Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Archimedes, Ludwig Wittgenstein and George Bealer

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5 ideas

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 3. Non-Contradiction

6566	The problem is to explain the role of contradiction in social life [Wittgenstein]
	Full Idea: When a contradiction appears, we say: "I didn't mean it like that"; the civil status of a contradiction, or its status in civil life: there is the philosophical problem.
	From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §125), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.2
	A reaction: The point is that logical concepts such as contradiction are conventional, and not all-or-nothing, so we might agree that you didn't really contradict yourself (when perhaps you uttered a witty ironic paradox). I don't see the problem as philosophical.

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 6. Ockham's Razor

2939	If a sign is useless it is meaningless; that is the point of Ockham's maxim [Wittgenstein]
	Full Idea: If a sign is useless it is meaningless. That is the point of Occam's maxim.
	From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1921], 3.328)

2. Reason / F. Fallacies / 8. Category Mistake / a. Category mistakes

18706	Words of the same kind can be substituted in a proposition without producing nonsense [Wittgenstein]
	Full Idea: 'Blue' and 'brown' are of the same kind, for the substitution of one for the other, though it may falsify the proposition, does not make nonsense of it.
	From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], A I.4)
	A reaction: He chooses an easy example, because they are determinates of the determinable 'coloured'. What if I say 'the sky is blue', and then substitute 'frightening' for 'blue'?

2. Reason / F. Fallacies / 8. Category Mistake / b. Category mistake as syntactic

18735	Talking nonsense is not following the rules [Wittgenstein]
	Full Idea: Talking nonsense is not following the rules.
	From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], C X)
	A reaction: He doesn't seem to distinguish between syntax and semantics, and makes it sound as if all nonsense is syntactic, which it isn't.

18719	Grammar says that saying 'sound is red' is not false, but nonsense [Wittgenstein]
	Full Idea: If grammar says that you cannot say that a sound is red, it means not that it is false to say so but that it is nonsense - i.e. not a language at all.
	From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], B IX.6)
	A reaction: I am baffled as to why he thinks 'grammar' is what prohibits such a statement. Surely the world, the nature of sound and colour, is what makes the application of the predicate wrong. Sounds aren't coloured, so they can't be red. False, not nonsense.