No. You again showed that you are a fool. Stay safe. — Banno

Why so emotional, Banno? I'm not the one contradicting themselves. Are you in love with Witt, too?

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language. — Wittgenstein

The misuse of language induces evil in the soul. — Plato

There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance. — Socrates

Understanding that misuses of language creates philosophical problems goes all the way back to the Greeks. Plato is not only warning us about misusing language in the sense of bad grammar or syntax. Speaking badly also includes saying untruths, telling lies, creating a conflict between speech and reality - between what is said and what is. To misuse language in this sense is to sound a false note in the music of creation - to put yourself out of tune with the way things are.

In his book, "Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power", the German philosopher Josef Pieper observes that we use language for two purposes: to describe reality and to communicate with other people. Each function implies the other. When we describe how things are, we describe them to or for somebody else. And when we communicate with others, we try to tell them something about reality: what else could we talk about?

The liar violates both of these purposes of speech. The liar withholds some part of reality from the listener, preventing them from participating in something by knowing it. Talk that fails to communicate becomes monologue, or worse, manipulation. Those who weave a web of contradictions never say anything at all.

The background for these observations about language and reality is Plato’s critique of his rivals, the sophists. Sophists were teachers who travelled around ancient Greece, getting rich by claiming to sell wisdom. Of course, what they sold was not wisdom at all, but only skill with words. The sophists sold success: for the right price, they said, you can learn how to use words to gain power and money in the political assembly. You can convince the courts to give you a share of your neighbor’s property, whether you deserve it or not. Socrates and Plato fought to define philosophy against this brazen quest for success at all costs.

The Greek sophists were the first nihilists, teaching that there is no such thing as truth. Or better: teaching that we can and should speak without regard to truth. The sophist is interested in reality only as a topic for impressive speeches. What you say does not matter; the only important thing is how you say it, which seems to be what many members of this forum think, by the way the write. By severing speech from reality, the sophist makes truth an optional add-in. "I will teach you how to speak well," they might say, "and you can decide whether to speak truths or lies." The difficulty here is that attempting to speak as though reality has no claim on me corrupts my relationships with the world and with other people. It degrades my humanity and damages my soul, as Plato would say.

Much of philosophy relies on deliberate misuse of language. Because literary skill is the rigorous use of language in the pursuit of truth, the habit of literature, of serious reading, is the best defense against believing the half-truths of ideologues and the lies of demagogues. The abusers of language are our modern sophists: unscrupulous marketers, lawyers, politicians, philosophers that believe language is a game, those who push content-free slogans in place of genuine communication about the world.

Sophistical speech always has an ulterior motive: when it does not aim at communicating the truth of something to another person, speech must be directed to some other goal, a goal of the speaker’s choosing. When it abandons communication, speech becomes manipulation, and the relationship of solidarity between speaker and audience, as co-seekers of truth, is fundamentally compromised.

Plato is not only warning us about misusing language in the sense of bad grammar or syntax. Speaking badly also includes saying untruths, telling lies, creating a conflict between speech and reality - between what is said and what is. — Harry Hindu

And didn't he say something about cutting and pasting large chunks of text from the, er, realm of ideas, with cursory changes and no attribution?

(I was enjoying your change of style!)

https://www.emmitsburg.net/archive_list/articles/misc/hhp/language.htm

There are, first, the propositions of logic itself. These do not represent states of affairs, — SEP

It is because they do not represent states of affairs that they are without (non) sense. As Banno pointed out:

logic is senseless. — Banno

Logical form is the transcendental condition for saying something that does have a sense. The propositions of logic are not "nonsense" in the sense of illogical or a jumble of words and signs. They are logical.

From the preface:

If this work has any value, it consists in two things: the first is that thoughts are expressed
in it, and on this score the better the thoughts are expressed—the more the nail has been hit
on the head—the greater will be its value.

We cannot, according to Wittgenstein, think illogically. It is in the expression of our thoughts that problems can arise.

On the other hand the truth of the thoughts that are here communicated seems to me unassailable and definitive.

What is called nonsense in the preface are not the propositions of logic but the attempt to say something that cannot be said.

Near the end of the Tractatus he calls "my propositions", which are not the propositions of logic, "unsinnig".

So how do we reconcile what he claims to be true with his calling these propositions nonsense? This is what we must climb "out through". Out through does not mean to dismiss or disregard as nonsense.

Oh, .

The very sentence you quoted against me agrees with me.

If language is for communication...

English is your second language? I usually do not read your posts. Your view on language, and hence philosophy, is just too simple to be interesting. I don't have @Fooloso4's patience.

Stay safe.

how do we reconcile what he claims to be true with his calling these propositions nonsense? — Fooloso4

A rhetorical question? or is it for @Tate?

I commented earlier that interpretations change by decade. The idea that "nonsense" has a special meaning in the Tractacus is from the 1980's realist interpretation.

I've got my own view, but don't we all?

A rhetorical question? or is it for Tate? — Banno

For anyone confused by "nonsense"

The idea that "nonsense" has a special meaning in the Tractacus is from the 1980's realist interpretation. — Tate

Nonsense!

It is not a question of whether it has a special meaning, but rather whether it has the meaning you think it does.

There has always been and always will be disagreement over the interpretation, but in my opinion any interpretation that is worth consideration must be plausible. One way in which to test plausibility is to find things in the text that seem to be at odds with the interpretation.

I've got my own view, but don't we all? — Tate

We could leave it there. Or we could bring into focus what is fundamental to the disagreement between members.

Yes, Harry Hindu nailed it recently. Meaningful propositions are informative (that's basically what he said).

Propositions of logic aren't informative. They can't be false. They're tautological. The issue is in that general direction.

I completely honor whatever your viewpoint is. I'm sure it's great.

They're tautological. — Tate

Or contradictory. ( 4.46-4.461) If contradictory then false.

Logic says nothing about the world. That is not in dispute. Logic is used as a aid in examining and correcting our expressions of thought.

Logic is not about the world. Logic is about what we say about the world.

:up: