Disputatio. Philosophical Research Bulletin

There is a newer version of the record available.

Published September 30, 2021 | Version v1
Journal article Open

Wittgenstein's Limits of Language and Normative Theories of Assertion: Some Comparisons

Creators

  • 1. University of Helsinki, Finland

Description

In his classic work on Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (1960) Erik Stenius described Wittgenstein’s study as a critique of pure language, thus pointing to a connection between Wittgenstein’s philosophy and Kant’s critique of pure reason. Besides similarities, there also seems be important differences between the two philosophers. In Kant’s critique, one discerns a subject who does something, namely, constructs the world of experience, while Wittgenstein draws a picture in which neither an agent nor an act is visible. Like Kant and Wittgenstein, contemporary normative theories of assertion are also interested in limits, although in limits set to assertions. They appear to pay special attention to the one who asserts and to the act of asserting. This paper is an effort to search for the traces of normative theories of assertion in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus by focusing on the one who uses language and on the limits of that use. It is shown that both in Wittgenstein and in the normative theories of assertion, there is an important ethical dimension, which, however, plays different roles in the two approaches. It is argued that despite the differences in the ways of construing the limits of language, Tractatus and normative theories of assertion share similar ethical concerns.

Files

2021Haaparanta-limits.pdf

Files (459.3 kB)

Name Size Download all
md5:6934eabd2900f5787b31ece327a2fba7
459.3 kB Preview Download

Additional details

References

  • Appelqvist, Hanne (2016). "On Wittgenstein's Kantian Solution of the Problem of Philosophy". The British Journal for the History of Philosophy vol. 24, num. 4: pp. 697–719. doi: 10.1080/09608788.2016.1154812
  • Appelqvist, Hanne (ed.) (2020). Wittgenstein and the Limits of Language. New York: Routledge.
  • Appelqvist, Hanne (2020). "Introduction". In: Hanne Appelqvist (2020), pp. 1–23.
  • Appelqvist, Hanne, and Pöykkö, Panu–Matti (2020). "Wittgenstein and Levinas on the Transcendentality of Ethics". In: Appelqvist (2020), pp. 65–89.
  • Brandom, Robert B. (1994). Making It Explicit. Reasoning, Representing & Discursive Commitment. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
  • Brandom, Robert B. (2009). "Metaphilosophical Reflections on the Idea of Metaphysics", The Harvard Review of Philosophy, vol. 16, num. 1: pp. 1–14. doi: 10.1007/s11406-011-9332-7
  • Brown, Jessica, and Cappelen, Herman (eds.) (2011). Assertion: New Philosophical Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Brown, Jessica, and Cappelen, Herman (2011). "Assertion: an Introduction and Overview". In: Brown and Cappelen (2011), pp. 1–17.
  • Christensen, Anne–Marie S. (2011). "Wittgenstein and Ethics". In: Kuusela and McGinn (2011), pp. 796–817.
  • Diamond, Cora (1996). "Wittgenstein, mathematics, and ethics: Resisting the attractions of realism". In: Hans Sluga and David G. Stern (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 226–260.
  • Goldberg, Sanford C. (2011). "Putting the Norm of Assertion to Work: The Case of Testimony". In: Brown and Cappelen (2011), pp. 175–195.
  • Goldberg, Sanford C. (2015). Assertion: On the Philosophical Significance of Assertoric Speech. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Frege, Gottlob (1879). Begriffsschrift, eine der arithmetischen nachgebildete Formelsprache des reinen Denkens (BS), Halle a.S.: Verlag von L. Nebert; reprinted in G. Frege, Begriffsschrift und andere Aufsätze , edited by I. Angelelli. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, pp. 188.
  • Frege, Gottlob (1892). "Über Sinn und Bedeutung". In: KS, pp. 143–162.
  • Frege, Gottlob (1918). "Der Gedanke: eine logische Untersuchung". In: KS, pp. 342–362.
  • Frege, Gottlob (1967). Kleine Schriften (KS), edited by I. Angelelli. Darmstadt: Wissen¬schaft¬liche Buchgesellschaft, Hildesheim: Georg Olms.
  • Frege, Gottlob (1969). Nachgelassene Schriften (NS), edited by H. Hermes, F. Kambartel, und F. Kaulbach. Hamburg: Felix Meiner.
  • Haaparanta, Leila (1985). "Frege's Doctrine of Being". Acta Philosophica Fennica vol. 39. Helsinki: The Philosophical Society of Finland.
  • Haaparanta, Leila (2019). "Brandom, Wittgenstein, and Human Encounters", Disputatio vol. 8, num. 9: pp. 131–146. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.3509835.
  • Haaparanta, Leila (2020). "Frege, Carnap, and the Limits of Asserting". In: Appelqvist (2020), pp. 115–132.
  • Johnston, Colin (2011). "Assertion, Saying, and Propositional Complexity in Wittgenstein's Tractatus", in Kuusela and McGinn (2011), pp. 60–78.
  • Kannisto, Heikki (1986). "Thoughts and Their Subject: A Study of Wittgenstein's Tractatus". Acta Philosophica Fennica Vol 40. Helsinki: The Philosophical Society of Finland.
  • Kuusela, Oskari and McGinn, Marie (eds.) (2011). The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Lackey, Jennifer (2008). How to Learn Things from Words: Testimony as a Source of Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • MacFarlane, John (2011). "What Is an Assertion?". In: Brown and Cappelen (2011), pp. 79–96.
  • Overgaard, Søren (2007). "The ethical residue of language in Levinas and early Wittgenstein", Philosophy & Social Criticism vol. 33, num. 2: pp. 223–249. doi: 10.1177/0191453707074141.
  • Pihlström, Sami (2004). Solipsism: History, Critique, and Relevance. Acta Philosophica Tamperensia 3. Tampere: Tampere University Press.
  • Pihlström, Sami (2006). "Shared Language, Transcendental Listerners, and the Problem of Limits". In: S. Pihlström (ed.), "Wittgenstein and the Method of Philosophy". Acta Philosophica Fennica Vol. 80. Helsinki: The Philosophical Society of Finland, pp. 185–221.
  • Schaar, Maria van der (2018). "Frege on Judgement and the Judging Agent", Mind vol. 127: pp. 225–249. doi: 10.1093/mind/fzw059
  • Stenius, Erik (1960). Wittgenstein's Tractatus: A Critical Exposition of Its Main Lines of Thought. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
  • Waismann, Friedrich (1979). Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle, conversations recorded by Friedrich Waismann, edited by Brian McGuinness, translated by Joachim Schulte and Brian McGuinness, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
  • Williamson, Timothy (1996). "Knowing and Asserting", The Philosophical Review vol. 105, num. 4: pp. 489–523. doi: 10.2307/2998423.
  • Williamson, Timothy (2000). Knowledge and its Limits. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1961). Tractatus Logico–Philosophicus (TLP), translated by David Pears and Brian McGuinness. London: Routledge.
  • Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1965). "Lecture on Ethics" (E), The Philosophical Review vol. 74 no. 1: pp. 3–12.
  • Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1979). "Letters to Ludwig von Ficker", translated by Bruce Gillette, edited by Allan Janik. In C. G. Luckhardt, Wittgenstein: Sources and Perspectives. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp. 82–98.