[lit-ideas] Re: is it possible to say that which can't be said?

 --- Torgeir Fjeld <torgfje2@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Sorry to barge into this
discussion, Richard et al, but to this semi-
> philosophical mind the following utterance appears to be tautologous:
> 
> > Wittgenstein: "that of which we cannot speak, of that we should remain
> > silent" 
> 
> well, if we can't speak of it, it wouldn't be much to say, would 
> there? shouldn't wittgenstein have gone further:
> 
> ? That of which we cannot speak, we MUST remain silent

If by MUST you mean we 'have no choice but to' remain silent, then W I think
disagrees: we can try to speak about the unsayable - in fact, philosophy
contains the debris of many such attempts. They are nonsense, though they are
not silence.

If by MUST you mean 'ought to', then this is W's point: we should not waste
our words trying to say what cannot be said. 

But then this latter sense is captured in the translation.

Donal 



        
        
                
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