Nordic Wittgenstein Review (Nov 2012)

Nonsense and the Ineffable: Re-reading the Ethical Standpoint in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus

  • Géza Kállay

Abstract

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The paper examines the ethical standpoint of the Tractatus as it has been reconstructed by Cora Diamond (“the austere view”) and gives an account of some of the criticism this reconstruction has received in the work of P. M. S. Hacker and Meredith Williams (“the standard view”). The second half of the paper tries to argue that the austere and the standard views rather complement each other if we recognize “two I’-s” in the Tractatus and if it is supposed that there is a “3rd person” and “1st person” perspective which are both voiced on its pages.