Contributed research papers presented at state level workshop under programme of the Department of Philosophy, University of Calcutta in 2010.

Ludwig Wittgenstein's interest in the writings of Rabindranath Tagore, is recognized among scholars worldwide though little has been written on his fascination with Tagore's poetry and symbolic plays. In Language, Limits, and Beyond, Priyambada Sarkar explores Tagore and Wittgenstein's philosophical arguments on the concept of 'threshold of language and meaning', highlighting the systematic connections between Tagore's canon and Wittgenstein's early works. Situatingher study in the early 1900s, when Tagore's poetry had just become available in Europe, Sarkar finds similarities between Tagore's (...) and Wittgenstein's exploration of the limits of language. She argues that Wittgenstein's early philosophy can be better understood when juxtaposed with Tagore.Drawing parallels between the worlds of philosophy and poetry, Sarkar identifies the point of convergence of their two philosophies in the realm of language, tracing how they reach surprisingly similar conclusions through entirely different paths of inquiry. Sarkar finally claims that such important points of contact will help one to arrange the pieces of the Tractarian jigsaw puzzle in a manner where all the pieces of logic, language, world, and the mystical will fall into place and form acoherent picture. (shrink)

Papers presented in two seminars held in 2009.

Bimal Krishna Matilal was interested in the paradoxes of the ineffability of mystical experiences throughout his career. He was all eager to prove that the concept of mysticism in Indian tradition had its own strong logic, which had helped its proponents overcome the charges of being ‘self-refuting’. In various articles, Matilal had analysed various formulations of the logic of ineffability in various systems of Indian philosophy and examined various ways to get out of the logical paradoxes. While discussing the paradox (...) of ineffability, he often refers to the ineffability of the mystical in the Tractatus and maintains that the Tractatus paragraphs T4.003 and 6.522 and Wittgenstein’s letter to Russell, quoted in Anscombe, ‘strike a very familiar note in the heart of the mystics’. His own view in this regard was that ‘ineffability in the sense that something is beyond the reach of all words, is impossible. For in the last analysis it is possible to speak of that which is ineffable, by the word “ineffable” itself’. He discusses also the ways how one can finally avoid the paradoxes of ultimate ineffability. His position is that ‘the so-called ineffable is not really or ultimately ineffable.’ In this paper, there will be an attempt to apply Matilal’s viewpoint on the paradox of ineffability in the Tractatus. This exploration unfolds in three main sections. Matilal’s perspective on the concept of ineffability along with the paradoxes and its solutions in various systems of Indian tradition will be highlighted in the first section and the paradox of ineffability in the Tractatus along with the controversy regarding its interpretation in the second, and finally, in the concluding section, attempts will be made to find a way out of this impasse by applying Matilal’s stance on this matter and see how it allows us to give ‘fresh answers to the questions raised in Western Philosophy’. (shrink)