[lit-ideas] Re: The nothing noths

  • From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2015 12:02:15 -0500

We love D. P. Henry. Apparenty, he could read Heidegger in various  
vernaculars!
 
In a message dated 2/19/2015 10:03:19 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Carnap is too poor an enemy against which  to pit Heidegger
 
Perhaps Ayer then. Apparently, Sir Freddie Ayer learned a lot from  Carnap.
 
Re: O. K.'s request for references, one should check the bibliographical  
references to J. L. Scherb in "Philosophisches Jahrbuch", vol. 115.
 
Scherb's essay is entitled 
 
"Nichtet das Nichts wirklich nicht? 
 
and subtitled:
 
Analyse und Explikation: oder: eine deutsche Vorkriegsdebatte  europäisch 
belichtet" and while he does focus on the German context, he provides  the 
reference to D. P. Henry and Lesniewski among others.
 
We have to grant that Scherb does base his exegesis on, to echo McEvoy,  
Carnap v Heidegger, where Popper v Heidegger and Witters v Carnap (and Ayer v  
Carnap, say) seem also v. valid, too.
 
Note that the title of Scherb's essay translates:
 
So, does the nothing really NOT noth?
 
which should amuse Ayer (and Carnap): the negation of nonsense IMPLICATES  
nonsense (but the implicature is of course cancellable and conversational), 
but  of course does not *entail* nonsense.
 
(cf. "It is false that the nothing noths"; or, to use Carnap's example,  
"Caesar is not a prime number; in fact, Caesar is not a number"). 
 
The addition of 'really' is merely stylistic -- what Austin called a  
'trouser word'.
 
Cheers,
 
Speranza
 
Refs:
 
Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic -- reference to Heidegger on  "Nothing"
Grice, "Heidegger is the greatest living philosopher". 
Henry, D. P. 
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