-11:15 Avrum Stroll (UCSD)
"Wittgenstein & the Dream Hypothesis"
Chair: Danièle Moyal-Sharrock

11:30-12:45 John V. Canfield (Toronto)
"Ned Block, Wittgenstein, and the Inverted Spectrum"
Chair: John Preston

14:00-15:15 Laurence Goldstein (Kent)
"Wittgenstein and Situation Comedy"
Chair: Mario von der Ruhr

15:30-16:45 Crispin Wright (St Andrews)
Title: TBA
Chair: TBA

16:45-18:00 Nigel Pleasants (Exeter)
"Wittgenstein & Moral Certainty"
Chair: TBA

Sunday the 8th

9:30-10:45 Frank Cioffi (Kent)
"Wittgenstein's conception of the unconscious versus Freud's"
Chair: TBA

11:00-12:15 P.M.S. Hacker (Oxford)
"The relevance of Wittgenstein's philosophy of psychology to the psychological
sciences"
Chair: TBA

13:30-14:45 Michel ter Hark (Gronigen)
"Meaning-experience, William James and the genesis of PI Part II"
Chair: TBA

15:00-16:15 H.-J. Glock (Zurich)
"Concepts, conceptual problems and word meanings"
Chair: TBA

16:15-17:30 Daniel D. Hutto (Hertfordshire)
"Philosophical Theories, Pictures and Perspicuous Presentations"
Chair: TBA

"Context, Compositionality and Nonsense in Wittgenstein's Tractatus"

On Friday afternoon, Silver Bronzo (a graduate student at the University of Chicago) will be reading a paper titled "Context, Compositionality and Nonsense in Wittgenstein's Tractatus" at the Wittgenstein Workshop. Some of Bronzo's paper is a response to Glock's article "All Kinds of Nonsense." See the Workshop's website for more information.

"Wittgensteinian Quietism"

While looking for something else, I came across a dissertation by David M. Finkelstein titled "Wittgensteinian Quietism" (2006, University of Pittsburgh; directed by McDowell). [Update: apparently, David Finkelstein is not identical to David Finkelstein; see the comments for further explanation.] Here's the abstract:

One can't help but be struck by the range of incompatible positions that Wittgenstein's philosophy, his rule-following considerations in particular, have been taken to support. For instance, according to one very popular interpretation of the rule-following considerations, Wittgenstein proves that claims about the meanings of words aren't objectively true. On another interpretation, Wittgenstein shows that discourse about meaning, though without foundation, is as capable of robust truth as any. Still others argue that the Wittgenstein of the Investigations was neither a realist nor an antirealist with respect to discourse about meaning. On the contrary, according to proponents of this last interpretation, Wittgenstein rejected as "nonsense" both the questions that the rule-following considerations seem to pose and the answers that realists and antirealists have tried to give to these questions.

This third, quietist interpretation of Wittgenstein has received increased critical attention of late. Some commentators have suggested that there is no textual basis for the quietist interpretation of the early Wittgenstein. Less has been written that purports to assess the arguments that quietists have found in Wittgenstein, early or late.

In this dissertation, I assess the philosophical credentials of the quietist interpretation of Wittgenstein. In the first part, I argue that the material from Frege that inspired the Tractatus doesn’t support quietism in the way that proponents of the quietist interpretation of Wittgenstein suppose. In the second part, I argue that the rule-following considerations support a position that's closely related to, but in important respects different from the one that the proponents of the quietist interpretation of Wittgenstein endorse.