The Thesis

The thesis I am suggesting here is that most of what Ludwig Wittgenstein considered nonsense in both the Tractatus and even later (especially the Philosophical Investigations) was not nonsense at all. He did succeed in talking about it, and much of it makes perfectly good sense, even if it is sometimes false.

The Meaning of Symbols

Bertrand Russell, early on at least (e.g. at the time of the 1913 Theory of Knowledge) took the meaning of a word to be the object it stood for. Primarily we knew the meanings through acquaintance, but also by description via relations (which we were acquainted with) from objects we were acquainted with to other objects to which we had no acquaintance. This gives Russell a number of problems pointed out partially by Wittgenstein (See Rosalind Carey, Russell and Wittgenstein on the Nature of Judgement). One is how to account for false judgements. If a proposition judged is taken to consist of the relationship of objects corresponding to the words, nothing exists in the case the relationship does not hold. One solution Russell considered, but rejected, was that the words corresponded to ideas of the objects rather than the objects themselves (Carey, p. 21). Although this solves the problem of “negative facts”, Russell rejected it apparently due to the problem of connecting the idea with the object (Carey agreed with me in an email in this point). In the 1920’s Russell changed his mind on this and accepted such ideas. He apparently thought a resemblance between idea and object sufficient to establish the connection. Wittgenstein may also have accepted this in the Tractatus, but later rejected it. I agree with Wittgenstein that the resemblance of idea and object is insufficient. I think the connection is one either established by training (especially the first symbols we learn) or some sort of definition, which establishes a practice of using the symbol. Usually this practice will not be conscious. Thus the connection between symbol and object is usually not something we are directly aware of. For me the symbol is usually an imagining of the sound of the word. This is probably hard for Russell with his doctrine of acquaintance to accept, although as I recall he did accept something like this in Analysis of Mind. Sometimes when we speak of meaning we mean the object, sometimes idea associated with the object, and sometimes the practice connecting the idea with the object. (and this just applies to the sort of words whose practice is to stand for an object.)

On Belief

In http://dennisdarland.com/philosophy/naming.html I define belief in terms of a belief_r relation, symbol_0r and symbol_1r relations. I think that we are aware of the belief_r relation, but not usually the symbol_0r or symbol_1r relations.

On Types and Logical Form

Wittgenstein thought there could be no theory of types. It would have to be impossible to state it. Saying that an object was of a particular type could only make sense of the object were of that type, in which case it would be superfluous; if it were of another type it would have to be nonsense. I think this is wrong! Types apply to symbols. We can make mistakes in our use of symbols, as we are not directly aware of the symbol_0r or symbol_1r relations. So we can significantly say things about the types of symbols! (Otherwise what was going on in Principia Mathematica?) The types will be consequences of the application of the symbols, and we are not directly aware of that application. If the definition of belief is satisfied, then symbol_0r and symbol_1r relations will hold, guaranteeing a true or false belief.

Nonsense

If there is no application of an expression of a belief, then it is nonsense. But this does not mean that a belief cannot be always true or always false. (Consider arithmetic it has many applications!)