Thursday, September 06, 2007

4.1213 Now we understand too our feeling that we have a correct logical apprehension only if everything is right in our sign-language.

For Auffassung here I have ‘apprehension,’ although ‘comprehension,’ ‘conception,’ and ‘view’ would also be all right. Ogden has ‘conception.’ P&McG have ‘point of view.’ It means ‘taking in’ or ‘gathering’ in both the literal and the metaphorical, psychological sense. In PI § 4 Wittgenstein talks of Augustine’s Auffassung of language. So perhaps ‘conception’ is best after all.

My first reaction: So we are talking about concept-scripts and, perhaps more importantly, psychology here. LW aims to show us why we feel, mistakenly, that a perfect concept-script is essential to logic. We want a kind of unmistakeable means of presenting thoughts without ambiguity or interpretation. We want to make our meaning visible, so it will be as plain as the nose on one’s face. But meaning, what can be said, cannot be shown. Our quest is forlorn.

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