[lit-ideas] Re: You Don't Say!

Thrusting against the boundaries of speech...
 
In a message dated 6/30/2012 8:06:46 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
It is hard to put crisply why I do not  agree with this: but two things (a) 
for W, the say/show distinction [as  reflected in the 'key tenet'] is not 
"pertaining to meta-philosophy" but is to  be found everywhere we have 
language for language never says its own sense (b)  (which may be 'the same or 
similar point' per W) the say/show distinction  concerns or pertains to the 
"limits of language" - including the "limits of  language" as a tool for 
investigating or giving an account of itself.

This may help as we put forward the discussion:

Masocriticism - Risultati da Google Libri --  
books.google.com/books?isbn=079144032X...Paul Mann - 1999 - Literary 
Collections  - 312 pagine
"ever tried to write or talk Ethics or Religion was to run  against the 
boundaries of language." ... 
"Man has the urge to thrust against the limits of language."
 
"thrust against" -- I like that. 
 
Witters uses the more literal, 'run against'. 
 
Note, incidentally, that "Grenze" is for one a Polish loan-word (the German 
 speakers never returned it, incidentally). It seems Witters uses the 
expression  twice:
 
"the limits of my language are the limits of my world" -- sort of  
optimistic reading.
 
"Man like to thrust against the boundaries of speech" -- sort of  
negativistic reading.
 
In this letter (unsent, or was it opened) from LW to HPG, the point may  
have been the _point_ of lingo.

For HPG, creatures (or critters) have developed language as an aid to  
survival. 
 
J. Bennett explores this in "Linguistic behaviour". 
 
It would be odd to think that, lingo, created by man as it is ("Man-made  
language") still is such that man feels like "running against" its limits. 
 
I identify this with some sort of scepticism on Wittgenstein's part.
 
I'm trying to read the dictum by Witters _descriptively_ before indulging  
in the prescription.
 
A prescriptivist implicature to the descriptivist dictum would be that it  
is useless to run against the boundaries of language (or run against the 
limits  of Poland and Germany, say).
 
For HPG, and indeed Humpty Dumpty, man (or egg) is the master (of lingo) -- 
 "you only have to remember who is the master, that is all" -- Lewis 
Carroll) and  it's very easy to find out that what Man THOUGHT was a boundary 
it 
was NOT. 
 
The issue of 'boundary' still does not illuminate much on the 'show'  
panorama. 
 
To stretch the metaphor, it may be as if HPG and LW are walking -- and they 
 reach the "Boundary" of Lingo.
 
Then, Witters assumes (in a sort of "Divina Commedia" to be properly  
illustrated by Delacroix) that nothing can be said, but Witters insists on  
SHOWING HPG the panorama that lies over the rainbow as it were. 
 
HPG declines the offer.

What cannot be said cannot be shown either. Or never mind 'show' --  when 
all is said _and done_. 
 
Or something.
 
Cheers,
 
Speranza
 
 
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