Abstract
In this paper I aim to elucidate Wittgenstein’s claim that the so-called dream argument is senseless. Unlike other interpreters, who understand the sentence “I am dreaming” as contradictory or self-defeating, I intend to elucidate in what sense one should understand it as senseless or, more precisely, as nonsensical. In this sense, I propose to understand the above-mentioned claim in light of Wittgenstein’s criticism of skepticism from the Tractatus logico-philosophicus to his last writings. I intend to show that the words “I am dreaming” are nonsensical in the same sense as the alleged proposition “There are physical objects” or the expression of doubt about the existence of external objects.
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Notes
Wittgenstein says that the dream argument is senseless in §383 of On Certainty. Even though he does not say that the argument is nonsensical, my interpretation relies on the assumption that senseless is being used here as synonym for nonsensical. In fact, various readers point out that in Wittgenstein’s later writings the Tractarian distinction between senselessness and nonsense is abandoned. Duncan Richter, for instance, says the following: “No distinction between nonsense and mere senselessness appears in the Philosophical Investigations, so the debate about nonsense is also a debate about continuity in Wittgenstein’s work (…) Philosophical Investigations §500 says that a sentence is called senseless when it is withdrawn from the language, not when its sense is senseless. This suggests that being senseless (sinnlos) really is the same thing as being nonsensical or meaningless (unsinnig or bedeutungslos).” (Richter 2014, p. 151–2). Moyal-Sharrock, in turn, says the following: “The distinction between unsinnig and sinnlos gradually loses its importance and is completely dissolved by the time of the Investigations, where Wittgenstein uses the terms ‘nonsense’, ‘senseless’, ‘has no sense’ indiscriminately to refer to combinations of words that are excluded from the language, ‘withdrawn from circulation’ (PI 500).” (Moyal-Sharrock 2007, p. 156). This does not mean that Wittgenstein’s notion of nonsense evolves during his lifetime. On the contrary, I want to show that perhaps the major continuity in Wittgenstein’s thought lies in his espousal of the austere conception of nonsense, according to which “a sentence is nonsensical, on a particular occasion of use, if and only if we have failed, on that occasion, to give a meaning to its constituent words” (Conant and Bronzo 2017, p. 180). The difference between his early and later conception lies in the generalization of the context principle so that it applies not only to words (and their role within the context of a significant proposition) but to sentences (and their role within the context of circumstances of significant use). Given the continuity in Wittgenstein’s conception of nonsense, there is a strong continuity in his criticism of skepticism as nonsensical.
More recently, Hacker puts this point in the following passage: “We do not take A’s being an object to be something that is the case and might not be the case; we take it to be something that could not be otherwise. And, of course, that is one reason why Wittgenstein does not think that these sentences express genuine propositions: they do not satisfy the essential requirement on a proposition with a sense, namely bipolarity. They attempt to say something that cannot be said” (Hacker 2001, pp. 114–5).
Hacker summarizes his reading in the following passage: “What philosophers had hitherto conceived of as categorial (or formal) concepts, such as object, property, relation, fact, proposition, colour, number, and so on, are, Wittgenstein argued, expressions for forms, which are represented by variables, rather than by names. Hence they cannot occur in a fully analysed proposition with a sense. One cannot say that, for example, one is a number, that red is a colour, or that A is an object – for such pseudo-propositions employ a formal concept as if it were a genuine concept, and they are not bipolar (…) An immediate consequence of this is that most of the propositions of the Tractatus that delineate the necessary forms of language and reality are nonsense” (Hacker 2001, pp. 11–12).
Dean Proessel (2005, p. 328) makes a similar point, but he does not explain in detail why a question such as “Are there physical objects?” is nonsensical.
Peter Hylton explains Russell’s rejection of scepticism in the following passage: “Acquaintance gives complete and indubitable knowledge of its objects. Dubitable knowledge is therefore not knowledge by acquaintance. Yet clearly (notoriously, indeed) the knowledge that we have of physical objects is dubitable: we may be subject to delusions, or hallucinations, or mistaken in some more ordinary way” (Hylton 1992, p. 367).
See Engelmann (2018, pp. 449–450).
Although I share Diamond’s resolute reading of the Tractatus, I do not follow her interpretation of Wittgenstein’s early thoughts about skepticism (Diamond, 2014). Unfortunately, I do not have enough space here to discuss my disagreement.
See Conant (2000, p. 208).
Sextus Empiricus mentions the ladder metaphor in the following passage: “And again, just as it is not impossible for the person who has climbed to a high place by a ladder to knock over the ladder with his foot after his climb, so it is not unlikely that the skeptic too, having got to the accomplishment of his task by a sort of step-ladder – the argument showing that there is not demonstration – should do away with this argument” (Sextus Empiricus 2005, p. 183).
About this difference, see Conant (2000, p. 191).
See Moyal-Sharrock (2007, p. 148 and pp. 171–2).
In 3.326 of the Tractatus, Wittgenstein says: “In order to recognize a symbol by its sign we must observe how it is used with a sense” (TLP 3.326).
See Conant (1998, p. 233).
Here I am paraphrasing Diamond’s phrasing on the Tractatus on formal concepts. See Diamond (2019, pp. 137–8).
In Dreaming, Malcolm (1959, p. 6) says that the sentence “I am asleep” is “playful nonsense”.
This is an adaptation of Conant’s general characterization of standard accounts of On Certainty. The next paragraphs are inspired by Conant’s reading.
I borrow this example from Annalisa Coliva (2010, p. 123), even though I do not agree with her interpretation of §383 and §676 of On Certainty.
See Conant (2012). This point is made explicit in the following passage of On Certainty: “If, therefore, I doubt or am uncertain about this being my hand (in whatever sense), why not in that case about the meaning of these words as well?” (OC §456).
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Funding
This study was funded by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo, 19/02290-2, Antonio Segatto
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Segatto, A.I. Wittgenstein on Dreaming and Skepticism. Topoi 41, 1033–1042 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-022-09838-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-022-09838-6