The Bounds of Nonsense

Abstract

This essay is about the distinction between sense and nonsense, or more strictly the distinction between truth-valued propositions and nonsensical pseudo-propositions, in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. Two questions that are raised are: whether ‘truth-valued’ in ‘truth-valued propositions’ is pleonastic; and whether ‘nonsensical’ in ‘nonsensical pseudo-propositions’ is pleonastic. Neither question, it is conceded, has much exegetical or philosophical significance. But there is an associated question that does: namely, whether we have any understanding of what it is for something to be a pseudo-proposition without a truth-value independently of what it is for something to be a proposition with one. It is urged that, for Wittgenstein, we do not: a pseudo-proposition without a truth-value is an item that appears, falsely, to be a proposition with one. In an appendix the question is raised whether Kant would have done well to say something similar about empty thoughts.