Quotation
Last reviewed:
“Most of the propositions and questions to be found in philosophical works are not false but nonsensical.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein · Analytic philosophy · Modern · 1921
What does it mean?
Most of what philosophical works contain is, he says, not false but nonsensical. The questions have not been given a sense. They arise from misunderstanding the logic of language. A rival reading hears a young man's rudeness, useful for shutting down ethics and metaphysics by tone. The rudeness is real, and it is attached to a theory of sense that the ladder will later put in question. Another reading thinks 'nonsensical' means silly. In this book it means failing to say anything that could be true or false.
Did Ludwig Wittgenstein really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Pears and McGuinness. He adds that such questions arise from failing to understand the logic of our language, and that the deepest problems are not problems. 'Nonsensical' is a technical insult, not a casual sneer.
Where it comes from
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 4.003, in the Pears and McGuinness translation
Approximate date: 1921.
How to use it
In a seminar, a question about 'the Nothing' or about a grand noun may be, on this view, not a hard question but a failure to say anything yet. Ask what would count as a yes or a no. If nothing would, 4.003 is the diagnosis he offers. The diagnosis can be wrong, and later philosophy, including his, found more to say than this proposition allows.
A mindset reading
The deepest problems, he adds, are no problems. That addition is easy to use as a pose. It is earned, if at all, by the account of sense in the rest of the book, not by the confidence of the sentence.
Understand the philosophy
4.003 is early machinery, not the ending. The ending will call his own propositions nonsensical too. Read the insult with that boomerang in view. Pears and McGuinness are the English named here.
- knowledge
- meaning
- mind
FAQ
What does it mean?
Most of what philosophical works contain is, he says, not false but nonsensical. The questions have not been given a sense. They arise from misunderstanding the logic of language. A rival reading hears a young man's rudeness, useful for shutting down ethics and metaphysics by tone. The rudeness is real, and it is attached to a theory of sense that the ladder will later put in question. Another reading thinks 'nonsensical' means silly. In this book it means failing to say anything that could be true or false.
Did Ludwig Wittgenstein really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Pears and McGuinness. He adds that such questions arise from failing to understand the logic of our language, and that the deepest problems are not problems. 'Nonsensical' is a technical insult, not a casual sneer.
Which work is it in?
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 4.003, in the Pears and McGuinness translation Approximate date: 1921.