[lit-ideas] "Objects Are Colourless" (Wittgenstein)
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 14:21:55 EDT
In a message dated 5/17/2004 1:22:07 PM Eastern Standard Time,
atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Donal McEvoy:
> RH in particular may be interested to comment on a suggestion I read
> elsewhere that what P&M translate as "Roughly speaking: objects are
> colourless" [which might suggest there is a contrasting sense in which
they
> have colour] is more properly translated as 'As an aside/By the
> by/Incidentally: objects are colorless".
>
> In this case it would seem that something that is blue is not an object,
at
> least according to Wittgenstein.
>
> How does anyone like dem apples [which according to this interpretation
are
> not simples either]
----
As McEvoy notes, there is a difference between
(1) Roughly speaking, objects are colourless.
(2) Incidentally, objects are colourless.
I wonder what's the German for the initial adverbial Wittgenstein used.
On the face of it, it does sound as paradoxical.
(3) Things are colourless.
does not strike me as paradoxical -- if we think of the thing as the
thing-in-itself. Since colour is a property of a _phenomenon_, not a _thing_.
Wittgenstein was probably not too familiar with the Phainomenon/Noumenon
distinction, and thus perhaps he used 'object' when he meant _thing_?
Cheers,
JL
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