Quotes About Language

T]he enigma of the continuum arises because language misleads us into applying to it a picture that doesn't fit. Set theory preserves the inappropriate picture of something discontinuous, but makes statements about it that contradict the picture, under the impression that it is breaking with prejudices; whereas what should really have been done is to point out that the picture just doesn't fit…

What we can't say we can't say, and we can't whistle it either.

El disco gramofónico, el pensamiento musical, la notación musical, las ondas sonoras, están todos entre sí en esa relación interna figurativa que se da entre lenguaje y mundo.

Los limites de mi lenguaje son los limites de mi mundo

What the names signify must be indestructible; for it must be possible to receive a state of affairs in which everything destructible is destroyed. And this description will contain words; and what corresponds to these cannot be destroyed, for otherwise the words would have no meaning. I must not saw off the branch on which I am sitting.

610. Kahvenin kokusunu betimle!- Neden olmuyor? Sözcüklerimiz mi yetersiz? Ne için yetersiz peki? - Ama böyle bir betimlemenin yine de olanakl? olmas? gerektiÄŸi düÅŸüncesi nereden geliyor? Böyle bir betimin eksikliÄŸini duydun mu hiç? Bu kokuyu betimlemeyi deneyip baÅŸaramad???n oldu mu?

What can be described can happen too: and what the law of causality is meant to exclude cannot even be described.

O ?em není možno mluvit, o tom se musí ml?et.

Most propositions and questions, that have been written about philosophical matters, are not false, but senseless. We cannot, therefore, answer questions of this kind at all, but only state their senselessness. Most questions and propositions of the philosophers result from the fact that we do not understand the logic of our language.

What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.

The gramophone record, the musical thought, the score, the waves of sound, all stand to one another in that pictorial internal relation which holds between language and the world. To all of them the logical structure is common. (Like the two youths, their two horses and their lilies in the story. They are all in a certain sense one) (4.014). The possibility of a proposition representing a fact rests upon the fact that in it objects are represented by signs.

The limits of my language are the limits of my universe

The essential business of language is to assert or deny facts. Given the syntax of a language, the meaning of a sentence is determinate as soon as the meaning of the component words is known. In order that a certain sentence should assert a certain fact there must, however the language may be constructed, be something in common between the structure of the sentence and the structure of the fact.

The world is my world: this is shown by the fact that the limits of language stand for the limits of my world…I am my world.

That which has to be in common between the sentence and the fact cannot, so he contends, be itself in turn said in language. It can, in his phraseology, only be shown, not said, for whatever we may say will still

Most propositions and questions that have been written about philosophical matters are not false but senseless.

To be sure, I can imagine what Heidegger means by being [Sein] and anxiety [Angst]. Man feels the urge to run up against the limits of language. Think for example of the astonishment that anything at all exists. This astonishment cannot be expressed in the form of a question, and there is no answer whatsoever. Anything we might say is a priori bound to be mere nonsense. Nevertheless we do run up against the limits of language.

Facts which are not compounded of other facts are what Mr Wittgenstein calls Sachverhalle, whereas a fact which may consist of two or more facts is called a Tatsache: thus, for example, Socrates is wise is a Sachverhalt, as well as a Tatsache, whereas Socrates is wise and Plato is his pupil is a Tatsache but not a Sachverhalt. He compares

If Ave say Plato loves Socrates, the word loves which occurs between the word Plato and the word Socrates establishes a certain relation between these two words, and it is owing to this fact that our sentence is able to assert a relation between the person's name by the words Plato and Socrates. We must not say, the complex sign ' a R b' says 'a stands in a certain relation R to b' ; but we must say, that ' a' stands in a certain relation to 'b' says that a R b (3.1432)• Mr

Ich möchte den Ausdruck ' Ich weiß ' für die Fälle reservieren , in denen er im normalen Sprachverkehr gebraucht wird.

The object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a theory but an activity.

Die Probleme werden gelöst, nicht durch Beibringen neuer Erfahrung, sondern durch Zusammenstellung des längst Bekannten. Die Philosophie ist ein Kampf gegen die Verhexung unsres Verstandes durch die Mittel unserer Sprache.

O fato de uma proposição poder revelar-se falsa depende, em última instância, daquilo que eu considerar como predominantes dessa proposição.

Nicht wie die Welt ist, ist das Mystische, sondern daß sie ist.